This paper explores the political participation of women in peace-building and politics in four South Asian post-conflict settings-- Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The paper opens by briefly defining its “terms of reference”—political participation and “post-conflict” settings. Four case studies of South Asian post- conflict states follow. In each of these, two avenues of women’s engagement will be surveyed: women’s participation in the peace process, including the writing of new constitutions, and women’s participation in formal political institutions. It concludes with a discussion of women’s participation—in polities ostensibly at peace, in conflict zones and in post-conflict areas—and what enables or inhibits such participation. RETRIEVED FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCE.