9 | WPS @ 25

March 13

Security Council Resolution 2000 on Women, Peace and Security (and subsequent resolutions) is the most significant global policy framework to recognize the gendered impact of conflict on women, the importance of including women in the building of peace, and to promote legal norms to address conflict related sexual and gender-based violence and its redress through justice and reparations. October 31, 2025 marked the 25th anniversary of the WPS agenda and a moment for reflecting on its development, contributions and limitations, as well as to envision its future. This class will focus on current reflections on the WPS agenda @ 25 which deliberate: the merits of liberal reformist vs structural approaches; the tensions between universal norms and local realities, and how to re-imagine the WPS agenda through a feminist abolitionist approach.

Guest Speaker:  Ulrike Lühe, PhD

Hosts | Hao, Rodrigo, Scott

Readings

  1. Chinkin, Christine. (2025) “Women, Peace and Security: Where Now?.” Yearbook of the ILA Italian Branch. Brill Nijhoff: 9-28. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004727663_003
  2. Shepherd, L. J. (2016). Making war safe for women? National Action Plans and the militarisation of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. International Political Science Review, 37(3), 324-335. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512116629820
  3. Wright, Hannah, and Columba Achilleos-Sarll. “Towards an abolitionist feminist peace: State violence, anti-militarism, and the Women, Peace and Security agenda.” Review of International Studies (2024): 1-19. (19 pages) https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210524000354
  4. Davis, Angela Y. “Feminism and abolition: Theories and practices for the twenty-first century.” Feminist Studies. Routledge, 2013. 691-700.

Further Reading

  1. Battle, Brittany Pearl, and Amber Joy Powell. ““We Keep us Safe!”: Abolition Feminism as a Challenge to Carceral Feminist Responses to Gendered Violence.” Gender & Society 38.4 (2024): 523-556.
  2. Olsson, Louise, and Torunn L. Tryggestad. “Backlash and Progress in a New Geopolitical Reality: Women, Peace and Security and the Ambiguous Role of the UN Security Council.” Backlash Against the Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Contesting Gender Norms. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2026. 25-38.
  3. Basu S. (2025) 1325 at 25: What Is a Battered Tool Good For? Politics & Gender. 21(3): 689-695. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X25100329
  4. Singh, S. (2017). Re-thinking the ‘Normative’ in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325: Perspectives from Sri Lanka. Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs, 4(2), 219-238. https://doi.org/10.1177/2347797017710749 (Original work published 2017)
  5. Revista Lüvo: In|Out Wars Volume 12 No 1 February 2025:

Presentation | TBD

Doris Salcedo, “Fragmentos”

Learning Objectives

  1. Question the legitimacy of militarised responses to WPS and recognize the contradictions between interpretations of the WPS Agenda in a liberal global policy arena
  2. Reimagine the WPS Agenda and feminist foreign policy through demilitarised and abolitionist practices that challenge normative, neocolonial strategies in achieving peace and security