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Introduction: The puzzle of rape in civil war -- The logic of wartime rape -- Research strategy, cross-national evidence (1980-2009) and statistical tests -- Mass rape by rebel actors: Sierra Leone (1991-2002) -- Mass rape by state actors: Timor-Leste (1975-1999) -- Less frequent rape in wartime: El Salvador (1980-1992) -- Conclusion: understanding and preventing rape during civil war

How do armed groups use violence to create social ties? What are the conditions under which such violence takes place? In this article, I describe how armed groups use one type of atrocity, wartime rape, to create social bonds between fighters through a process of combatant socialization. As a form of stigmatizing, public, and sexualized violence, gang rape is an effective method to communicate norms of masculinity, virility, brutality, and loyalty between fighters. Drawing on literature about socialization processes, I derive a set of hypotheses about individual-level factors that may influence vulnerability to violent socialization, including age, previous socialization experiences, and physical security. I analyze the support for these hypotheses using newly available survey data from former fighters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The results show the broad applicability of considering group violence as a form of social control within armed groups, suggest some of the limits of violent socialization, and have implications for both theory and policy.

Much of the current scholarship on wartime violence, including studies of the combatants themselves, assumes that women are victims and men are perpetrators. However, there is an increasing awareness that women in armed groups may be active fighters who function as more than just cooks, cleaners, and sexual slaves. In this article, the author focuses on the involvement of female fighters in a form of violence that is commonly thought to be perpetrated only by men: the wartime rape of noncombatants. Using original interviews with ex-combatants and newly available survey data, she finds that in the Sierra Leone civil war, female combatants were participants in the widespread conflict-related violence, including gang rape. A growing body of evidence from other conflicts suggests that Sierra Leone is not an anomaly and that women likely engage in conflict-related violence, including sexual violence, more often than is currently believed. Many standard interpretations of wartime rape are undermined by the participation of female perpetrators. To explain the involvement of women in wartime rape, the author argues that women in armed group units face similar pressure to that faced by their male counterparts to participate in gang rape. The study has broad implications for future avenues of research on wartime violence, as well as for policy. (World Politics / SWP)

Much of the current scholarship on wartime violence, including studies of the combatants themselves, assumes that women are victims and men are perpetrators. However, there is an increasing awareness that women in armed groups may be active fighters who function as more than just cooks, cleaners, and sexual slaves. In this article, the author focuses on the involvement of female fighters in a form of violence that is commonly thought to be perpetrated only by men: the wartime rape of noncombatants. Using original interviews with ex-combatants and newly available survey data, she finds that in the Sierra Leone civil war, female combatants were participants in the widespread conflict-related violence, including gang rape. A growing body of evidence from other conflicts suggests that Sierra Leone is not an anomaly and that women likely engage in conflict-related violence, including sexual violence, more often than is currently believed. Many standard interpretations of wartime rape are undermined by the participation of female perpetrators. To explain the involvement of women in wartime rape, the author argues that women in armed group units face similar pressure to that faced by their male counterparts to participate in gang rape. The study has broad implications for future avenues of research on wartime violence, as well as for policy.

Why do some armed groups commit massive wartime rape, whereas others never do? Using an original dataset, I describe the substantial variation in rape by armed actors during recent civil wars and test a series of competing causal explanations. I find evidence that the recruitment mechanism is associated with the occurrence of wartime rape. Specifically, the findings support an argument about wartime rape as a method of socialization, in which armed groups that recruit by force—through abduction or pressganging—use rape to create unit cohesion. State weakness and insurgent contraband funding are also associated with increased wartime rape by rebel groups. I examine observable implications of the argument in a brief case study of the Sierra Leone civil war. The results challenge common explanations for wartime rape, with important implications for scholars and policy makers.

Este artículo examina el notorio crecimiento de la literatura empírica en las ciencias políticas sobre la violencia sexual contra civiles en tiempos de guerra, incluyendo la violación, la esclavitud sexual y el matrimonio forzado, entre otros. Los trabajos anteriores, motivados por conflictos en curso en la antigua Yugoslavia y Ruanda, tendían a presentar estas formas de violencia como inevitables, omnipresentes y oportunistas o estratégicas. Sin embargo, la literatura reciente y las nuevas fuentes de datos han documentado variaciones sustanciales en la violencia sexual entre países, conflictos, perpetradores y víctimas y sobrevivientes. Con base en estas variaciones observadas, los académicos han desarrollado y propuesto numerosas teorías acerca de cuándo, dónde, por qué y bajo qué condiciones ocurre la violencia sexual, así como sus consecuencias. En este documento resaltamos los hallazgos principales desde la literatura, explicamos los debates más importantes entre expertos y exploramos varias posibilidades para investigaciones futuras. Para finalizar, describimos el aporte que ofrece el estudio de la violencia sexual en tiempos de guerra —tanto los hallazgos como el proceso de investigación— a un grupo más amplio de investigadores de las ciencias políticas.

ABSTRACTThe ethical risks inherent in student research on political violence that involve human participants are myriad. Undergraduate and master's students face constraints that are different than those for many doctoral students and faculty researchers, and it is the responsibility of educators and academic institutions to ensure that students engage in ethical practices and to mitigate risks. This article focuses on formal mechanisms of oversight. Drawing on discussions with colleagues across the globe, we describe how institutions can design oversight mechanisms to manage student research. We present five distinct models for how ethical oversight of student research is provided in academic programs around the world, considering the costs and benefits of each model. The article concludes that whereas the creation of oversight systems can seem daunting, it is useful to start small—indeed, moving from no oversight to some oversight is a significant improvement. Programs and academic units then can build on these early efforts, experiment with other systems, and eventually develop a system that is adapted to an institution through iterative improvements based on student and faculty experiences.

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.

Undergraduate and master's students frequently conduct independent human subjects research on topics related to political violence and human rights - often, but not always, in the field. This work may involve the direct collection of data from vulnerable populations, in unstable contexts and about sensitive topics. However, despite the rich literature about research ethics, the ethics of advising, enabling and encouraging this type of student research on political violence has been largely overlooked. This article aims to (1) raise awareness about the proliferation of students engaging in human subject research on topics related to political violence and human rights; (2) discuss the risks inherent in this enterprise that are distinct from those that many faculty and doctoral students face; (3) provide suggestions about how to mitigate some of those risks, including a shift away from fieldwork-based research projects. We argue that it is a collective responsibility to require that students engage in ethical practices, including more thoughtful and creative selection of research questions, sites and populations.