Normative Interventionism: Nordic Policies and Practices on ‘Women, Peace and Security Agenda’

Narratives of progressive Nordics have constituted the backbone for Nordic global humanitarianism, but the recent self-confident global agency that the Nordics have adopted has been possible only within the liberal multilateralism of the post-Cold War decades. This chapter argues that Nordic efforts for promoting peace are deeply embedded in the broader Western-led liberal international order (LIO), and its values and norms have given the Nordics a normative confidence to promote peace in the Global South. Seen from that perspective, being a global do-gooder is a contradictory position, as it necessarily evolves from a privileged or even superior position that makes doing good an obligation. The question then is how the Nordics have worked with this hidden colonial or paternalizing attitude of liberal ethos in their peace promotion efforts and how they legitimize their normative policies. To answer this question, a specific focus has been given to the Nordic policies supporting and executing the United Nation’s (UN’s) Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda based on UN Security Council Resolution 1325. Switching focus from rhetoric and declarations to actual practices throws light on how Nordic policies contain paternalizing tendencies, but also how Nordic-promoted practices may support locally designed and owned approaches to peace.