The systematic and widespread sexual assault of civilians by state agents or political actors is a matter of international importance but has received little scholarly attention. In this project, I will conduct a cross-national time-series analysis of incidents of collective rape, defined as a pattern of sexual violence perpetrated on civilians by agents of a state, political group and/or politicized ethnic group. The project focuses two primary research questions: 1) How do factors such as gender inequality, world culture, military strength, economic development, state strength, ethnic cleavages and political violence affect the onset of collective rape? 2) How do these same factors affect the intensity of collective rape? In order to address these questions, I will construct an original dataset from media-based data of collective rape incidents occurring between 1980 and 2003. The dataset will include two quantitative measures of collective rape, onset and intensity (i.e., the estimated number of victims), as well as several qualitative measures of the victim, perpetrator and community characteristics. The data will derive from three major news sources: The New York Times, Facts on File World News Digest and Reuters Business Briefs, and will be acquired through the work of two student assistants. These undergraduate assistants will be trained to electronically search The New York Times and Facts on File World News Digest, identify relevant incidents in the years 1980-2003, and code the data in several variables bearing on these collective assaults. Data from Reuters Business Briefs will be procured with the assistance of Virtual Research Associates, a private consulting firm that has access to the Reuters archive (1983-2003). I will then test the hypothesized relationships described above using pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis and discrete-time event history analysis. The resulting knowledge will contribute significantly to the sociological studies of gender, violence, peace and conflict and international relations. In addition, this project will have four broader impacts: First, it will produce the first cross-national attempt to estimate incidence and intensity of collective rape on a worldwide basis in a manner suitable for comparative analysis. Following the completion of the dissertation, this dataset will be made available to other scientists. We have extensive cross-national data on many other related topics (e.g. internal war, political violence, geno/politicide) but not on collective rape. The availability of this data will encourage others to use comparative methods to study this issue. Second, the knowledge gained through this project will be disseminated throughout the scientific community through articles and professional conferences, such as the 2004 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting. Third, the project will train two undergraduate students who will be involved in coding the news stories and constructing the data. This type of "beyond the classroom" experience is critical to providing an understanding of what is involved in social science research. Finally, the research has real-world implications. Policy makers and the general public are interested in the processes that create collective rape and related human rights abuses. This project will evaluate various popular theories about why these horrific incidents occur and provide insights for the relevant public concerned about prevention and mitigation.
