Challenging Assumptions: Unveiling the Effects of Political Ideology on the Implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda

Sammanfattning: Twenty-three years after the ground-breaking UN Resolution 1325, the goal of worldwide gender equality is still not achieved. This paper investigates how a government's political ideology is related to its Women, Peace and Security (WPS) approach. The research question is addressed by arguing that the political ideology of a government influences the quality of its WPS approaches and implementation attempts differently due to varying inherent institutional norms. The hypothesis and theoretical argument suggest that left-wing governments promote gender-friendly norms and support gender equality approaches, leading to better WPS implementation. To test this hypothesis, an Ordinal Logistic Regression is run for countries worldwide that have developed at least one National Action Plan (NAP) between 2006 and 2021. The empirical findings partially reject the hypothesis' expected direction, showing that leftist governments not only positively impact WPS quality when compared to rightist counterparts. Additionally, the research indicates that institutional norms are not a causal mechanism but another independent effect. The findings further suggest that gender inequality plays a role in WPS implementation, with greater inequality associated with better NAP quality. These contradicting findings call for future research, especially by focusing on finding new ways to measure the WPS implementation efforts.