Why do some combatant groups commit mass rape during civil war, while others never turn to sexual violence? What are the conditions under which widespread sexual violence can be predicted during a civil conflict? Does sexual violence co-vary with other types of violence or does rape serve as a substitute for certain types of coercive violence? Does combatant violence against female noncombatants co-vary with violence against male noncombatants? In this dissertation project, the investigator will compare the cases of Sierra Leone and East Timor, two lengthy, violent and non-ethnic civil wars that have one important point of variation for my study. In Sierra Leone, rape was committed almost entirely by the rebel factions, while in East Timor, rape was the exclusive purview of the Indonesian military. To study these two conflicts, the investigator will use both statistical analyses to analyze survey and conflict data and qualitative methodologies to conduct interviews and focus groups with victims of war violence and ex-combatants. Using these data, the investigator will test competing hypotheses of sexual violence against civilians. While political scientists have made recent strides in understanding the conditions under which violence is perpetrated against civilians during civil war, these studies have focused on homicide to the exclusion of all other types of violence. Homicide, however, is often directed specifically at men and boys during war. Because political scientists have studied only homicide in their theories and analyses of violence during conflict, they have unwittingly focused on a form of violence that has mainly targeted men. In the initial part of this project, the investigator has found that such theories may not serve to explain sexual violence, which almost exclusively targets women. The broader impact of this study is that, through interviews with victims of war violence, the project gives a voice to the women who have suffered war rape, a phenomenon that many experts believe is becoming increasingly common.
