Logics of Gender, Peace, and Security: Theorizing Gender and Protection at the Intersections of State and Civil Society

This article traces the discursive construction of women as “civil society actors”; a discourse common to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Doctrine and the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda. I argue that the discursive construction of women as civil society actors relies on and (re)produces gendered constructions. By tracing the discourses and logics across the R2P Doctrine and WPS Agenda, I demonstrate that both normative frameworks rely on gendered logics of agency. This poses signif-icant dilemmas concerning the implementation of the R2P Doctrine and WPS Agenda. Namely, the gendered and therefore unequal expectations of women’s civil society organizations (CSOs) to prevent, detect, and respond to violence. This paper contributes to broader concerns regarding the closer alignment of R2P and WPS, with a focus at where these two frameworks overlap in relation to mass atrocity detection, prevention, and response. The argument this article develops demonstrates that the spaces within and between the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine, the agency of women’s CSOs is constrained, instrumental- ized, and co-opted by the state and market. This presents concerns for the implementation of the aims (shared or otherwise) of R2P and WPS. Finally, this article raises urgent questions concerning the relationship between states and women’s CSOs, the funding and independence of CSOs and the expectations placed on CSOs to contribute to international peace and security.


Introduction
Inspired by recent work that has investigated civil action and the dynamics of violence (Avant et al. 2019) this article explores the discourses and logics that shape and construct the potential for civil society within the normative landscapes of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Doctrine and the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda. I treat the policy architectures of the WPS Agenda, and the Doctrine of R2P as case studies to explore the discursive construction of civil society organizations (CSOs). By excavating the discursive terrain of these two frameworks, I illustrate that the meaning and value of civil society is organized by logics hierarchically arranged by and through a series of gendered subjectivities. The ways in which gender configures in the construction of civil society in both the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine creates both constraints and possibilities for CSOs. The approach to policy, language, and discourse that this article adopts takes its theoretical cues from Laura Shepherd, who argues that we must understand how a policy means before we can implement it (Shepherd 2010b, 144). Therefore, before we can understand the challenges civil society faces in implementing the goals of WPS and R2P, we need to interrogate the meanings constitutive of civil society (Shepherd 2015, 887). The analytical focus of this article lies in exploring how the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine construct CSOs, and what possibilities and limitations this present.
The WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine place emphasis, albeit in different ways, on the role of civil society to, enhance, "community-level protection" (WPS UNSCR 2106 and "prevent or respond to atrocity crimes" (UN Secretary General's Report on R2P 2014, 5). This resonates with Sara Davies and Sarah Teitt's observation that there are opportunities to develop the relationship between R2P and WPS with regard to protection and the role that women play in preventing and responding to mass atrocity violence (2012,199). Building on this, Alex Bellamy and Sara Davies suggest there is potential to explore the "incorporation of a gender lens into atrocity prevention and an atrocity prevention lens into WPS" (2019,586). Given that CSOs already play an im-portant role in violence prevention (Avant et al. 2019), what this article seeks to contribute to this discussion is an argument about how meaning and value is ascribed to CSOs and how it is gendered. What I intend to make clear is that for CSOs to engage in the prevention of, and protection from the kinds of violence both agendas set out to address, we need to first investigate the ways in which the meaning of civil society is woven into the textual fabric of R2P and WPS.
To give form to this article, I organize my analysis around the following questions. First, where is civil society in the normative frameworks of the R2P Doctrine and WPS Agenda? Where do CSOs emerge in the discursive terrain of each of these agendas? Following these questions, the article considers what logics of gender are at work here? How do logics of gender function to construct civil society? Finally, I explore the ways in which gendered logics ascribe meaning and value to civil society which in turn constructs both limitations and possibilities.
To address these questions the article is organized into five sections. First, to contextualize why this article considers both R2P and WPS, I position this contribution in conversation with literature on the relationship between R2P and WPS. Second, I discuss the literature that has underlined the role of civil society in advancing and implementing WPS and R2P. Third, I present the conceptual and textual strategies that form the discourse-theoretical approach that this article adopts. Here, I also discuss the selection of textual data and the analytical strategies applied to this data. Fourth, I trace the discursive construction of women as "civil society organizations"-a discourse common to R2P and WPSand highlight how this discourse is predicated on gendered logics that naturalize women's inclination for participation, consultation, dialogue, and support. 1 Fifth, I discuss the implications of these logics in relation to how the work of civil society is understood as meaningful and valued and why this matters.
The focus on both the R2P Doctrine and WPS Agenda is inspired and informed by academic debates on their relationship (Davies and Stamnes 2012; see also Davies et al. 2013;Hewitt 2016;Johansson 2017 andand Bellamy and Davies 2019), as well as the gradual amplification by the UN Secretary General on the connections between these agendas (Bellamy and Davies 2019, 591). Based on the title and content of the most recent UN SG's report on R2P-Prioritizing prevention and strengthening response: Women and the responsibility to protect (2020)-the amplification Bellamy and Davies identify (2019) continues to increase. Feminist literature on R2P and WPS has demonstrated while there is promise and possibilities for the closer alignment of these agendas (Stamnes 2012), others have highlighted why practitioners and advocates of WPS might be "wary of R2P and cautious about its potential impact on their work" (Davies et al. 2013, 2). The wariness is perhaps warranted given that, despite the existence of many international mandates on the integration of gender into peace and security, in its development R2P was almost entirely genderblind (Bond and Sherret 2006, see also Charlesworth 2010).
The literature that emerged and expanded on Bond and Sherret's (2006) and Charleworth's (2010) critique considers the potential advantages or disadvantages of aligning the agendas, and the potential for R2P to respond to sexual and gender-based violence (Davies and Stamnes, 2012; see also Davies et al., 2013;Hewitt 2016). The few occasions where R2P does mention women, it is in relation to their status as objects to be protected, usually from sexual violence (Hewitt 2016, 12). What the literature illustrates is how R2P largely ignored women's agency in situations of conflict and mass atrocity crimes and simultaneously side-lined developments in law and policy related to the WPS Agenda.
The lack of attention to women in the early stages of R2P's normative life cycle is quite striking when compared to the above-mentioned UN SG's report on R2P, titled: Prioritizing prevention and strengthening response: Women and the responsibility to protect (2020). The textual priority given to women sparks my "feminist curiosity" (Enloe 2004), particularly as it indicates a shift from positioning women as objects of protection, to subjects capable of violence (2020, 7). Or, as the title of the report suggests (Prioritizing prevention and strengthening response: Women and the responsibility to protect (2020))prioritizing prevention and response might also mean prioritizing women.
These recent discursive shifts in the R2P landscape do not prompt me to argue for a closer alignment with WPS. Quite the opposite. While I maintain that R2P has much to gain from engagement with WPS (Hall and Shepherd 2013), I am (still) cautious about closer alignment. I remain concerned that a closer relationship between WPS and R2P could potentially "subsume and silence WPS within R2P" (Hall and Shepherd 2013, 76). Instead, I advocate a deeper understanding and critical reflection of the expectations placed on CSOs to carry out the normative objectives of both agendas.

Civil Society, the WPS Agenda and the R2P Doctrine
Civil society is often rightly credited with the emergence of both R2P (Bellamy 2015, 89) and the WPS Agenda (Hill, Aboitiz, and Poehlman-Doumbouya 2003). In this section I review the literature on (i) WPS and civil society and (ii) R2P and civil society and discuss how my review of the literature was formative to the initial phrasing of the questions stated above. Annika Bjorkdhal and Johanna Manner-gren Selimovic write, "civil society stands at the core of the development of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda" (2019,428). In Shepherd's recent book Narrating the Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Logics of Global Governance, a research participant noted that "its [WPS] the only agenda on the security docket that is basically there because of the activism of women and women's civil society" (Shepherd 2021, 43). The role of women's CSOs in building the WPS Agenda can be traced back to May 1919, at a meeting in Zurich, in which the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) was founded (Sharp 2013, 155). WILPF continues to play an active role in the WPS Agenda to this day (Kirby and Shepherd 2016, 250). Writing on behalf of WILPF, Felicity Hill, Mikele Aboitiz, and Sara Poehlman-Doumboya (2003) have written a powerful account of the central role of civil society in the adoption and implementation of UNSCR 1325.
