The regionalization of Women, Peace and Security: ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum

Abstract This article investigates the role of regional organizations in bridging global promises and national accountability to the UN's Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in the Asia–Pacific. Regional organizations play an increasingly important role in world politics and domestic change. They are also deemed vital to progressing the WPS agenda, given the cross-border nature of contemporary conflicts and security challenges. Yet, they have received limited attention in international WPS scholarship, and regional processes and outcomes remain underexplored. Using process tracing and comparative case-study methods, this article examines WPS trajectories in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), with a particular interest in regional/national dynamics and the regionalization of the WPS agenda through the structure and membership of these organizations. The cross-analysis of ASEAN and the PIF demonstrates that while regional organizations can create a normative environment for engagement with the WPS agenda, regional frameworks are neither sufficient nor necessary to sustain the commitment to the agenda. Distinct WPS trajectories in ASEAN and the PIF further suggest that the order of national and regional engagements is not indicative of success in implementation, pointing to the multidirectional nature of regionalization and a complex interplay of drivers and actors involved in WPS diffusion.