The Production of the 2015 Global Study

This chapter considers the politics associated with measuring the success and failures of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. The first UN resolution on Women, Peace, and Security adopted by the Security Council in 2000 collected and encapsulated a range of elongated policy processes on a vast number of themes. These processes had been pushed by a substantial number of divergent actors with varying ideological visions. Given this, the resolution resonated predominately as a symbolic mechanism, rather than a roadmap for the implementation of the WPS agenda. In fact, reporting has been one of a few tools available for pushing implementation of what is otherwise a toothless document. Based on previous research, this article highlights existing points of contestation in order to analyze the 2015 report on the Global Study. It problematizes the assumed neutrality associated with measuring this contested and vague norm. This chapter argues that the limited effects of the Global Study to date should be viewed in the context of the diverging ideological positions held by vested actors who have pushed for or against implementation over the last fifteen years.