Gendered Aspects of Back-Channel Negotiations in Burundi, Colombia, and Northern Ireland

Back-channel negotiations feature frequently in peace negotiations and commonly serve as an essential step prior to, along side of, and at times, in lieu of formal peace talks. Held in secret, back-channel talks are influential in shaping all aspects of the official negotiations, including procedures, participants, and key agenda items. To date, minimal scholarship has explored the gendered aspects of these spaces and their implications for achieving gender-inclusive peace. In this paper, we explore three sets of back-channel negotiations—in Burundi, Colombia, and Northern Ireland. We outline the back-channels at play and consider how the guiding ideas, values, styles, and norms influenced women’s (in)ability to achieve descriptive and substantive representation in subsequent official negotiations. With the rise of illiberalism, peace negotiations are becoming less transparent and democratic. Thus, understanding the role and context of secret negotiations, and their impact on gender equality, is necessary for assessing how exclusionary practices undermine inclusive peacebuilding and perpetuate masculinist logics within negotiation processes.