Advancing Gender and Peacekeeping Research

Research on gender and peacekeeping has been revolving around two strands of questions. First, what form of peace does peacekeeping contribute to establishing? And second what are the gender dimensions of how peacekeeping is implemented? Subthemes underlying these questions are concerned with whether women's participation and gender aspects of security should be integral parts of the post-war society and the effectiveness of current gender mainstreaming and balancing policies. In this commentary we argue that there has been considerable progress in the field of gender and peacekeeping. Feminist research has raised questions about the understanding and conceptualisation of peace and security, while empirical research systematically explores the gender dimensions of peacekeeping. Yet, in order for research on gender and peacekeeping to progress, it needs to address issues such as theory underdevelopment, lack of data and continued exclusion from mainstream research. The commentary highlights as an area of particular concern the failure of existing research to find common ground and outlines opportunities of building bridges between empirical and feminist researchers.