Hannah Arendt’s insistence that power is intersubjective, produced in the public space and always holds a transformative potential forms the theoretical point of departure for this paper’s analysis of women’s participation in the peace processes of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iraq. First-hand accounts by local women peace activists are read through an analytical framework based on Arendt’s multifaceted conceptualization of power. Three central observations of Arendt are discussed in relation to these processes. First, her focus on political space as contingent and under constant negotiation; second, her insistence on plurality instead of essentializing collectivization; and third, her discussion on “natality” - the always present possibility of “making new”. The paper suggests that such a reading provides a fruitful and little explored path for unpacking multilayered gendered dynamics of exclusions in peace processes. Importantly, the analysis also accesses the agency that women peace activists perform, and thus recognizes that the post-conflict process of power re-arrangement may produce not only domination but also empowerment and transformation.