Bjorkdahl and Selimovic have pointed to both the instrumental role of women's CSOs, as well as the challenges that lie ahead (2019,434). They conceive of these challenges as (i) agenda setting, (ii) institutionalization, and (iii) implementation. In terms of implementing WPS, there are also reasons to be concerned about the side-lining of CSOs in processes relating to the development of National Action Plans (NAPs) (Bjorkdahl and Selimovic 2019, 435). Despite these challenges, Bjorkdahl and Selimovic highlight that UNSCR 2242 (2015) opened up new pathways for CSOs to exert pressure (2019, 435). UNSC Resolution 2242 commits the Security Council to regularly engage with civil society actors and calls for the creation of an Informal Experts Group whose recommendations will inform Security Council Missions (Bjorkdahl and Selimovic 2019, 453). This opening in the policy architecture of the WPS Agenda creates space for the inclusion of CSOs at the highest level of security governance is an indication that, while obstacles persist, there is also potential. In their book Civil Society, Care Labour, and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Making 1325 Work (2021) Hamilton, Mundkur, and Shepherd propose that work done by CSOs to implement the WPS Agenda done can be understood as a form of care labor. I pick up on these themes of work, care, and labor and the ways in which they are gendered in my analysis of the logics that underwrite the discursive construction of CSOs.
Turning now to the R2P Doctrine, John Karlsrud writes that civil society has played an active and important role advancing R2P (2013, 23, see also Belloni 2014). The Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in 2001, evolved in consultation with CSOs in a series of 11 regional roundtables and national consultations to hear the "broadest possible range of views" (R2P Research, Bibliography, and Background [RBB] 2001, 343, see also Knight 2011, 28). Following the endorsement of R2P at the 2005 World Summit, Ramesh Thakur and Thomas G Weiss write that civil society advocacy remains critical to build on this norm affirming moment (2009,45). 2 Inspired by this literature, what I seek to understand are 2 Writing slightly more broadly than the R2P doctrine, Aidan Hehir writes, that the influence of global civil society on the debates concerning humanitarian intervention is one of its clearest and "worthy" achievements (2008,38). Hehir is cautious to herald the advancement of civil society a panacea for the "selfish inclinations" of states (2008,87). Instead, Hehir highlights that in relation to humanitarian intervention, that "far from constituting a challenge to the primacy of the state and its dominance in international affairs, the strategy adopted by global civil society ascribes to the state a position of central importance" (2008,87). While I acknowledge that humanitarian intervention is not the same as the R2P Doctrine, indeed, as Cristina Badescu writes, R2P's attempt to balance security and human rights seeks to address the main objections to humanitarian intervention (2010, 47). the implications for the ways in which "civil society" is discursively constructed and how this (re)produces "particular configurations of power" (Shepherd 2015, 892). Having now briefly discussed the literature on R2P, WPS, and civil society, I now turn to outline the conceptual and analytical direction of this article.

Conceptual and Analytical Approach
This article is less concerned with advancing its own conceptualization of civil society and instead seeks to understand how the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine construct and conceptualize civil society. 3 Similar to Soumita Basu, this article is interested the "broad frames of understanding-of market, state, and society; and the 'politics of financing'" produced (2017, 722) by these frames, or discourses as I refer to them. Therefore, instead of explaining how I conceptualize civil society, I briefly discuss literature that touches upon the themes central to this project. Mary Kaldor for example, writes that, global civil society, "has always been linked to the notion of minimizing violence in social relations" (2013, 3). Indeed, global civil society is frequently credited with the emergence of the International Criminal Court (ICC) (Glasius 2004). And the ICC is an important site at which the politics of implementation of R2P and WPS plays out (for R2P see Saba and Akbarzadeh 2021 and for the WPS Agenda see Koomen 2018). As Kaldor together with Christine Chinkin observe, the counter-trend to patterns of mass violence in "new wars" is the upsurge in civil society (2013,181). This often involves a predominance of women continuing their preconflict "caring" roles (2013,181). Civil society, in this view, carries out humanitarian work, provides essential goods and services (schools and health care), assist victims of sexual violence and works across communities to stop violence (Kaldor and Chinkin 2013, 181). In addition, CSOs are often involved in linking their causes to the global community through transnational networks (Kaldor and Chinkin 2013, 181). Which returns us to the advocacy work of women's NGOs in establishing the ICC and the inclusion of sexual violence as a war crime into its statutes (Glasius 2004, Kaldor andChinkin 2013, 181). Civil society can and does play an important role in preventing and responding to violence. The goal of this article is not to diminish this work and its achievements. The aim of this article is to explore how civil society actors are written into existence within the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine and from there assess the constitutive politics of meaning and the value.
Like Shepherd (2015) I depart from the literature on civil society and these questions of the role of global civil society, as the focus in this article is the discourses of civil society as they are conceived within policy documents. As I demonstrate below, the discourse on civil society that I identify in the policy architectures of the R2P Doctrine and WPS Agenda do not have the same "transnational dimension to which theorists of global civil society attend" (Shepherd 2015, 893). The empirical contribution of this article offers a discourse-theoretical reading of UN Security Council Resolutions and Secretary General's reports from the digital archives of the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine.
The approach I adopt in this article is interested in identifying discourses and their attendant logics and the ways in which they function to legitimize particular subjectivities and actions as viable, reasonable and just, and others as not. This resonates with Charlesworth's observation that "[t]he deployment of gendered images in the responsibility to protect discourse make it appear a logical, strong and appropriate response to violence" (2010,248). It is these gendered images, or logics, and how they ascribe meaning and value to civil society in the policy contexts of the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine that this article is interested in exploring. I treat the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine as discursive formations that are constructed by and through logics. I understand discourses to be that which is said or articulated, whereas logics or rules are implied or assumed, but necessary for the discourse to be intelligible. In this section I conceptualize my approach to discourse and logics as well as outline the analytical strategies that informed my interpretation of the textual data.
A discursive approach shifts the focus away from "discovering a set of laws about objective, sense-based facts to the human capacity for making and communicating meaning" (Yanow 1996, 5). Discourse then "confers meanings to social and physical realities" (Epstein 2008, 2). Discourses possess the power to delimit and define what can and cannot be said. Or to be more specific, what can be said and deemed meaningful, versus what can be said and dismissed as specious. As systems of meaning production, discourses have constructive effects on the creation, negotiation, and implementation of norms and the policies that they consist of. Maria Eriksson Baaz and Maria Stern explain that, "discourses function by giving a semblance of cohesion, order and closure. They make sense" (Eriksson Baaz and Stern 2013, 8). This resonates with Charlotte Epstein's approach; she writes, "the ultimate product of a discourse is common sense" (2008, 10). The analytical focus on discourse and sense making, and in particular constructing common sense creates, what Stuart Hall refers to as a moment of "extreme ideological closure" (1985,105). Epstein explains that meaning, "is not inherent but contingent and always in the making, since words do not "contain" meanings as real things" (2008, 7). Discourses, as systems of meaningproduction, temporarily "fix" meaning, enabling us to make sense of the world (Shepherd 2010b, 156). These systems of "meaning-production" create regularities that emerge and become systematized in and through the articulation and reiteration of norms and practices, these regularities "have constructive effects, creating identities and practices and disciplining bodies and behaviours through articulation and repetition" (Berman 2003, 47-8). Discourse is political; it is a "site for the production and reproduction of particular subjectivities and identities" (Hansen 2006, 19). Given that all words carry meaning, the process of writing value into policy is inescapable and has profound implications for the interpretation and implementation of policy documents (Shepherd 2010b, 147).
