The politics of women’s rights in authoritarian conflict-affected states: backlash, gender-washing, or window of opportunity?

This project explores how and why authoritarian governments in conflict-affected states adopt women’s rights policies, despite their generally low regard for liberal human rights norms and political inclusion.The aim is to explore how women’s rights norms are mobilized as political tools in authoritarian, conflict-affected contexts, and analyze the effects of these processes.

This is pursued through a comparative study of two authoritarian, conflict-affected states, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, drawing on unique interview data combined with policy analysis and participant observation.

The project develops a novel analytical framework, which brings together governmentality studies with recent advances in feminist and critical peacebuilding research, to generate novel insights about how authoritarian governance shapes the conditions for women’s rights in armed conflict contexts.The findings will significantly advance our theoretical understanding of the dynamics of women’s rights reforms in the most prevalent type of conflict and peacebuilding context today – authoritarian states.

Through new knowledge of the impact of authoritarian rule, and of when and how women´s rights reforms in such contexts can lead to positive change for women, this project can facilitate the design of more realistic and effective policy strategies to support the promotion of women´s rights in conflict management and peacebuilding.