Women in Peace Negotiations and the Effects on Agreement Durability

The inclusion of women in peace processes and its influence the durability of peace agreements is a topic of increasing significance in the Women, Peace, and Security field. Activists, scholars, and international organizations have pushed for increased women's involvement in peace negotiations, exhibited in the formal recognition of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda with UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000. Few scholars, though, have empirically tested the effect of women signatories on the durability of a peace agreement (Krause et al., 2018), likely because of the small number of cases available, but these studies are critical to understanding if and how women contribute to the longevity of peace. Drawing upon a comprehensive review of existing literature and employing a mixed-methods approach, this paper aims to build upon Krause et al.’s (2018) argument about the mechanism in which women’s involvement increases the longevity of peace through linkages between women signatories and civil society groups. This research empirically analyzes the effects of women signatories on peace durability, and then builds a more comprehensive case study on the Northern Ireland peace agreement to qualitatively understand how these linkages impact the durability of peace. I argue that women's formal participation as signatories not only enhances the chances of peace durability but also strengthens support for agreements by leveraging civil society connections.