My primary research focus is the role of women and gender in peace processes and post-conflict reconstruction. I am particularly interested in the long-term consequences of women's participation in peace processes on political and security outcomes in post-conflict states.
My current book project, based on my dissertation "Local Voices at the Table: How Participation in Peace Processes Shapes Women's Political Empowerment," explains the effects of different forms of women's participation in peace processes on women's political empowerment in post-conflict states. From entering legislatures to joining presidential cabinets, greater women’s political empowerment is widely understood as critical for making peace last after wars end. Women leaders tend to invest more in health, education and other social welfare programs, elevating levels of development and stability. However, most research on women’s political empowerment focuses on peacetime, leaving little understanding of how the phenomenon transpires in the fragile post-conflict period. Recent research acknowledges the end of conflict as an opportunity for expanding empowerment, but scholars have little understanding how it is achieved or why it happens so infrequently. I argue that how women participate in the peace processes matters greatly for women’s political empowerment in the years that follow. This argument challenges oversimplified assumptions in recent research that the presence of women in peace processes is sufficient for empowerment; instead, who women are and the different roles they play in peace processes shape women’s pathways to power.
My current book project, based on my dissertation "Local Voices at the Table: How Participation in Peace Processes Shapes Women's Political Empowerment," explains the effects of different forms of women's participation in peace processes on women's political empowerment in post-conflict states. From entering legislatures to joining presidential cabinets, greater women’s political empowerment is widely understood as critical for making peace last after wars end. Women leaders tend to invest more in health, education and other social welfare programs, elevating levels of development and stability. However, most research on women’s political empowerment focuses on peacetime, leaving little understanding of how the phenomenon transpires in the fragile post-conflict period. Recent research acknowledges the end of conflict as an opportunity for expanding empowerment, but scholars have little understanding how it is achieved or why it happens so infrequently. I argue that how women participate in the peace processes matters greatly for women’s political empowerment in the years that follow. This argument challenges oversimplified assumptions in recent research that the presence of women in peace processes is sufficient for empowerment; instead, who women are and the different roles they play in peace processes shape women’s pathways to power.
Using a novel dataset on Women in Peace and Empowerment (WPE) and four case studies (the Philippines, Nepal, Liberia, and El Salvador), including 18 original interviews with participants of peace processes and members of post-conflict governments, my dissertation assessed the relationship between women’s peace process participation and political empowerment after conflict. The findings revealed that when local women participate in both formal and informal peace processes, they experience the greatest political empowerment after conflict ends. The findings also highlight the importance of local women’s influence on the text of the peace agreements for women’s empowerment in the years following the peace process. The results illustrate some of the long-term consequences of gender-inclusive peace processes and underscore the need to pay attention not just to whether women are present, but how they contribute to peace processes. This project contributes a new theoretical explanation for women’s political empowerment after conflict, a novel typology of women’s roles in formal peace processes, and novel empirical insights from difficult-to-access peace participants and policymakers on the connections between formal and informal peace processes.
My second major book project will test how women’s participation in peace processes affects gender-based violence in post-conflict states. Although causes of gender-based violence during conflict have been the focus of many studies (e.g., Manjoo & McRaith, 2011; Sharlach, 2001; Wood, 2014; Wood, 2018), few have looked at the process of ending conflict as a mechanism for decreasing rates of gender-based violence after conflict. Rates of domestic violence remain particularly high in post-conflict states, even after disarmament (Haglund & Richards, 2018, p. 282; McWilliams & McKiernan, 1993), as do other forms of intimate-partner violence (Gray & Dolan, 2022). I hypothesize that local women in peace processes create more gender-sensitive transitional justice processes, which in turn increase attention to and accountability for gender-based violence in post-conflict states. This mixed methods project will include statistical analyses, case studies, interviews, and fieldwork, and will generate two journal articles as well as the final book.
I have published a chapter in an edited volume on the effects of great power conflict on global supply chains in East Asia, a co-authored peer-reviewed article on public support for deportation during economic recession, and I currently have one article undergoing revisions for resubmission to a top security journal. This article, co-authored with Professor Heidi Hardt, is a qualitative study using elite interviews of military officials to determine how NATO-member national armies decide which lessons from multilateral missions to implement and which to reject.
My second major book project will test how women’s participation in peace processes affects gender-based violence in post-conflict states. Although causes of gender-based violence during conflict have been the focus of many studies (e.g., Manjoo & McRaith, 2011; Sharlach, 2001; Wood, 2014; Wood, 2018), few have looked at the process of ending conflict as a mechanism for decreasing rates of gender-based violence after conflict. Rates of domestic violence remain particularly high in post-conflict states, even after disarmament (Haglund & Richards, 2018, p. 282; McWilliams & McKiernan, 1993), as do other forms of intimate-partner violence (Gray & Dolan, 2022). I hypothesize that local women in peace processes create more gender-sensitive transitional justice processes, which in turn increase attention to and accountability for gender-based violence in post-conflict states. This mixed methods project will include statistical analyses, case studies, interviews, and fieldwork, and will generate two journal articles as well as the final book.
I have published a chapter in an edited volume on the effects of great power conflict on global supply chains in East Asia, a co-authored peer-reviewed article on public support for deportation during economic recession, and I currently have one article undergoing revisions for resubmission to a top security journal. This article, co-authored with Professor Heidi Hardt, is a qualitative study using elite interviews of military officials to determine how NATO-member national armies decide which lessons from multilateral missions to implement and which to reject.