1932

Abstract

This article reviews the remarkable growth in empirical literature in political science on wartime sexual violence against civilians, including rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage, and other forms. Early work, motivated by ongoing conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, tended to portray these forms of violence as inevitable, ubiquitous, and either opportunistic or strategic. However, recent literature and new data sources have documented substantial variation in sexual violence across countries, conflicts, perpetrators, and victims and survivors. Building on this observed variation, scholars have developed and tested a wealth of theories about when, where, why, and under what conditions sexual violence occurs as well as its consequences. We highlight the core findings from the literature, explain the key debates among experts, and explore several avenues for future research. We conclude by detailing what the study of wartime sexual violence—both the findings and the research process—offers to a broader set of political science scholars.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-041719-102620
2021-05-11
2024-03-28
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/polisci/24/1/annurev-polisci-041719-102620.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-041719-102620&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Amisi C, Apassa RB, Cikara A, Østby G, Nordås R et al. 2018. The impact of support programmes for survivors of sexual violence: micro-level evidence from eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Med. Confl. Surviv. 34:3201–23
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Aroussi S. 2020. Researching wartime rape in Eastern Congo: why we should continue to talk to survivors. ? Qual. Res. 20:5582–97
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Baines E. 2014. Forced marriage as a political project: sexual rules and relations in the Lord's Resistance Army. J. Peace Res. 51:3405–17
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Balcells L, Stanton JA. 2021. Violence against civilians during armed conflict: moving beyond the macro- and micro-level divide. Annu. Rev. Political Sci. 24:4569
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bauer M, Blattman C, Chytilová A, Henrich J, Miguel E, Mitts T 2016. Can war foster cooperation. ? J. Econ. Perspect. 30:3249–74
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Benson M, Gizelis TI. 2020. A gendered imperative: Does sexual violence attract UN attention in civil wars. ? J. Confl. Resolut. 64:1167–98
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Berry ME. 2018. War, Women, and Power: From Violence to Mobilization in Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  8. Bloom M. 2011. Bombshell: The Many Faces of Women Terrorists London: Hurst & Co.
  9. Boesten J. 2017. Of exceptions and continuities: theory and methodology in research on conflict-related sexual violence. Int. Fem. J. Politics 19:4506–19
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Brownmiller S. 1975. Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape New York: Ballantine
  11. Butler C, Gluch T, Mitchell N 2007. Security forces and sexual violence: a cross-national analysis of a principal-agent argument. J. Peace Res. 44:6669–87
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Card C. 1996. Rape as a weapon of war. Hypatia 11:45–18
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Carpenter C. 2006. Recognizing gender-based violence against civilian men and boys in conflict situations. Secur. Dialogue 37:183–103
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Chu T, Braithwaite JM. 2018. The effect of sexual violence on negotiated outcomes in civil conflicts. Confl. Manag. Peace Sci. 35:3233–47
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Clark AM, Sikkink K. 2013. Information effects and human rights data: Is the good news about increased human rights information bad news for human rights measures. ? Hum. Rights Q. 5:3539–68
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Cohen DK. 2013a. Explaining rape during civil war: cross-national evidence (1980–2009). Am. Political Sci. Rev. 107:3461–77
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Cohen DK. 2013b. Female combatants and the perpetration of violence: wartime rape in the Sierra Leone civil war. World Politics 65:3383–415
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Cohen DK. 2016. Rape During Civil War Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press
  19. Cohen DK, Hoover Green A 2012. Dueling incentives: sexual violence in Liberia and the politics of human rights advocacy. J. Peace Res. 49:3445–58