Borrowing from Penny Griffin, my use of "discourse" rests on three assumptions: (i) every object is constituted as an object of discourse; (ii) all objects and actions convey meaning and are themselves meaningful; and (iii) social practices articulate and contest the discourses that constitute social reality (Griffin 2009, 23). Howarth and Stavrakakis, on a similar note, write that "all objects are objects of discourse, as their meaning depends upon a socially constructed system of rules" (Stavrakakis and Howarth 2000, 3, emphasis in original). Poststructuralist discourse analysis does not distinguish from a "reality" or world that exists independently from our thoughts. As Griffin explains, "what exists 'in the world' is only made real to us by virtue of discourse and the structures that discourse impose on our thinking" (2009, 28). Transposing Griffin's work to the study of normative frameworks, I posit that discourse constitutes and organizes meaning(s) and are constructed by and through logics (or assumptions) of gender, that function to make meaning. Discourse is not separable from the material reality of value, work, and care. Value, work, and care are discursively constituted. Having now outlined my approach to discourse, I now turn to discuss logics.

Logics
Discursive formations rely on a set of rules or logics to function and (re)produce meaning. This draws largely from the work of Shepherd, who writes that logics are the "ways in which various concepts are organised within specific discourses" (Shepherd 2008, 298). Logics act "within our cognitive frameworks to attribute certain characteristics to certain object and subjects and also to posit relationships between them" (Shepherd 2013, 12). Logics are also gendered, meaning they rely on assumptions about bodies, and the (presumed) corresponding masculine and feminine attributes of those bodies. Gendered logics also demarcate and govern standards of appropriate behaviors for particular bodies (Shepherd 2013, 14). Building on Shepherd (2013), what this article seeks to establish is how assumptions, or logics, about femininity and masculinity underpin and construct what these normative frameworks mean when they refer to CSOs.

Analytical Strategies
The strategies used to analyze the data gathered draw primarily from the work of Roxanne Doty (1993), Jennifer Milliken (1999), and LindaÅhall and Stefan Borg (2013). These strategies were utilized to deconstruct and analyze data generated from UN digital archives. To paraphrase Doty, the data gathered were read with an eye toward the following textual mechanisms: predication, and subject positioning (1993,310). Predicate analysis, as Milliken explains "focuses on the language of practices of predication-the verbs, adverbs and adjectives attach to nouns" (Milliken 1999, 232). Predication has a constructive effect; it constructs a "thing" with particular features and capacities (Milliken 1999, 232). According toÅhall and Borg, "a predicate affirms a quality, attribute, or property of person or thing. Attributes attached to subjects are important for constructing identities for those subjects and for telling us what subjects can and cannot do" (Åhall and Borg 2013, 199). Therefore exploring predicates and the construction of identities can tell us something about agency: what things (bodies, organizations, states) can or cannot do.
In addition to predicate analysis, presupposition adds a second textual mechanism. According to Doty, "presupposition is an important textual mechanism that creates background knowledge and in doing so constructs a particular kind of world in which certain things are recognized as true" (Doty 1993, 306).Åhall and Borg write that presupposition is about what is taken for granted in the particular representation; what kind of world the representation is constructing; and what is considered true in that constructed world (2013,199). Presupposition and predication not only endow subjects with properties and construct a world in which they make sense, but also create relations between various kinds of subjects and objects (Åhall and Borg 2013, 199). This is what Doty refers to as "subject positioning" (1993,306). What defines a particular subject, Doty writes, is "in large part, the relationships that subject is positioned in relative to other kinds of subjects" (1993, 306). Doty explains that "texts also work to create a 'reality' by linking particular sub-jects and objects to one another" (Doty 1993, 306). Meanings are constructed through "linking" objects and subjects, they are co-constituted in relation to one another (Doty 1993, 206).
In addition to constructing subjects and objects, presupposition and predication also establish relationships between subjects, which may be relations of "opposition, identity, similarity, and complementarity" (Doty 1993, 306). Subject positioning also involves hierarchical placement of objects and subjects in relation to each other, so subject positions are not constructed disinterestedly. Rather, subjects and objects are assigned vis a vis one another with varying degrees of agency (Doty 1993, 308). Subject positioning is not a value free construction of subject/object. And again, subject positioning creates an analytical vantage point for understanding how discourse and logics assign agency.
As analytical strategies, predication, presupposition, and subject positioning lend themselves to exploring how texts are "intertwined with other texts forming a complex web of intertextuality" (Doty 1993, 308). Considering different normative frameworks and the texts that constitute these frameworks in contrast with other (albeit closely related) frameworks permits a focus on the salience of gendered logics. To borrow from Doty, "if the same kinds of subjects, objects, and relations are found to exist in different texts, this is indicative of a particular logic at work" (1993,308). These analytical strategies are therefore well suited to the exploring the shared discourses and logics of gender and protection across two normative frameworks (R2P and WPS). Mapping how these different normative frameworks write CSO into being and the gendered logics that organize their construction may reveal dominant discourses that function across multiple sites.

The Digital Archive of R2P and WPS
Before delving into the discursive terrain of the R2P Doctrine and WPS Agenda, I will first introduce the textual data sourced from UN digital archives, discuss the selection of documents and how I analyzed them. The textual data for R2P include:  (3) Secretary General's report on R2P from 2009 to 2020. In Appendix I, the 71 UNSC Resolutions that refer to R2P are tabulated, and page number references to the textual patterns that were located are provided. This list of UNSC Resolutions is based on reporting by the Global Centre for R2P, which maintains a list of all UNSC Resolutions that refer to R2P. For the WPS Agenda, I discuss in the article the Security Council Resolutions and provide page references to the same textual patterns located in the UN SG's Annual Reports on WPS in Appendix II. This selection of data permits an exploration of similar documents, produced in similar institutional settings across a comparable time frame.
Having now presented the selection of textual data and the strategies adopted to identify, disentangle, and examine the discursive construction of civil society, I will briefly explain how I searched, coded, and identified the discourse of CSOs. For each document, I coded references to civil society and looked to see where, within statements referring to civil society, did the term "women" also appear. Led by the textual patterns that emerged, I also searched for the following terms, "grassroots," "local," and "sexual" to cross reference and check if similar patterns emerged across both data sets. This process is like Shepherd's approach to exploring the construction of civil society in UN Peace-building discourses (2015). Shepherd describes this as an analytical process that exposes texts to scrutiny, to interrogate the ways in which representational practices within the text work together to make that text meaningful (2015,890). I was also interested in the silences, so attention was also paid to when, where, and how civil society was mentioned but not women, gender, or sexual violence. While I pay attention to the frequency that the terms civil society and women appear in statements, I am also interested in the logics underpinning the placement of the words within and across the texts.

Locating the Discursive Construction of Women's CSOs in the R2P Doctrine
Interestingly, references to "grassroots" and the role of CSOs do appear in the ICISS Report (2001) and the RBB (2001), but not in conjunction with women. This is unsurprising given that the above-mentioned feminist critiques of R2P have illustrated R2P's earliest articulations rarely referred to women (Bond and Sherret 2006). A clear articulation of women as civil society actors or organizations emerges in the 2009 SG's report. In the following excerpt from the 2009 SG's report on R2P, women's relevance to R2P rests on women's subject position as victims of systematic sexual violence. The report notes: In all of the discussions of global, regional and national institutions, care should be taken not to lose sight of the individual victims and survivors of such crimes… In that regard, women's non-governmental organizations have often played a critical role in engaging and assisting survivors of systematic sexual violence (2009,14).
