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In recent years, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has faced mounting resistance from regressive political forces seeking to undermine its hard-won normative gains. This Open Access book offers a timely and rigorous examination of this global backlash, providing both theoretical innovation and empirical depth.
Bringing together leading scholars and practitioners, the volume introduces a novel analytical framework that weaves together the concepts of backlash, counter-practices, and counter-discourses. It pioneers a deeper conceptual understanding of backlash-an often under-theorized phenomenon in feminist scholarship-and explores how resistance to gender norms is mobilized, manifested, and sustained across diverse contexts.
Through richly detailed case studies from around the world, the book reveals how backlash operates at multiple levels, from subtle discursive shifts to overt political maneuvers. It interrogates how these dynamics stall, reshape, or reverse the WPS agenda, exposing the fragility of normative progress in international peace and security governance.
Essential reading for scholars, peacebuilders, and advocates committed to advancing gender justice in global security, this volume not only diagnoses the threats facing the WPS agenda but also underscores the urgent need for sustained scholarly and policy engagement to protect and advance feminist achievements in global security.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction: Backlash Against the Women, Peace and Security Agenda (Annika Björkdahl).- Chapter 2. Backlash and Progress in a New Geopolitical Reality: Women, Peace and Security and the Ambiguous Role of the UN Security Council (Louise Olsson).- Chapter 3. Protection Norms in the WPS Agenda: Backlash from Within? (Karin Johansson).- Chapter 4. Norm Spoiling and Backlash: Women s Rights at Risk at the UN (Leia Onsmark).- Chapter 5. Everyday Resistance and (Violent) Backlashes in Peacebuilding Challenge the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda (Clara Perras).- Chapter 6. Expanding Gender, Breaking Silences: Norm Contestation, Localization and Backlash in the 2010 2016 Colombian Peace Negotiations (Elizabeth S. Corredor).- Chapter 7. Norwegian Male Officers and Their View of the WPS Agenda: An Optic for Understanding Backlash? (Sindre Bæk).- Chapter 8. What Is a Woman in Women, Peace and Security? (Seema Shekhawat).- Chapter 9. The Institutional Politics of WPS: Three Lessons on Resistance from Feminist Pedagogy (Aiko Holvikivi).- Chapter 10. Norm Trouble Or, Backlash Against What? (Paul Kirby).
About the author
Annika Björkdahl is Professor of Political Science at Lund University, Sweden. Her research includes ideas and norms in International Relations, Peacebuilding and Transitional Justice, Politics of memory, and Gender Studies. She recently published Peace and the Politics of Memory (Manchester University Press, 2024), Troubling Testimonies (New York University Press, 2026) and The Production of Gendered Knowledge of War (Routledge, 2025).
Jenny Lorentzen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), where she conducts research on the Women Peace and Security agenda, and gender and women’s participation in peace processes, UN peacekeeping, and security sector reform. Her research has been published in International Political Science Review, International Affairs, and International Peacekeeping, among others.
Inger Skjelsbæk is a Research Professor at the Centre on Gender, Peace, and Security, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and at the University of Oslo where she researches political violence, gender norms and transitional justice. She is currently leading a project on European children born of war (EuroWARCHILD) funded by the European Research Council Consolidator Grant 2021–2026.
Summary
In recent years, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has faced mounting resistance from regressive political forces seeking to undermine its hard-won normative gains. This Open Access book offers a timely and rigorous examination of this global backlash, providing both theoretical innovation and empirical depth.
Bringing together leading scholars and practitioners, the volume introduces a novel analytical framework that weaves together the concepts of backlash, counter-practices, and counter-discourses. It pioneers a deeper conceptual understanding of backlash—an often under-theorized phenomenon in feminist scholarship—and explores how resistance to gender norms is mobilized, manifested, and sustained across diverse contexts.
Through richly detailed case studies from around the world, the book reveals how backlash operates at multiple levels, from subtle discursive shifts to overt political maneuvers. It interrogates how these dynamics stall, reshape, or reverse the WPS agenda, exposing the fragility of normative progress in international peace and security governance.
Essential reading for scholars, peacebuilders, and advocates committed to advancing gender justice in global security, this volume not only diagnoses the threats facing the WPS agenda but also underscores the urgent need for sustained scholarly and policy engagement to protect and advance feminist achievements in global security.