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Cohen DK, Hoover Green A, Wood EJ 2013. Wartime sexual violence: misconceptions, implications, and ways forward Spec. Rep. 323, U.S. Inst. Peace Washington, DC: https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/wartime%20sexual%20violence.pdf
  21. Cohen DK, Nordås R. 2014. Sexual violence in armed conflict: introducing the SVAC dataset, 1989–2009. J. Peace Res. 51:3418–28
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Cohen DK, Nordås R. 2015. Do states delegate shameful violence to militias? Patterns of sexual violence in recent armed conflicts. J. Confl. Res. 59:5877–98
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Crawford KF. 2017. Wartime Sexual Violence: From Silence to Condemnation of a Weapon of War Washington, DC: Georgetown Univ. Press
  24. Cronin-Furman K. 2013. Managing expectations: international criminal trials and the prospects for deterrence of mass atrocity. Int. J. Transit. Justice 7:3434–54
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Dancy G, Marchesi B, Olsen T, Payne L, Reiter A, Sikkink K 2019. Behind bars and bargains: new findings on transitional justice in emerging democracies. Int. Stud. Q. 63:199–110
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Davenport C. 2007. State repression and political order. Annu. Rev. Political Sci. 10:1–23
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Davenport C, Nygård M, Fjelde H, Armstrong D 2019. The consequences of contention: understanding the aftereffects of political conflict and violence. Annu. Rev. Political Sci. 22:361–77
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Davies S, True J. 2015. Reframing conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence: bringing gender analysis back. Secur. Dialogue 46:6495–512
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Donnelly PG. 2019. Wedded to warfare: forced marriage in rebel groups PhD Thesis, Tufts Univ Medford, MA:
  30. Edström J, Dolan C. 2019. Breaking the spell of silence: collective healing as activism amongst refugee male survivors of sexual violence in Uganda. J. Refug. Stud. 32:2175–96
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Enloe C. 2000. Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press
  32. Eriksson Baaz M, Stern S 2009. Why do soldiers rape? Masculinity, violence, and sexuality in the armed forces in the Congo (DRC). Int. Stud. Q. 53:2495–518
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Eriksson Baaz M, Stern M 2013. Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War? Perceptions, Prescriptions, Problems in the Congo and Beyond London: Zed Books
  34. Farr K. 2009. Extreme war rape in today's civil-war-torn states: a contextual and comparative analysis. Gend. Issues 26:11–41
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Farwell N. 2004. War rape: new conceptualizations and responses. Affilia 19:4389–403
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Finnbakk I, Nordås R. 2019. Community perspectives and pathways to reintegration of survivors of sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Hum. Rights Q. 41:2263–82
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Gottschall J. 2004. Explaining wartime rape. J. Sex Res. 41:2129–36
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Gutiérrez-Sanín F, Wood EJ. 2017. What should we mean by “pattern of political violence”? Repertoire, targeting, frequency, and technique. Persp. Politics 15:120–41
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Haer R, Hecker T, Maedl A 2015. Former combatants on sexual violence during warfare: a comparative study of the perspectives of perpetrators, victims, and witnesses. Hum. Rights Q. 37:3609–28
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Hoover Green A. 2018. The Commander's Dilemma: Violence and Restraint in Wartime Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press
  41. Hoover Green A, Cohen DK 2021. Centering human subjects: the ethics of “desk research” on political violence. J. Glob. Secur. Stud. 6:2ogaa029
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Hynes M, Ward J, Robertson K, Crouse C 2004. A determination of the prevalence of gender‐based violence among conflict‐affected populations in East Timor. Disasters 28:3294–321
    [Google Scholar]
  43. ICRC (Intl. Comm. Red Cross) 2020. Engaging with state armed forces to prevent sexual violence: a toolkit for ICRC staff on how to engage state armed forces in dialogue on preventing sexual violence in armed conflict Rep., June 16. https://www.icrc.org/en/publication/4400-engaging-state-armed-forces-prevent-sexual-violence-toolkit-icrc-staff-how-engage