Here, civil society-understood as "women's NGOs"-are constructed in relation to their ability to assist and support survivors of systematic sexual violence, and "care" should be taken in order to do so. In this excerpt, women's NGOs are placed in opposition to global, regional, and national institutions. There is a benevolence of the "global, regional, and national institutions" toward victims and survivors of "such crimes." Victims/survivors require support and encouragement and their representative CSOs require engagement and assistance. It is also interesting in this excerpt that "care should be taken," however it is unclear whether it is the institutions or the women's NGOs that do the care work. Given that the role of women's NGOs is more carefully detailed in terms of their "critical role," my reading of this text is that the care work is assigned by the institutions to the NGOs. So while care is textually acknowledged as important, the report places more emphasis on women's NGOs carrying out this care work = linking their position in the transna-tional politics of sexual violence with the care of survivors.
In the same report, women's grassroots organizations are described as well-placed and capable of providing, "timely and sensitive information on evolving conflict situations" (2009,31). I read this as another example where women's CSOs are predicated on the occurrence or in this case, detection of sexualized mass atrocity crimes. The same section of the report continues to refer to the "global level" characterized by human rights and humanitarian monitoring groups with "well developed networks, methodologies and reporting channels" (2009, 31), however there is no mention of their relationships to "the grassroots." Moreover, the positioning of a highly organized global network vis a vis local grassroots organizations who are deemed "capable," suggests that the welldeveloped networks, methodologies, and reporting channels belong to the "global." Whereas the capabilities of the local women's groups are presented as providing information. Furthermore, women's groups are positioned and described as "Less well known. . . in shaping the international response to crimes and violations relating to the responsibility to protect" (2009,26). It is interesting to note the discursive slippage here between the report's use of the terms "Women's NGOs" (2009,14), "women's groups" (2009,26), and "grass-roots women's organizations" (2009,31). I read these references to women's NGOs, women's groups, and grassroots women's organizations as indicative of a discourse of women's CSOs that limits their political position to the local and grassroots. This is similar to what Shepherd identifies in the Peacebuidling Commission's discourse that rests the legitimacy of civil society on its association with the local, which in turn functions to contain the authority of CSOs to the local context (2015,901). Given that the work of the Peacebuilding Commission is closely associated with the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine it is unsurprising that similar subject positions are present in the discursive construction of CSOs. The repetition across norms and institutions is an indication of the salience of the discursive construction of CSOs as local, feminine and "less well known" (2009,26). Furthermore, the suggestion of "known-ness" raises questions of the (neo)colonial positioning of the local in relation to the international as it reproduces not only gendered, but also racialized ways of "imagining international politics" (Julian, Bliesemann de Guevara and Redhead 2019, 213). These gendered and racialized imaginings resonate with postcolonial critiques of R2P (see Mamdani 2010). I return to this question of the intersectional nature of the discourses and logics identified here below.
Interestingly, in the 2010 SG's report on R2P, entitled, Early warning, assessment and the responsibility to protect women are not mentioned. Gender is referred to once, in the phrasing of "sexual and gender-based violence" (2010,5). What is curious about the SG's 2010 report is the ways in which violations, such as sexual and gender-based violence, hate speech, forced displacement and recruitment of child soldiers, all of which are gendered, are described, without reference to either women's NGOs', "women's groups," or "grass-roots women's organizations" as was evident in the 2009 report.
The 2011 SG's report on R2P, entitled, The role of regional and subregional arrangements in implementing the responsibility to protect, follows a similar pattern to the 2010 report. References to women are limited to two. The first reference to women, positions them in relation to the state's legitimacy and authority as questionable should "women, children, the elderly and other most vulnerable members of society" not be able to rely on national authorities and institutions for protection (2011,8). The second reference I will cite in full before analyzing: Preventing mass atrocities is the legal responsibility of the State. Meeting this responsibility, however, requires partnering with civil society, including, inter alia, women's and civic groups, clerics, the private sector, academia, and the media (2011, 4).
Here we see the return of women as part of civil society. While the prevention of mass atrocities remains the clear legal domain of the state, civil society is given a partnership role in "meeting" this responsibility. Similar language appears in the 2012 SG's report, Responsibility to protect: timely and decisive response, and civil society is described as an "important protection partner" (2011,12). However, the words women and gender do not appear in the 2012 SG's report.
Moving to the 2013 SG's Report, women reappear in the textual landscape and patterns similar to the 2009, 2010, and 2011 reports (re)emerge. The report entitled, Responsibility to protect: State responsibility and prevention (2013) describes how local mechanisms are important for "resolving tensions among communities and countering hate speech and incitement to violence can also contribute to enhancing national cohesion" (2013,14). The report continues to state that "Civil society organizations, including women's groups, should be included in such mechanisms" (2013,14). It is also worth noting, that the 2013 SG's report mentions the full suite of WPS UNSC Resolutions, however this inclusion is predicated on the ways in which R2P crimes "affect men and women, girls and boys differently," "the importance of combatting sexual violence as a method of warfare" and "the full and equal participation of women in decision-making and peace processes" (2013, 7). It therefore reads as a restatement of the main goals of the WPS Agenda in the language of R2P crimes. 4 This link between women's CSOs and the early detection of mass atrocity crimes resurfaces in the 2014 SG's report, Fulfilling Our Collective Responsibility: International Assistance and the Responsibility to Protect. The discourse on women as "local-grassroots-community organizers/organizations" features prominently in the 2014 SG's report. For example: Efforts to prevent or respond to atrocity crimes can succeed only if they are the product of inclusive processes that engage national and local authorities, and as well as civil society, including human rights organizations, traditional leaders and women's groups (2014,5).
Furthermore, the 2014 report notes that: Local civil society actors have knowledge of and access to early warning information that many other actors do not and can hold national authorities accountable. International civil society can encourage the development of a vibrant national civil society, that includes a prominent role for women and young people and support the development of national and community based approaches to prevention. These efforts complement more formal types of international assistance aimed at strengthening national resilience (2014,7).
In the above excerpt, what is evident is a series of gendered positionings of global/local, state/civil society, and formal/informal. The efforts of women's CSOs are positioned as complementary to formal, international efforts. Women's CSOs in the discursive terrain of R2P are therefore to be "encouraged" by "international civil society," with their "informal" work to complement "national resilience." We also see the familiar positioning of women's CSOs as in need of external support or encouragement with the purpose of acting harmoniously with the state.
The 2015 SG's report entitled, A vital and enduring commitment: implementing the responsibility to protect, women's inclusion is based on their local-ness and particular need for inclusion: Community level, capacity-building efforts have focused on leveraging the role of religious and community leaders in dialogue and incorporating local voices, particularly women, into early warning systems (2015,10). This report repeats the association of women as community-based and "local." However, the predicate "particularly" positions women as additional to "local voices." The juxtaposition of "leaders" with "women" precludes the possibility that women may occupy the role of religious or community leaders. It also assumes that women are more likely to identify with the voices, needs, and politics of women, rather than their "community" or "religion." This homogenizes women and their assumed "group" experiences, and essentializes their "diverse experiences and forms of activism" (Pratt and Richter-Devroe 2011). Later in the 2015 report, within a section entitled "Investing in atrocity crime prevention," prevention is conceptualized as needing to overcome the prevailing tendency to see R2P as disconnected from the protection and empowerment of women and girls, and international justice (2015,. This is an interesting contrast to earlier gendered references. In the above excerpt, references to sexual violence are absent and women (and girls) are positioned in need of both protection and empowerment. It is interesting to see the coarticulation of "protection" and "empowerment" of women, however the link between the two is not further elaborated. It is possible that the language of protection and empowerment surfaces in R2P at this point in time, due to the increasing acknowledgment-on paper at least-of the relevance of WPS to R2P.
The 2016 SG's Report on R2P, similar to the 2015 report mentions women in relation to empowerment (2016, 3). However, this is the only reference to women in the report. 5 Civil society is referred to five times, without the inclusion of women or women's groups. The 2017 report refers once to women, in the context of their participation in civil society, together with "community actors, religious leaders and elders. . . and youth" (2017, 15). The theme of "empowerment" appears in the 2018 report particularly in relation to strengthening the "role of women in the prevention of atrocity crimes" (2018,12). It is notable that in the more recent reports, the positioning of women in relation to "local," "grassroots" CSOs seems to have disappeared and been replaced with the language of "empowerment," "(under)representation," and "inclusion." 6 For example: Research has shown that gender equality and the full inclusion of women in peace processes and as preventive actors greatly reduce a society's exposure to 5 Unless we include a footnote to UN women, which brings the total to two. 6 This discursive shifts is perhaps reminiscent of what Phipps notes as civil society being presented as a place where women are not (2002, 72). Meaning "inclusion" in civil society for women is necessary as women are assumed not to be there. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/1/3/ksab016/6372970 by guest on 26 September 2021 the risks of violence, including atrocity crimes. Yet women remain underrepresented in not only conflict prevention and peacemaking but also the prevention of atrocity crimes. Atrocity prevention must fully reflect Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) (Responsibility to protect: from early warning to early action 2018, 12).
The 2019 report continues this discursive trend, which signals a clearer articulation in the discursive terrain of R2P's acknowledgment of the WPS Agenda and presents a vision for how the two frameworks complement each other. The most recent SG's report on R2P, Prioritizing prevention and strengthening response: Women and the responsibility to protect (2020), as the title suggests gives textual priority to (i) Gender Equality and R2P; (ii) the impact of mass atrocity crimes on women and girls; and (iii) the vital role of women in prevention and protection.
Given R2P's initial gender blindness (Bond and Sherret 2006), the 2020 report is quite remarkable for its detail and the acknowledgment that women are not only victims of mass atrocity crimes, but also perpetrators (2020, 7). Alongside these nuances what (re)surfaces in the 2020 report, is the linking of women, as local, civil society actors with the capacity to contribute information to facilitate the early warning of R2P crimes (2020,8). It is interesting that the discourse on women's CSOs seems to fade in and out in the policy architecture of the R2P Doctrine. The UNSC Resolutions that refer to R2P are also indicative of this fading in and out, with some Resolutions not mentioning civil society at all, let alone "women's organization's" (see appendix I). To bring this section to a close, the main themes that emerge within the R2P landscape are (i) women's CSOs are constructed as informal, "grassroots" and local; (ii) Women are positioned as collectives, as a "group" rather than as leaders; and (iii) the work of women's CSOs is valued for their potential to detect and prevent mass atrocity crimes. I return to these themes and the logics that underpin them in a later section, for now I turn my discursive lens to locating women's CSOs in the WPS Agenda.

Locating the Discursive Construction of CSOs in the WPS Agenda
In this section, similar to my treatment of the R2P texts, I trace the emergence of a gendered discourse of civil society in the WPS Agenda. Shepherd's (2008a and2008b) work on the representations of women and civil society in the discursive production of UNSCR 1325 provides a point of departure to consider the ways in which a discourse on women as civil society or "grass roots" actors has been (re)produced throughout the UNSC resolutions that followed UNSCR 1325. Unlike the R2P Doctrine, within UNSCR 1325 there is acknowledgment that women's peace work takes place at both the local and international levels. The UNSCR expresses: Its willingness to ensure that Security Council missions take into account gender considerations and the rights of women, including through consultation with local and international women's groups (2001,3).
There is however a slippage in the document that earlier refers to all actors involved in peace negotiations to adopt a gender perspective, which is taken to include: Measures that support local women's peace initiatives and indigenous processes for conflict resolution, and that involve women in all of the implementation mechanisms of the peace agreements (2001, 3). UNSCR 1325's two references to women's organizations position women as subjects to be consulted with, to be involved or supported. Whereas the Security Council is positioned as the gatekeeper, with the power to permit or to "take into account gender considerations," to grant access, space, and "measures" to include and support women. 7 In the WPS Resolution that followed 1325, UNSCR 1820, we see the inclusion of women's organization predicated on the textual priority given to sexual violence in this resolution. It states: Requests the Secretary-General and relevant United Nations agencies, inter alia, through consultation with women and women-led organizations as appropriate, to develop effective mechanisms for providing protection from violence, including in particular sexual violence (2008,4).
A similar phrasing also appears with reference to the WPS Agenda's relationship to the UN Peacebuilding Commission: Stresses the important role the Peacebuilding Commission can play by including in its advice and recommendations for post-conflict peacebuilding strategies, where appropriate, ways to address sexual violence committed during and in the aftermath of armed conflict, and in ensuring consultation and effective representation of women's civil society (2008,4).
In both instances, both "women's organizations" and "women-led organizations" are positioned as relevant in relation to (i) protection from violence and (ii) in particular protection from sexual violence. This resonates with the broader critique of the WPS Agenda, that it is predominantly interested in protecting women from sexual violence. For example, Kirby and Shepherd highlight that WPS language demonstrates "an increasing fixation on sexual violence as an exemplary atrocity, activating the 'protection' side of the agenda" (2021,14). This is in line with research that has highlighted the shift from UNSCR 1325 to the later Resolutions which, based on quantitative terms, highlight the stronger focus on protection from sexual violence than on women's participation (Kirby and Shepherd 2016, 380). This suggests a coproduction of the gendered construction of civil society and discourses of protection and sexual violence. 8 Following from UNSCRs 1820 and 1888, UNSCR 1960 (2010) continues the emphasis on protection and sexual violence with a focus on increasing accountability and addressing impunity. Similar to UNSCR 1820 and 1888 there is a similar positioning of women's groups in relation to sexual violence. For example, in relation to increasing accountability, women's groups are predicated as instrumental to "enhance data collection and analysis of incidents" (2010,4). Reading this as an extension of the positioning of women's civil society group's main function as "supportive" and to be 7 A similar textual pattern appears in UNSCR 1888 (2009). For example, it states that women's organizations and networks that are essential for peace, should be "promoted" and "empowered" (1888,2009). Women's organizations in UNSCR 1888 and 1325 are predicated on their need for "support," "promotion and empowerment" (2009,2). 8 This is not to suggest that there is not an obvious need for robust policy responses to sexual violence, but, as Kirby and Shepherd point out, this "risks losing the critical significance of articulating women as agents of change in conflict and postconflict environments, and as both rights bearers and rights-protectors in peace and security governance" (2016, 380). consulted, the "data" and information that women's groups possess in relation to sexual violence is predicated on its usefulness to "assist the Security Council's consideration of appropriate actions, including targeted and graduated measures" (UNSCR 1960, para 8). The contribution of women's groups is the provision of "data," not the deliberation and decision-making procedures in terms of actions to be taken. The utility of "women's groups" is confined enhancing "data collection and analysis of incidents" (2010, 4). There is an interesting discursive shift in UNSCR 2106 (2013), furthers UNSCR 1960s focus on accountability for perpetrators of sexual violence. While sexual violence remains a textual priority-it is mentioned 47 times in a 6page UNSC Resolution-women's CSOs are positioned in relation to protection not necessarily as the objects of, but actors responsible for protection. UNSCR 2106 states: the important roles that civil society organizations, including women's organizations, and networks can play in enhancing community-level protection against sexual violence in armed conflict and post-conflict situations and supporting survivors in accessing justice and reparations (2013,6).
