Abstract/Summary

This thesis provides an account of the response from the United Nations Security Council to the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) within the territories of Syria and Iraq between 2014-16. In particular, it analyses the adopted resolutions and the associated meeting records relating to the country-specific agendas concerning the armed conflicts across the two States. By applying a feminist critical discourse analysis methodology, I interrogate the extent to which the Council reproduces gendered, racialised wartime scripts when addressing ISIL. Further, I question what the discourse reveals about the Council’s commitment to feminist ideas — those ideas, that is, that the Council have incorporated into its normative framework through its women, peace and security agenda. In so doing, I situate the research within broader feminist debates relating to the risks of engaging with the increasingly militarised and hegemonic Council. Three general arguments are advanced across the thesis. First, the Council’s discourse relating to ISIL in the situation concerning Iraq and the situation concerning Syria evidence a disparity in the Council’s efforts to integrate gender perspectives and agendas into its country-specific resolutions. Gender-sensitive language is included within the resolutions concerning Iraq but is excluded from the counterpart discourse relating to Syria. Second, Both inclusions and exclusions of gendered language in the resolutions (re)construct, either explicitly or implicitly, existing heteronormative, racialised gender-based assumptions. Third, gender permeates the discourses at a surface level — as demonstrated in utterances concerning, inter alia, offences and harms — and at a foundational, normative level — as revealed in utterances concerning, inter alia, sovereignty, the rule of law, and ideology.