  44. Inal T. 2013. Looting and Rape in Wartime: Law and Change in International Relations Philadelphia: Univ. Pa. Press
  45. Johansson K, Sarwari M. 2019. Sexual violence and biased military interventions in civil conflict. Confl. Manag. Peace Sci. 36:5469–93
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Johnson K, Asher J, Rosborough S, Raja A, Panjabi R et al. 2008. Association of combatant status and sexual violence with health and mental health outcomes in postconflict Liberia. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 300:6676–90
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Karim S, Beardsley K. 2017. Equal Opportunity Peacekeeping: Women, Peace, and Security in Post-Conflict Countries Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
  48. Kirby P. 2015. Ending sexual violence in conflict: the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative and its critics. Int. Aff. 91:3457–72
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Kishi R, Pavlik M, Matfess H 2019. “Terribly and terrifyingly normal”: political violence targeting women Rep., Armed Confl. Locat. Event Data Proj Brighton, UK: https://acleddata.com/acleddatanew/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/ACLED_Report_PoliticalViolenceTargetingWomen_5.2019.pdf
  50. Koos C. 2018. Decay or resilience? The long-term social consequences of conflict-related sexual violence in Sierra Leone. World Politics 70:2194–238
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Krause J. 2020. Restrained or constrained? Elections, communal conflicts, and variation in sexual violence. J. Peace Res. 57:1185–98
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Kreft A-K. 2019. Responding to sexual violence: women's mobilization in war. J. Peace Res. 56:2220–33
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Krüger J, Nordås R. 2020. A latent variable approach to measuring wartime sexual violence. J. Peace Res 57:672839
    [Google Scholar]
  54. Lake M. 2018. Strong NGOs and Weak States: Pursuing Gender Justice in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  55. Leiby ML. 2009a. Digging in the archives: the promise and perils of primary documents. Politics Soc 37:75–99
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Leiby ML. 2009b. Wartime sexual violence in Guatemala and Peru. Int. Stud. Q. 53:2445–68
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Lindsey S. 2019. Women's security after war: protection and punishment in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo PhD Thesis, Columbia Univ New York:
  58. Loken M, Lake M, Cronin-Furman K 2018. Deploying justice: strategic accountability for wartime sexual violence. Int. Stud. Q. 62:4751–64
    [Google Scholar]
  59. Mackenzie M. 2010. Securitizing sex? Towards a theory of the utility of wartime sexual violence. Int. Fem. J. Politics 12:2202–21
    [Google Scholar]
  60. MacKinnon CA. 1994. Rape, genocide, and women's human rights. Harvard Women's Law J 17:5–16
    [Google Scholar]
  61. Mampilly ZC. 2012. Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life During War Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press
  62. Marks Z. 2013. Sexual violence inside rebellion: policies and perspectives of the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone. Civ. Wars 15:3359–79
    [Google Scholar]
  63. McDermott R. 2020. The role of gender in political violence. Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. 34:1–5
    [Google Scholar]
  64. Medie P. 2020. Global Norms and Local Action: The Campaigns to End Violence Against Women in Africa Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
  65. Meger S. 2016. The fetishization of sexual violence in international security. Int. Stud. Q. 60:1149–59
    [Google Scholar]
  66. Milillo D. 2006. Rape as a tactic of war: social and psychological perspectives. Affilia 21:2196–205
    [Google Scholar]
  67. Mitchell N. 2004. Agents of Atrocity: Leaders, Followers, and the Violation of Human Rights in Civil War New York: Springer
  68. Muvumba Sellström A. 2019. Burundi's rebel groups and the stigmatisation of wartime sexual violence. J. Sex. Aggress. 25:3275–91
    [Google Scholar]
  69. Nagel RU. 2019. Talking to the shameless? Sexual violence and mediation in intrastate conflicts. J. Confl. Resolut. 63:81832–59
    [Google Scholar]
  70. Nagel RU, Doctor AC. 2020. Conflict-related sexual violence and rebel group fragmentation. J. Confl. Resolut. 64:7–81226–53
    [Google Scholar]
  71. Nordås R, Rustad SCA. 2013. Sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers: understanding variation. Int. Interact. 39:4511–34
    [Google Scholar]
  72. Olsson L, Sellström AM, Moncrief S, Wood EJ, Johansson K et al. 2020. Peacekeeping prevention: strengthening efforts to preempt conflict-related sexual violence. Int. Peacekeeping 27:4517–85
