Creating Cinderella? The Unintended Consequences of the Women Peace and Security Agenda for EU’s Mediation Architecture

Abstract

In 2000, the United Nations ( UN) launched the Women, Peace and Security ( WPS) agenda by adopting Security Council Resolution 1325. The agenda, among other things, called for the greater inclusion of women in peace negotiation practices and structures. While the European Union ( EU) has made commitments to implementing the WPSagenda, the literature has not yet captured the institutional dynamics of the EUas it seeks to translate the WPSagenda into reality. This article takes stock of this hitherto excluded area of research. It argues that mediation is the ‘Cinderella’ of the EU’s peace and security institution because it has been ignored as a site for the implementation of the WPSagenda with important implications. Using a feminist institutionalist framework, the article shows the ways in which institutional practices of change aimed at including the new perspectives prompted by the WPSagenda lead to unintended gendered consequences.