Gendering NATO: Analysing the Construction and Implementation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's Gender Perspective

This thesis examines the way in which the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is engaging with and attempting to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325), a topic largely absent from international relations literature. Specifically, it offers an interrogation and theorisation of the development and implementation of NATO’s ‘gender perspective’ from official documentation and from a series of elite interviews with individuals working within the international, military structures of the alliance. Drawing upon a composite methodology, framed by feminist theory, that centralises narrative and discourse, the thesis explores subjective understandings of gender and security. The research reveals that UNSCR 1325 and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, is (re)interpreted by NATO in very specific ways that both reflect and challenge pre-existing gendered norms and power hierarchies within the Alliance. The experiences of military personnel working for NATO show how these individuals locate themselves within - and negotiate - these gendered norms and structures to develop a relevant, palatable and ‘successful’ gender perspective. The findings of this thesis therefore expose complex and contradictory constructions of (militarised) femininities and masculinities within NATO and the tensions that emerge when an international military alliance actively engages with the topic of gender. In doing so this research makes a unique contribution to understandings of gender mainstreaming initiatives within international security organisations; in addition the research makes a novel contribution to the broader literature regarding feminist security studies, gender, war and militarism.

Grantor dc:publisher

Oxford Brookes University

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Hurley, M E

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved

Language dc:language

en

Repository record dc:identifier

https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/items/9bf895af-5aa6-472c-90e7-3055183c3de3/1/

OAI identifier oai:identifier

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