'Innocent women and children': Gender, norms and the protection of civilians

This dissertation examines the influence of gender ideas on the international regime protecting war-affected civilians. Theoretically, it connects gender as an analytical category to the social constructivist literature on norms and identities in world politics. I argue that the implementation of international norms can be adversely affected by the presence of sub-norms that warp actors' understandings of the broader norm's moral logic. The norm of civilian immunity contains such a sub-norm, by which the category "women and children" is treated as synonymous with the category 'civilian.' My analysis of the civilian protection regime demonstrates how this "gender sub-norm" undermines the actual protection of civilians in practice. The empirical chapters demonstrate that it exerts both constitutive and regulative effects on the way that different actors (warring parties, advocacy networks, and international organizations) attempt to implement the immunity norm. The gender sub-norm (1) directly affects belligerents' compliance with and enforcement of the immunity norm, protecting some civilians but putting others at greater risk; (2) is invoked in the frames used by advocates for 'civilians' in international society and (3) shapes the operational strategies employed by civilian protection agencies in complex emergencies.