Gender-based Violence and the Insecurities of Security: A Feminist Institutional Analysis of UN Peacekeeping Operations

Abstract

The last thirty years have seen a boom in the number of peacekeeping operations across the globe. This increase can be attributed to a shift in global culture towards humanitarian interventionism. Despite the UN’s increased commitment to pursuing peacekeeping as a tool to protect human rights, there is still an overwhelming amount of gender-based violence during operations. This issue prompts the research question of this thesis: Why has the presence of peacekeepers not been a more effective deterrent against sexual and gender-based violence? This research approaches the above-mentioned question using feminist security theory and feminist institutionalism in an effort to shift peacekeeping into a more multi-dimensional frame. These analytical frameworks are utilized to examine the institution of peacekeeping, its evolution, and the limitations placed on it by the current conditions of the international system in order to prove that current peacekeeping policies are not doing enough to adequately address GBV.