The Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) offers a rich variety of security topics and participates in seminars to interact and collaborate with leading faculty and researchers.

In the Q&A, CISAC fellow Elizabeth Good reflects on why women’s descriptive representation in peace negotiations alone is not enough, how gender expertise operates within masculinized negotiation environments, and what meaningful inclusion requires if peace processes are to produce more durable and equitable outcomes. 

Your findings in Power Over Presence: Women’s Representation in Comprehensive Peace Negotiations and Gender Provision Outcomes, show that simply having more women at the table isn’t enough, that what really matters is whether they have real decision-making power. What lessons does your research offer for policymakers and mediators seeking to move beyond symbolic inclusion and enable women negotiators to shape outcomes?

It’s common for Women, Peace and Security policy to focus on increasing the number of women in peace processes because there’s an assumption that increasing women’s involvement will result in better outcomes for women. This approach incorrectly assumes that all women are willing and able to advocate for gender-specific outcomes. I find that while women’s presence in peace negotiations does increase the likelihood that comprehensive agreements will include explicit provisions for women, simply having a seat at the table is not enough. Women need to be in positions of power to influence agreement outcomes. Specifically, I find that for women’s inclusion to drive desired gendered policy outcomes, women need to hold signatory positions, rather than mediator or observer positions. Currently, policymakers group all women together regardless of their position and then check a box indicating that women were involved. I suggest that the difference between a lead negotiator and a silent observer is not a difference in degree, but rather a difference in kind. Policy should treat it as such. In other words, policy needs to account for women’s ability to influence outcomes, rather than just women’s involvement.

In an upcoming article, Powerful Advocates or Powerless Actors? The Influence of Gender Experts in Peace Negotiations, you and your co-author, Alexandra McAuliff, find that while gender experts can increase the likelihood that peace agreements include provisions for women, their overall influence is often constrained by the systemic, masculinized structure of peace negotiations. What does this tension between formal inclusion and structural power tell us about how peace processes actually work and what needs to change for gender expertise to translate into real influence?

Our findings emphasizes three dimensions of peace processes: 1) the iterative process of negotiations has an exclusionary impact on delegates who join later; 2) peace processes tend to frame security in traditionally masculine ways, which can omit gendered approaches to peace and reduce the overall effectiveness and longevity of peace agreements, and 3) gender experts have a lack of relative bargaining power, constraining their level of influence. Consequently, the inclusion of gender experts in peace processes reflects a positive step towards considering the gender dynamics of conflict and peace. However, their inclusion must be treated as an initial step, rather than the goal itself. Placing the burden of challenging the patriarchal status quo on a few individuals is an inadequate solution. Not only does this approach fail to address unequal power structures, but it also individualizes a problem that requires broader systemic change. For substantive influence, attention must be paid to negotiation environments, peace processes priorities, and the ways these factors shape negotiation power dynamics.

Your work spans both quantitative and qualitative approaches, bringing together original data, experiments, mixed methods, and close engagement with peace processes across different contexts. What big questions or gaps in the field first drew you to this research, and how do you decide which questions are most important to pursue next?

I returned to academia after being inspired by my experience working as a Gender Advisor for the United Nations Development Programme in Kosovo, but quickly realized that the questions I wanted to ask rested on a handful of assumptions. Rather than accept those assumptions, I focused my dissertation research on determining if those assumptions were empirically supported. For example, while influential case-based work on women in peace negotiations existed, there was far less information on broader transnational trends. Building the Peace Agreement Delegate Dataset (PADD), which captures the gender and position of delegates involved in116 comprehensive peace agreements finalized between 1990 and 2021, was a necessary step to ask the questions that I wanted to investigate. We’re at a really exciting moment in time regarding Women, Peace and Security research, where we’re seeing an increasing diversity of research questions that challenge a monolithic view of women, and with that comes the use of a wider range of methodologies. I strive to ask questions that are interdisciplinary and policy relevant.

In terms of success, which accomplishments are you most proud of?

While I’m proud to have the opportunity to contribute to and benefit from institutions like CISAC, I’m exceptionally proud of being the co-founder and co-chair of the Advancing Women in Peace Processes Working Group (AWIPP). AWIPP is an online consortium hosted by Harvard University, designed to support gendered peace and security research. We provide an informal space for scholars working on issues relating to gender and peace processes to share their work, receive feedback, and gain issue-specific advice. I’m really proud of our community, which is comprised of academics working in all corners of the world and at all stages of academia; it’s been a pleasure to help facilitate connections.

What is something that people would be surprised to learn about you?

I love the theater! I was a theater kid in high school and benefited from opportunities to write, direct, act, and work on stage design, which in turn influenced how I experience live productions today. Every performance is different, and I love that even as an audience member, you contribute to building that unique experience.