This perhaps suggests a shift toward understanding women and their networks and organizations not as recipients of protection, but as integral to the provision or "doing" of protection. This shift, is however slight, as the emphasis remains with the expectation that women's CSOs will "enhance" protection, suggesting a complementary or supportive function. Enhancing protection also suggests that a degree of protection already exists, that can be improved upon.
UNSCR 2122 (2013) also discursively constructs women's organizations as contributing to, but not deciding on, matters of peace and security. For example, the preamble takes note: Of the critical contributions of civil society, including women's organizations to conflict prevention, resolution and peacebuilding and in this regard the importance of sustained consultation and dialogue between women and national and international decision makers (2013, 2).
Women's organizations are seen as "contributing to" and "consultation with," but not making decisions. Contributions by/of women's organizations are predicated on their "inclusion" or "consultation" with/in formal political structures, such as national or state institutions or UN deployments, field missions, and meetings (2013, pages 6 and 4). The juxtaposition between "women" and "international decision makers" reinforces the assumption that women's organizations are to be "included," "supported," and "consulted with"-but decision making occurs elsewhere. There is a logic of agency at work here, which underpins the subject position of women and women's CSOs within and across the discursive terrains of the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine. This has implications for gendered patterns of global security governance, and the ways in which these patterns reproduce a notion of "liberal agency and imperial discourse inscribed in the language of SCRs" (Achilleos-Sarll 2020, 1663). This, as Columba Achilleos-Sarll demonstrates in her work on visual representations in WPS NAPs, is form of agency that is "largely dependent on the support of the international community" (2020,1663). I return to this logic of agency below.
In the two most recent resolutions-UNSCRs 2467 (2019) and 2493 (2019)-there is an interesting discursive shift that acknowledges violence directed at women's CSOs. In UN-SCR 2467, states are called upon to condemn acts of violence against CSOs who report on sexual violence. Women's CSOs are described as important to changing norms and root causes, namely structural gender inequality and discrimination, and develop and put in place measures to protect them and enable them to do their work (UNSCR 2467(UNSCR 2019. This excerpt demonstrates a cognizance of the "work" of CSOs and the risk of violence that comes with that work. 9 In the most recent Resolutions women's CSOs are positioned as in need of protection from the state in order to continue their work. This obscures and side-lines the possibility that states may be the source of violence as well as implicated in sustaining and benefitting from structural gender inequality. This textual pattern appears in UNSCR 2493: Strongly encourages Member States to create safe and enabling environments for civil society, including formal and informal community women leaders, women peacebuilders, political actors, and those who protect and promote human rights, to carry out their work independently and without undue interference, including in situations of armed conflict, and to address threats, harassment, violence and hate speech against them (UNSCR 2493 2019, 3).
I cite this excerpt in full as it displays some important discursive openings in relation to the ways in which "formal" and "informal" is gendered. Here "formal and informal community women leaders" are mentioned, which may denote a shift from the masculinity of "formal" actors and the femininity of "informal." Women are also afforded the agency to be "political actors," and protectors of human rights. Perhaps signaling a slight discursive opening to consider women as political actors and protectors, rather than beneficiaries of political action on their behalf and protection. I find this notable given that protection and political action in this textual landscape are predominantly masculine constructs.
The slightness of this discursive shift is due to the positioning of states as the actors primarily responsible for protecting CSOs. It is also curious that while the text mentions that CSOs should be able to work independently and without interference, it is still the state that is placed as responsible for protection. If protection remains the responsibility of states, and women's CSOs are dependent on this protection to work safely, then the degree to which CSOs can work independently and free from interference from the state is precarious. Furthermore, it highlights that protection always brings with it risks and benefits for the protected. If the protection of CSOs is contingent on the state, what happens when it is the state that is threatening or unduly interfering in the work of the CSO? Within these two recent WPS UN-SCRs, there is a move away from the textual patterns that position CSOs as a resource for consultation and dialogue toward an acknowledgment of the work they do to address structural gender inequality. However, even though the construction of CSOs shifts slightly, the state remains largely unchanged.
This section discussed the main themes that emerge in the WPS discourse on women's CSOs. The inclusion of women's CSOs is predicated on their capacity to consult, engage in dialogue, and support. Similar to R2P's discourse on women's CSOs, in the WPS Agenda, women are positioned as subjects in the informal, national, or local spheres. Women's contributions to the WPS agenda are positioned as a resource, as providers of "data" and "information." Yet the interpretation of this information to inform decisions and action remains with the state and/or international community. While there are differences in the ways in which WPS Agenda and the R2P Doctrine articulate a vision or version of women's CSOs, what they have in common is a logic of agency. I now turn to discuss what I mean by this and the discursive possibilities and limitations this creates.

The Logic of Agency
Throughout the above presentation and description of the ways in which the frameworks of R2P and the WPS discursively construct women's organizations, or CSOs, I suggest that each relies on a series of gendered assumptions, about who decides, who acts, and who is called upon to "support" or "complement." 10 This is what I refer to as the gendered logic of agency that is organized by and through a series of gendered subjectivities. Logics are assumptions, as mentioned earlier, so the logic of agency contains assumptions about appropriate actions, capacities, resources, labor, all of which are gendered. As Sheri Gibbings suggests, we need to "examine how agency is embedded in the realities, desires and norms of the UN system that shape and produce assumptions about the capacity for action" (2011,534). In this section I explore how assumptions about agency underpin the ways in which civil society is gendered.
Logics of agency within R2P position women as objects of early detection, rather than participants. Instead of being actively involved in their own protection through early detection of mass violence, women are positioned as passive recipients of protection. Within the discursive construction of women's CSOs, these organizations are valued by their capacity to contribute to building resilient, protective states. The agency of women's CSOs is therefore co-opted by the formal mechanisms of a state's capacity to detect and prevent mass atrocity crimes. In relation to R2P for example, the contribution of women's CSOs to early warning mechanisms are constructed as useful, but only insofar that they complement, support, and reaffirm the purpose of the state and legitimacy of the international community to decide upon R2P matters.
The logic of agency flows through the series of gendered constructions identified in the discursive terrain of R2P. The state and/or the "international" is (op)positioned to civil society and the local spheres of formal politics (state/global/regional/international) are positioned in contrast to the informal "grassroots." This constructs women's CSOs as outside the traditional masculine spheres of power. Simultaneously this also constructs a privileged, valued masculine sphere-namely the formal, state and/or international spheres of power-in relation to a subordinated feminized informal or local sphere. At work here is a logic of masculine agency that stems from and reproduce essentialized logics of gender. The participation of women's CSOs in formal spheres of politics is constructed as complementary to the state. Women's participation in formal 10 It is not my intention here to undermine or suggest that women's CSOs lack agency, rather than within the R2P Doctrine and WPS Agenda, the agency of women's CSOs is contingent on the invitation by formal actors to participate, and that participation itself is gendered. politics is limited to the less antagonistic roles of (violence) detector, mediator, peace builder, conflict resolver, and/or negotiator.
Gendered agency is interesting here, as within this web of logics women's CSOs are not completely passive. 11 Women's CSOs are afforded agency, as long as it stays within the confines of feminized roles such as the violence detector, peacebuilder, mediator. This draws from the logic that women possess a natural aversion to conflict, reinforcing the essentialized assumption that pacifism is unique and naturally instinctive to women. This logic has deep historical resources as Elshtain has illustrated, as the "stories of male fighters and women home keepers and designated weepers over wars. . . have spilled over from one epoch to the next" (1995,140). These stories position women as the "caring" and "connected," in contrast to "callous" and "disconnected" men (Elshtain 1995, 238). Women are considered "natural allies" in fighting war and violence (Martin del Amargo 2018, 409).