    [Google Scholar]
  73. Østby G, Leiby M, Nordås R 2019. The legacy of wartime violence on intimate-partner abuse: microlevel evidence from Peru, 1980–2009. Int. Stud. Q. 63:11–14
    [Google Scholar]
  74. Peterman A, Palermo T, Bredenkamp C 2011. Estimates and determinants of sexual violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Am. J. Public Health 101:61060–67
    [Google Scholar]
  75. Reiter D. 2015. The positivist study of gender and international relations. J. Confl. Resolut. 59:71301–26
    [Google Scholar]
  76. Revkin M, Wood EJ. 2021. The Islamic State's pattern of sexual violence: ideology and institutions, policies and practices. J. Glob. Secur. Stud. 6:2ogaa038
    [Google Scholar]
  77. Sawyer K, Bond KD, Cunningham KG 2021. Rebel leader ascension and wartime sexual violence. J. Politics 83:1 https://doi.org/10.1086/709432
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  78. Schulz P. 2018. Displacement from gendered personhood: sexual violence and masculinities in northern Uganda. Int. Aff. 94:51101–19
    [Google Scholar]
  79. Seifert R. 1996. The second front: the logic of sexual violence in wars. Women's Stud. Int. Forum 19:1–235–43
    [Google Scholar]
  80. Sharlach L. 2000. Rape as genocide: Bangladesh, the former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda. New Political Sci 22:189–102
    [Google Scholar]
  81. Sivakumaran S. 2007. Sexual violence against men in armed conflict. Eur. J. Int. Law 18:2253–76
    [Google Scholar]
  82. Sjoberg L. 2016. Women as Wartime Rapists: Beyond Sensation and Stereotyping New York: NYU Press
  83. Sjoberg L, Kadera K, Thies C 2018. Reevaluating gender and IR scholarship: moving beyond Reiter's dichotomies toward effective synergies. J. Confl. Resolut. 62:4848–70
    [Google Scholar]
  84. Skjelsbæk I. 2001. Sexual violence and war: mapping out a complex relationship. Eur. J. Int. Relat. 7:2211–37
    [Google Scholar]
  85. Snell A. 2011. The absence of justice: private military contractors, sexual assault, and the US government's policy of indifference. Univ. Ill. Law Rev. 3:1125–63
    [Google Scholar]
  86. Thylin T. 2020. Violence, toleration, or inclusion? Exploring variation in the experiences of LGBT combatants in Colombia. Sexualities 23:3445–64
    [Google Scholar]
  87. Traunmüller R, Kijewski S, Freitag M 2019. The silent victims of sexual violence during war: evidence from a list experiment in Sri Lanka. J. Confl. Resolut. 63:92015–42
    [Google Scholar]
  88. Tschantret J. 2018. Cleansing the Caliphate: insurgent violence against sexual minorities. Int. Stud. Q. 62:2260–73
    [Google Scholar]
  89. United Nations 2019. Conflict-related sexual violence: report of the United Nations Secretary-General Rep. S/2019/280, Off. Spec. Represent. Secr. Gen. Sex. Violence Confl., United Nations New York:
  90. Utas M. 2005. Victimcy, girlfriending, soldiering: tactic agency in a young woman's social navigation of the Liberian war zone. Anthropol. Q. 78:2403–30
    [Google Scholar]
  91. Webster K, Chen C, Beardsley K 2019. Conflict, peace, and the evolution of women's empowerment. Int. Organ. 73:2255–89
    [Google Scholar]
  92. Weinstein JM. 2007. Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence New York: Cambridge Univ. Press
  93. Weitsman PA. 2008. The politics of identity and sexual violence: a review of Bosnia and Rwanda. Hum. Rights Q. 30:3561–78
    [Google Scholar]
  94. Westendorf J-K. 2020. Violating Peace. Sex, Aid, and Peacekeeping. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press
  95. Whitaker BE, Walsh JI, Conrad JM 2019. Natural resource exploitation and sexual violence by rebel groups. J. Politics 81:2702–6
    [Google Scholar]
  96. Wood EJ. 2006. Variation in sexual violence during war. Politics Soc 34:3307–42
    [Google Scholar]
  97. Wood EJ. 2008. The social processes of civil war: the wartime transformation of social networks. Annu. Rev. Political Sci. 11:539–61
    [Google Scholar]
  98. Wood EJ. 2009. Armed groups and sexual violence: When is wartime rape rare. ? Politics Soc 37:1131–61
    [Google Scholar]
  99. Wood EJ. 2014. Conflict-related sexual violence and the policy implications of recent research. Int. Rev. Red Cross 96:894457–78
    [Google Scholar]
  100. Wood EJ. 2018. Rape as a practice of war: toward a typology of political violence. Politics Soc 46:4513–37
    [Google Scholar]
  101. Wood EJ, Toppelberg N. 2017. The persistence of sexual assault within the US military. J. Peace Res. 54:5620–33
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-041719-102620
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error