Overview

The ""narrative turn"" has recently influenced theories, methods, and research design within the field of international relations. Its goal is, in part, to show how stories about international events and issues emerge and develop, and how these stories influence the uptake and limitations of global policy ""solutions"" around the world. Through the lens of narrative, this book examines the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, adopted by the United Nations Security Council twenty years ago. The agenda seeks to increase the participation of women in conflict prevention efforts and to protect the rights of women during conflict and peacebuilding. Those involved in the creation of the WPS agenda, including its strategies, guidelines, and protocols, tend to assume that implementation is the most critical element of it. But what can the stories about the agenda's emergence tell us about its limits and possibilities? Laura J. Shepherd examines WPS as a policy agenda that has been realized in and through the stories that have been told about it, focusing on the world of WPS work at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. She argues that to understand the implementation of the agenda we need to also understand the narration of the agenda's beginnings, its ongoing unfolding, and its plural futures. These stories outline the agenda's priorities and delimit its possibilities--as well as communicate and constitute its triumphs and disasters. As the book shows, much energy and resources are expended in efforts to reduce or resolve the agenda to a singular, essential ""thing""--with singular, essential meaning. There is no ""true"" WPS agenda that practitioners, activists, and policymakers can apprehend and use as their guide; there is only a messy and contested space for political interventions of different kinds. Shepherd shows that the narratives of the WPS agenda incorporate plural logics but that this plurality cannot--should not--be used as an alibi for limited engagement or strategic inaction. Those seeking to realize the WPS agenda might need to live with the irreconcilable, the irresolvable, and the ambiguous.

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9780197557259

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Reviews

"""This book reveals the political dynamics underlying 'insider' narratives about a significant policy insurgency: the effort(s) to make the world's apex conflict prevention body, the UN Security Council, take responsibility for engaging womenDLand addressing violations of their rightsDLin its work. As each chapter peers into stories about coordination of effort and clarity of purpose, readers learn not just about feminist advocacy strategies (and internal ambivalences), but about the importance of analyzing the intentions behind stories of policy success and failure."" -- Anne Marie Goetz, New York University ""A fascinating book that amplifies the sounds and silences in the corridors of power. Shepherd's skillful analysis of narratives as a way to 'know' Women, Peace and Security breaks new groundDLit overturns the comforting idea that the agenda is settled and vividly demonstrates how stories matter politically, and shape multiple meanings of WPS over time. A must-read for all interested in learning more about a gendered world of global governance that is complex, plural, and infinite."" -- Heidi Hudson, University of the Free State, South Africa ""This pathbreaking work walks you through the 'presences' and 'absences' in the stories of the WPS agenda at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, with a focus on what is (and is not) part of the 'is'. The methodology of the book is innovative, and by privileging narratives as a form of knowledge production the work not only challenges the epistemic hierarchies that have been reified by the 'diktats' of the discipline of International Relations, but also illuminates what is often not told, and therefore what is not part of the 'is'. Yet again, what is striking in Shepherd's writings is the reflexivity that she brings to us these narratives, and the honesty with which she recognizes the exclusions and limitations of the agenda."" -- Shweta Singh, South Asian University"

This book reveals the political dynamics underlying 'insider' narratives about a significant policy insurgency: the effort(s) to make the world's apex conflict prevention body, the UN Security Council, take responsibility for engaging womenDLand addressing violations of their rightsDLin its work. As each chapter peers into stories about coordination of effort and clarity of purpose, readers learn not just about feminist advocacy strategies (and internal ambivalences), but about the importance of analyzing the intentions behind stories of policy success and failure. -- Anne Marie Goetz, New York University A fascinating book that amplifies the sounds and silences in the corridors of power. Shepherd's skillful analysis of narratives as a way to 'know' Women, Peace and Security breaks new groundDLit overturns the comforting idea that the agenda is settled and vividly demonstrates how stories matter politically, and shape multiple meanings of WPS over time. A must-read for all interested in learning more about a gendered world of global governance that is complex, plural, and infinite. -- Heidi Hudson, University of the Free State, South Africa This pathbreaking work walks you through the 'presences' and 'absences' in the stories of the WPS agenda at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, with a focus on what is (and is not) part of the 'is'. The methodology of the book is innovative, and by privileging narratives as a form of knowledge production the work not only challenges the epistemic hierarchies that have been reified by the 'diktats' of the discipline of International Relations, but also illuminates what is often not told, and therefore what is not part of the 'is'. Yet again, what is striking in Shepherd's writings is the reflexivity that she brings to us these narratives, and the honesty with which she recognizes the exclusions and limitations of the agenda. -- Shweta Singh, South Asian University