The logic of agency within R2P and WPS (re)produces similar discursive patterns that confine women's agency to the realms they are assumed to be naturally good at, or better at than men. The global dimensions of this pattern organize the gendered value of labor. This is neither exclusive nor unique to R2P and WPS and has been explored both within and across zones of peace and zones of conflict (see for example, Sassen 2000 andTanyag 2018). As beyond this discussion of R2P and WPS, is a broader pattern of feminized work in sectors such as teaching, nursing, and childcare that are underfunded and poorly resourced, all of which is being made clear in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic (see Davies, Harman, Manjoo, Tanyag, and Wenham 2019). It is unsurprising to feminist scholars of security and political economy to see the same patterns of gendered inequality as both contributing to and exacerbating gendered violence.

Logic of Maternal Agency
Linked to the ways in which agency is gendered, is the unreflective and frequent linking of maternality with femininity. This is what I term the logic of maternal agency. Maternal agency is premised on the assumption (albeit a mythical one) that women are naturally inclined to be more peaceful (Åhäll 2015). Building onÅhall's work, Katerina Krulisova writes, "even childless women are frequently perceived as possessing maternal qualities, a stereotype based on the biological ability of the female body to give birth" (2020,. That women need not even be "real mothers" (which, it should be noted is already a gendered, raced, sexualized, ableist construction in itself) to be understood as "meaningful" or of value, demonstrates the centrality of logics of maternality as constitutive of femininity. This has significant implications for the ways in which agency, rationality, and responsibility are afforded to subjects. 11 Interestingly, and somewhat conversely, Shepherd notes that during an interview on the role of civil society in UN Peacebuilding initiatives a research participant stated, "people assume that women's NGOs are all going to get along, and they're all going to have the same priorities and, you know, they're political animals just like everybody else and have different priorities as well (Interview 4, NYC, 2013)." (Shepherd,902). To me there is a logic, or assumption as the research participant says, that women's NGOs "get along," or cooperate and are conciliatory. The research participants disclosure here however goes against the construction that women's' CSOs are "selfless saints and superheroines" (Shepherd, 903). Shepherd highlights that this has serious implications for "funding and governance of resources, as well as reinforcing the idea that civil society is a contested space/concept" (Shepherd,903).
The intersections of gender, agency, and maternality demarcate and organize how women's anti-war or antiviolence work is understood as linked to motherhood and the capacity to give birth, and nurture life (Cohn and Jacobsen 2013, 107). It matters whether the reasons behind women's admission to formal decision making is based on belief in their natural proclivity for peace or on the basis of their equality with men (Otto 2006, 135). Namely, because it constructs the scope of political agency women are "allowed" (Otto 2006, 135). Similar to Dianne Otto's work, Annica Kronsell highlights the ways in which the intersections of gender and agency are frequently "circumscribed" and linked to motherhood (2012,. As Katherine Brown argues, in the context of countering violent extremism, the maternalist logic presents women as not only more peaceful, but also domesticated and familial (2013,44). Within these constructions of gender and agency, I locate the logic of maternal agency that assumes a natural link between women with motherhood, and motherhood with peace and care.
The logic of maternal agency creates an array of conflicting opportunities and constraints for women's CSO. It also creates the discursive possibility for activism against war and violence and mobilization for war and violence. Maternity does not translate in any straightforward or predictable way to erase or deny of agency, but women's agency is mitigated through the (assumed) procreative potential of their bodies. Cohn and Jacobson note that the position of mothers mobilizing against violence and war produces different results (2013, 108). The "Mothers Movement" in the former Yugoslavia was violently repressed, whereas the Madres in Argentina were afforded relative protection, agency, and legitimacy (Cohn and Jacobson 2013, 108). Carreon and Moghadam also illustrate that the Mourning Mothers of Iran also faced state repression and violence indicating that although the maternalist frame resonates across the globe, it does not always provide a "safe collective action frame" (Carreon and Moghadam 2015, 23 see also Howell 2007, 427). When it comes to opposition and resistance to violence, the maternalist logic does not always bring about legitimacy, agency, and protection for CSOs. Meaning that even though at times it confers a degree of legitimacy and agency (see Mhajne and Whetstone 2018), it also brings about serious limitations, as well as the risk of oppression and violence.
The logic of maternal agency affords certain women, or more precisely certain mothers, legitimacy (Shepherd 2010a, 31). This functions as a logic within and across the R2P Doctrine and WPS Agenda reproduces legitimacy afforded to women, to women as mothers. The logic of maternal agency resonates with the political emphasis placed on women's reproductive capacities: in a literal sense they are constituted as bearers of the nation, as well as providing care, support and "cooperative obedience" (Young 2003, 9). I see this emphasis on care, support, and cooperative obedience reflected in the ways in which the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine construct women's CSOs. I continue to explore this question of care and care work as linked to a third logic I refer to as the logic of (super)heroinism.

The logic of (super)heroinism
Maternalism and agency reproduce gender essentialism that assumes women's procreative potential is linked to their innate capacity to care. Linked to these logics of gender and the gender essentialism they (re)produce is the superheroine logic (Shepherd 2011). The superheroine logic relies on the assumption that women are naturally better at certain kinds of labor and results in women being expected to do more, with less. The labor and resources of superheroines are assumed to be "infinitely elastic" (Montoya 2016, 158). What characterizes the super-heroine logic is (i) gendered agency, (ii) feminized labor, and (iii) the cooption of this labor by the state. What I mean by this is linked to the logic of agency and the expectation that feminized labor and resources can be readily and unproblematically appropriated by the state. I refer to the idea of (super)heroinism here as a logic, as it functions within the discursive terrain of the R2P Doctrine and WPS Agenda to (re)produce a series of gendered subjectivities.
As illustrated above in relation to the logic of agency, women's CSOs are constructed as complementary and supportive of the state. It is not necessarily that women's CSOs completely lack agency, but agency is granted, supported, given, or "allowed." Agency is therefore always partial and conditional; women's CSOs are invited to contribute, but only on the terms and conditions, and within the boundaries, of masculine logics of decision making and "appropriate action." The logic of (super)heroinism adds that not only do we expect more from women CSOs, but we also expect them to do more with far fewer resources (Shepherd 2011). Shepherd, for example highlights that: If a woman -even a superwoman -has to spend upwards of six hours per day sourcing and gathering water and wood (UNDP 2004, 28) her capacity for engaging in formal political activity or even informal community-based organization is likely to be severely limited (2011,511).
The logic of super-heroinism, relying on gender essentialism, constructs a series of subjectivities that position (some) women as superheroines. Women's labor and resources are expected to service the state-either as demonstrated in the context of R2P to detect and prevent mass atrocities, or more recently in the WPS Agenda, to detect and prevent violent extremism.
The expectation that women's labor can service the state and placate men's violence and encourage dialogue is also evident in peace-keeping contexts. For example, the double responsibility women peacekeepers face of both helping local women address sexual violence and at the same time preventing violent disputes that arise among men (Simić 2010, 196). This illustrates the gendered expectations of feminine responsibilities. 12 In this space, women peacekeepers are expected to civilize and restrain military masculinities. 13 Within Simić's findings, is the expectation that women are somehow naturally better suited to carry out certain kind of work, and this can be co-opted by state security institutions, in this case peacekeeping operations. The ways in which this pattern is reproduced in the space between the state and civil society follows similar gendered logics of agency, responsibility, and superheroine capacity. 12 For further discussion on the gender of responsibility see, Griffin, Parpart and Zalewski (2013), in which they highlight that the "concept and practice of "responsibility" are riven with masculinist undertones" (2013, 4). 13 Simić's work highlights that, while evidence suggests the possibility that more women in peacekeeping "can and does foster a change in male behaviour when women are deployed (2010, 188) her research demonstrates that countering abuse should not be a substitute for the more encompassing goal of improving gender balance and equality in PKOs" (2010,188). Furthermore, as more peacekeepers are being accused of sexual abuse, as Olivera Simić points out, "there is a prevailing view that such crimes could be reduced or eliminated if there were an increase in women military and police personnel" (2010,194). This diverts responsibility for preventing these crimes away from troop contributing countries to women, which do very little to sexual violence in PKOs, or help eliminate its causes (Simić 2010, 188).
The gender essentialism that sustains the logics of agency and super-heroinism is (re)productive of the gendered political economy of civil society participation. The political economy of the superheroine logic reproduces the assumption that women are naturally better at certain kinds of labor. This legitimates that labor being unpaid or poorly paid. In the context of the R2P Doctrine and WPS Agenda, women's CSOs are assumed to be naturally predisposed to care, reproductive and peace work, which feminizes and devalues both the bodies performing this labor, the labor itself, and the value attached to care, reproduction and peace. This resonates with recent scholarship that explores the ways in which "post-conflict societies depend on large and under-recognized care economies" (True 2019, 535 see also, Vaittinen et al. 2019). In conversation with this literature, what I find interesting is the ways in which the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine reproduce the contradiction that women's "informal," "grassroots" civil society work is essential and important, yet "mostly uncounted and unmeasured in national and international systems" (Rai, True and Tanyag 2019, 565). If women's lives are "depleted, the capabilities of women to contribute to recovery and to peace processes beyond the household, at the community and national level will be severely constrained" (Rai, True, and Tanyag 2019, 572). Returning to the suggestion there is a political economy to the superheroine logic, what is clear is that gender essentialism is at work here to (re)produce the superheroine logic that constructs and legitimates gendered expectations of women's labor in the context of WPS and the R2P Doctrine. The lack of resources available for peace work and the worldwide lack of funding for the implementation of the WPS Agenda-acknowledged repeatedly in WPS Resolutions and Reports (see for example, the SG's Report on WPS 2020, 33; UN SG's Report on WPS 2018, 22), reflects the material impact of assumptions that link gender, agency, work, value, and care (see also Hamilton, Mundkur and Shepherd 2021).
Within the discursive terrain of the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine, civil society is discursively positioned to support "powers in state and market," to paraphrase Cox (1999, 25). The ways in which this is gendered become apparent when the logics of agency, value, and work are surfaced and how they inform the ways in which the state and the market have always relied on the extraction of women's un(der)paid labor (Peterson 2002;Hoskyns and Rai 2007). This resonates with Shepherd's work that demonstrates the positioning of "local" knowledge as valued yet simultaneously subordinated and extracted (2015,887). The extraction of knowledge, data, and information-the resources of women's CSOs-and their co-option by the state is a gendered pattern that scholars at the intersection of feminist security studies and feminist global political economy are attuned to (Chisholm and Stachowitsch 2017;Martin de Almagro and Ryan 2020;Chilmeran and Pratt 2019). Within the policy architectures of the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine femininity and agency serve to mobilize women's labor to "fill the gap between the lack of social provisioning and actual needs on the ground" (Chilmeran and Pratt 2019, 603). When these needs involve the detection and prevention of violence, mass atrocities and extremism, the stakes are extremely high to not properly finance and take this work seriously.
What I have developed in this article is an argument concerning the discursive construction of women's CSOs and the gendered logics of agency that organize, animate, and give meaning to this construction. Logics of agency are gendered and (re)produce and position women's work in are naturally predisposed to peace work which contributes to the simultaneously undervaluing of this work and the co-option of this work into the interests of the state, international community, and the (neoliberal) market. The implications of this are concerning and undermine the normative premises that drive both R2P and WPS. This is evident in the construction of CSOs in R2P discourse, in which women's CSOs contribute to the early detection of mass atrocity crimes but making decisions about action remains in the realm of states and the UN Security Council. For R2P, the relationship between the state and CSOs is discursively constructed as an unequal partnership between feminized civil society and a masculine state. The value of CSOs is measured by their capacity to contribute to building resilient, strong, protective states. Logics, in this case, logics of agency and their function in constructing civil society are both "gendered and gendering" (Shepherd 2015, 904). What I have presented here indicates that in the textual spaces within and between WPS and R2P, the agency of CSOs is constrained, instrumentalized and co-opted by the state. This presents significant concerns for women's CSOs to implement the aims (shared or otherwise) of R2P and WPS. This raises important questions concerning the relationship between states and women's CSOs, the funding and independence of CSOs and the expectations placed on CSO to contribute to international peace and security.
The construction of CSOs in both R2P and WPS is also (re)productive of a gendered political economy of civil society. As I have highlighted, essentialist conceptions of gender lie at the intersections of the logic of agency, maternal agency and the logic of super-heroines, that function to reinforce the gendered political economy of state and market legitimacy. The discourses and attendant logics identified and discussed here all function to reinforce this traditional and deeply gendered conceptions of the state, security and the global economy. Women's contributions in the civil society sphere are premised on women's innate inclination for participation, consultation, dialogue and support, and women's work in CSOs is constructed as complementary and supportive of the state. Importantly, in the policy architecture of both the WPS Agenda and R2P Doctrine, it cannot be assumed that we can read "gender" or "women" or "civil society" in any straightforward or unproblematic way. What I mean by this, resonates with Nicola Pratt's argument for taking seriously the language and associated discourses of UN-SCR 1325: because it enables the "'international"' community to harness women's agency in the reproduction of global structures of power constituted through gendered, racialized, and sexualized hierarchies (Pratt 2013, 780 emphasis added).
It is this instrumentalization of women's paid and unpaid labor that alarms me and the expectations of CSOs in relation to preventing violence.
I have suggested that there are also racialized discourses and logics at work here. Further research on the care work required to maintain global peace and security needs to explore the historical antecedents of the ways in which care work, is organized through the intersections of logics of gender, race, and sexuality. As Parvati Raghuram demonstrates, care practices are "deeply imbued with racial politics present and past" (2019,618). Transposing this to the discursive terrain of WPS and R2P and questions of civil society, further explorations need to reflect on recent contributions that have highlighted how race configures understanding transnational collaborations and the exchange of knowledge and resources between the Global North and Global South (Haastrup and Hagen 2020, 136). Bringing questions of race and civil society into conversation with protection could open up lines of inquiry to explore what Swati Parashar identifies as the colonial overtones of Global North-South relations (2019, 837). The discourse and practice of including women's CSOs as both objects of knowledge and subjects of knowing (re)produces protection logics that reinforce and sustain the uneven distribution of global resources. Therefore, instead of eradicating, these normative frameworks reproduce, hierarchies of gender, sexuality, race, and class that are at the core of the types of violence they set out to prevent. We should, as Martin del Amargo writes, think "in an intersectional way in order to construct a truly transformative project in which women's agency in conflict zones and in particular moments in history can manifest itself in myriad ways" (2018,413).
By concluding this article, I do not want to imply closure on the discourses and logics presented here. To identify, name and write discourses onto these pages is, to some extent, necessary to make sense of them. It also risks (en)closing them, fixing them in place, which may preclude the further exploration of discursive ruptures. These closures and ruptures pose serious questions for further research and discussion concerning the relationship between the R2P Doctrine and WPS Agenda. What this article sets out is the importance of taking seriously the gendered expectations of women's CSOs in relation to the maintenance and promotion of peace, the prevention of, and response to, mass atrocity crimes, and violent extremism. Those concerned with questions of implementation need to take seriously the ways in which gender organizes how work, labor, resources, and care are valued and what this means for the funding of CSOs who work to maintain peace and security. In closing, to paraphrase Shepherd, it matters how we think, talk, and write about civil society as this organizes the discursive possibilities for peacebuilding and atrocity prevention (2015,905). My concern, ultimately, is the conditions placed on women's political subjectivity and labor, and the implications of this at the intersections of atrocity prevention and gender justice.

Supplementary Information
Supplementary information is available at the ISAGSQ data archive.