Reform or More of the Same?: Gender Mainstreaming and the Changing Nature of UN Peace Operations

The last fifteen years have been a time of dramatic change in terms of reform of UN peace operations, major shifts in academic thinking around the issues of conflict, security, and development, and the recognition of women’s roles in conflict and their right to participate in peacebuilding processes. These three concurrent changes all have the same goal of creating the conditions for a more inclusive and sustainable peace in the face of the post-Cold War instability experienced in many parts of the world. However, the ongoing failure to effectively integrate gender issues into peacebuilding discourse and practice would indicate that this has not been achieved. This paper will explore the evolving rhetoric of the UN’s peacebuilding agenda, explaining the continuing exclusion of women as a result of the failure to see gender issues as a security concern, despite the increased recognition of the links between both gender and development and development and security.