Women’s Inclusion in the Malian Peace Negotiations: Norms and Practices

Abstract

This article studies the implementation of the global norm of women's inclusion in the Malian peace negotiations. It constructs a theoretical framework for analyzing practices of resistance, which object to the validity of the norm, and practices of refinement, which engage with the application of the norm. Based on interviews with women who attended the Malian peace negotiations it finds that women face widespread practices of resistance when they demand to be included. However, when pressure is applied concessions often follow, indicating growing acceptance of the norm. Actors also engaged in practices of refinement, observed through a number of disagreements over how, when and which women should be included. The article contributes important insights on the relationship between norms and practices by demonstrating not only that norms influence practice, but how practices of resistance and refinement shape the meanings and life cycles of norms.

Toward a Normative Turn in Track Two Diplomacy? A Review of the Literature

“…It has begun to focus on the increasing normative mandates and parameters set out for mediators and the impact they have on the conduct and outcome of peace processes. Mediators are increasingly mandated to incorporate rights‐based norms such as gender equality and transitional justice into their interventions (Fuentes Julio and Drummond 2017; Hayner 2018; Lorentzen 2020). While scholars have focused on how mediators promote such norms (Vuković 2020), the situations and dilemmas where norms and values clash (Kraus et al 2019), and case studies on the spread and diffusion of specific norms (Zahar 2012; Pring 2017; Hellmüller 2019b), analysis of the role of norms per se is still emerging in Track Two literature.…”

“…This broad call for inclusive processes without defining how, why, and for whom, has prompted mediation scholars to theorize different rationales for inclusive peace processes (Hirblinger and Landau 2020). These rationales exist on a spectrum, ranging from the strategic inclusion of armed actors for reasons related to durable peace agreements (Nilsson 2012), a need for power sharing (Raffoul 2020), and incentives for actors identified as spoilers (Blaydes and de Maio 2010; Zahar 2010; Nilsson and Söderberg Kovacs 2011); to the inclusion of civil society (Wanis St‐John and Kew 2008)—particularly women (Lorentzen 2020), youth (Grizelj 2019), religious leaders (Kmec and Ganiel 2019), and business actors (Alluri 2013)—for normative imperatives of empowerment and rights‐based participation.…”

Frictional interactions on Women, Peace and Security in Mali

“…And who introduced the problem of women? It was the foreigners.’ During the Algiers negotiations however, Malian women's activists engaged in advocacy campaigns to promote women's inclusion in the negotiations with support from several (but far from all) international partners (Lorentzen 2020: 496).…”