Rape is common during wartime, but even within the context of the same war, some armed groups perpetrate rape on a massive scale while others never do. In Rape during Civil War Dara Kay Cohen examines variation in the severity and perpetrators of rape using an original dataset of reported rape during all major civil wars from 1980 to 2012. Cohen also conducted extensive fieldwork, including interviews with perpetrators of wartime rape, in three postconflict counties, finding that rape was widespread in the civil wars of the Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste but was far less common during El Salvador's civil war.Cohen argues that armed groups that recruit their fighters through the random abduction of strangers use rape-and especially gang rape-to create bonds of loyalty and trust between soldiers. The statistical evidence confirms that armed groups that recruit using abduction are more likely to perpetrate rape than are groups that use voluntary methods, even controlling for other confounding factors. Important findings from the fieldwork-across cases-include that rape, even when it occurs on a massive scale, rarely seems to be directly ordered. Instead, former fighters describe participating in rape as a violent socialization practice that served to cut ties with fighters' past lives and to signal their commitment to their new groups. Results from the book lay the groundwork for the systematic analysis of an understudied form of civilian abuse. The book will also be useful to policymakers and organizations seeking to understand and to mitigate the horrors of wartime rape.

About the Author

Dara Kay Cohen is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Her earlier work on wartime sexual violence has received awards from the American Political Science Association, including the Heinz Eulau prize for the best article published in the American Political Science Review.

Reviews

Brilliant, groundbreaking.... [Cohen's] ability to address this difficult subject in a way that is analytical and sensitive, and to point to clear policy prescriptions that could apply her findings to very practical solutions to the problem of wartime rape is admirable. Cohen's approach to generating new data through innovative and careful methodologies is one that future scholars who want to study rape and other sensitive topics should follow. Rape During Civil War is an agenda-setting book, a model of high-quality scholarship and a must-read for anyone interested in stopping rape in conflict before it happens.

* The Washington Post *

[Cohen's] achievement is to shift the debate away from the question of whether rape most often occurs as a result of a deliberate military strategy, ethnic hatred, or simple opportunism and to instead focus on what she calls 'combatant socialization.'

* Foreign Affairs *


Awards
Winner of International Security Studies Section Book Award (ISSS Best Book Award) 2017 (United States) and Theodore J. Lowi First Book Award 2017 (United States) and Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section Book Prize 2017 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9781501705274
Author Dara Kay Cohen
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 21mm