This book reveals the political dynamics underlying 'insider' narratives about a significant policy insurgency: the effort(s) to make the world's apex conflict prevention body, the UN Security Council, take responsibility for engaging womenand addressing violations of their rightsin its work. As each chapter peers into stories about coordination of effort and clarity of purpose, readers learn not just about feminist advocacy strategies (and internal ambivalences), but about the importance of analyzing the intentions behind stories of policy success and failure. -- Anne Marie Goetz, New York University A fascinating book that amplifies the sounds and silences in the corridors of power. Shepherd's skillful analysis of narratives as a way to 'know' Women, Peace and Security breaks new groundit overturns the comforting idea that the agenda is settled and vividly demonstrates how stories matter politically, and shape multiple meanings of WPS over time. A must-read for all interested in learning more about a gendered world of global governance that is complex, plural, and infinite. -- Heidi Hudson, University of the Free State, South Africa This pathbreaking work walks you through the 'presences' and 'absences' in the stories of the WPS agenda at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, with a focus on what is (and is not) part of the 'is'. The methodology of the book is innovative, and by privileging narratives as a form of knowledge production the work not only challenges the epistemic hierarchies that have been reified by the 'diktats' of the discipline of International Relations, but also illuminates what is often not told, and therefore what is not part of the 'is'. Yet again, what is striking in Shepherd's writings is the reflexivity that she brings to us these narratives, and the honesty with which she recognizes the exclusions and limitations of the agenda. -- Shweta Singh, South Asian University

""This book reveals the political dynamics underlying 'insider' narratives about a significant policy insurgency: the effort(s) to make the world's apex conflict prevention body, the UN Security Council, take responsibility for engaging womenDLand addressing violations of their rightsDLin its work. As each chapter peers into stories about coordination of effort and clarity of purpose, readers learn not just about feminist advocacy strategies (and internal ambivalences), but about the importance of analyzing the intentions behind stories of policy success and failure."" -- Anne Marie Goetz, New York University ""A fascinating book that amplifies the sounds and silences in the corridors of power. Shepherd's skillful analysis of narratives as a way to 'know' Women, Peace and Security breaks new groundDLit overturns the comforting idea that the agenda is settled and vividly demonstrates how stories matter politically, and shape multiple meanings of WPS over time. A must-read for all interested in learning more about a gendered world of global governance that is complex, plural, and infinite."" -- Heidi Hudson, University of the Free State, South Africa ""This pathbreaking work walks you through the 'presences' and 'absences' in the stories of the WPS agenda at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, with a focus on what is (and is not) part of the 'is'. The methodology of the book is innovative, and by privileging narratives as a form of knowledge production the work not only challenges the epistemic hierarchies that have been reified by the 'diktats' of the discipline of International Relations, but also illuminates what is often not told, and therefore what is not part of the 'is'. Yet again, what is striking in Shepherd's writings is the reflexivity that she brings to us these narratives, and the honesty with which she recognizes the exclusions and limitations of the agenda."" -- Shweta Singh, South Asian University

Author Information

Laura J. Shepherd is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Professor of International Relations at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is also a Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security in London, UK. Much of her research focuses on the United Nations Security Council's Women, Peace and Security agenda, but she has strong interests in pop culture and pedagogy.

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