Abstract
United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2242 (2015) called for the greater integration of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda with efforts to counter terrorism and violent extremism. The integration of WPS with an approach to security that has been heavily critiqued for its securitising, racialised and gendered logic raises concerns for many feminists. This thesis takes this nexus as a point of departure to investigate ‘does the UK’s interpretation and institutionalisation of UNSCR 1325 and 2242 represent transformative change or instrumental co-optation of the WPS agenda?’. This thesis draws on Feminist Security Studies, Post-Colonial Feminism and Feminist Institutionalism to develop a framework for analysing the discursive and institutional complexities of the UK’s integration of WPS and Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) and the challenges of gender mainstreaming in security policy and practice. A Critical Frame Analysis (CFA) of policy documents was used to destabilise the naturalness of the UK’s interpretation of WPS and P/CVE and elite interviews were conducted to highlight the institutional factors that shaped this particular interpretation. The findings reveal that the UK’s approach to WPS has limited transformative potential and there are institutional obstacles that constrain this. Moreover, the UK’s integration of P/CVE with WPS is heavily linked to enhancing the operational effectiveness of P/CVE efforts, reflects wider security objectives and, in some cases, reproduces gendered and racialised hierarchies, which suggests a co-optation of the WPS agenda and a contradiction with much of its normative ambitions. Nevertheless, the decision to integrate WPS with P/CVE is complex, as without engagement between the agendas any potential feminist influence is forfeited, however, partaking in this space may result in concessions, co-optation and the removal of an option to reject the basic premises of P/CVE. This is the ‘Catch-22’ of UNSCR 2242.