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Gender Equality, Masculinity, and the Dynamics of Violence in Conflict

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Gender Equality, Masculinity, and the Dynamics of Violence in Conflict Master’s Thesis in Peace and Conflict Studies VT2017 Department of Peace and Conflict Studies Uppsala University Fighting Gender Norms: Gender Equality, Masculinity, and the Dynamics of Violence in Conflict By: Mikael Kataja Supervisor: Lisa Hultman ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS All my love to my fantastic friends Alden, Christie, Luci and Rickard (calm down, its in alphabetical order) who provided countless laughs and snacks throughout all this. And to my family for providing support, and sometimes food, when I needed it. But perhaps most of all, thanks to my supervisor Lisa for helping me, guiding me and pushing me to do this. I really couldn’t have done it without you. 2 ABSTRACT 4 1. INTRODUCTION 5 2. PREVIOUS RESEARCH 7 2.1 Gender equality 7 2.2 Conflict intensity 8 2.3 One-sided violence 9 3. THEORY 11 3.1 Definitions 11 3.2 Masculinities 12 3.3 Causal mechanism 14 3.4 Hypotheses 17 4. RESEARCH DESIGN 19 4.1 Unit of analysis 19 4.2 Independent variable 19 4.3 Dependent variables 21 4.4 Confounding- and control variables 21 4.5 Data 22 4.6 Method 23 5. RESULTS 26 6. ANALYSIS 35 6.2 Illustrative cases 38 6.2.1 Janata Vimukthi Peramuna 38 6.2.2 Groupe Islamique Armé 40 6.1 Limitations 42 6.3 Future research 45 7. CONCLUSIONS 45 8. REFERENCES 48 3 ABSTRACT Gender equality is an emerging field in conflict studies, but so far research has mainly focused on the onset of conflict. However, strong correlations between low levels of gender equality and the risk for conflict has been found, which gives encouragement for further research. Other fields have explored the field of gender equality more extensively, and has for example found relationships between attitudes towards gender equality and the prevalence of violence in personal relationships. Building on those findings, this thesis attempts to advance the field of gender equality in conflict studies by examining how attitudes towards gender equality affects the dynamics of violence during conflicts, with the hypothesised relationship that more positive attitudes towards gender equality results in lower levels of violence. This is done through a statistical study of 172 selected cases from different regions and with different ideologies. The suggested mechanism for this relationship is that of traditional gender norms, and in particular traditional ideals of masculinity which are closely associated with violence. While not lending strong support for the all the hypothesised relationship, the results gives some reason for optimism for future research. 4 1. INTRODUCTION Gender is becoming a more and more prominent topic of research in the field of peace and conflict studies, and even more so in regards to policy. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 has gained a lot of attention in the past few years and is now a core of the Swedish foreign policy. Gender inequality has been hailed as one of the strongest indicators of probability of conflict within a state, and the role of women in peace processes is high on the agenda in the foreign policy of states and within the United Nations. However, gender is often interpreted as synonymous with women, with focus subsequently almost uniquely being on the impact of conflict on women. While this is an often overlooked perspective in a field dominated almost exclusively by men, and incredibly important to highlight, it misses the true dynamics of the societal norms, expectations, and behavioural pattern that affects men and women differently. By instead focusing on gender as a driver of conflict and violence, this study hopes to contribute to nuancing the image of what gender means for conflict research and policy. While some biological differences exist between the sexes and might explain a part of the variance in behaviour, most researchers now agree that it is the culturally constructed gender that has the biggest impact on attitudes and behaviour (Tickner 1992; Goldstein 2001). Culturally or socially constructed gender means that we are shaped by the expectations that society and people have on us, and that the differences between men and women therefore comes from societal pressure. A man is not violent, tough or ambitious because of his biological sex, and women are not caring by birth, but these ideals are instilled in men and women because of societal expectations on gender. This also means that constructed gender norms can also be reconstructed and changed, which has important policy impact. Previous research on gender equality and conflict has mainly focused on the onset of conflict, showing that there is a strong correlation between national gender equality and the risk of conflict (Melander 2005; Caprioli 2005). It has also been shown that individuals’ attitudes towards gender equality also affect the general tolerance against other people and the willingness to go to war (Melander & Bjarnegård 2017). The next step from there would be to dive inside the conflict and study how gender equality and attitudes towards gender equality affects the dynamics of the conflict, in particular the dynamics of the violence in the conflict and the use of one-sided violence. The field of one-sided violence has covered variables like strategic choices (Kalyvas 2006), level of democracy (Hultman 2012) and the recruitment process (Weintstein 2007), but so far little 5 attention has been paid to gender and gender equality. This study aims to fill the gaps in both fields by asking the question: how does attitudes towards gender equality affect the dynamics of violence in civil war? A few different theories will be the jumping off points to answer this question. A study from Norway about gender equality and violence in relationships has shown a correlation with more gender equal decision-making in a relationship and a reduction in violence, which would indicate that attitudes towards gender equality has an effect on an individual’s inclination to use violence (Holter 2013). Similarly, a study on political protest organisations in the Middle East found that groups with positive attitudes towards gender equality was more likely to use non-violent methods in their protests, which would indicate that attitudes towards gender equality also has an effect on group level strategic choices (Asal et al, 2013). The proposed mechanism of how this happens is a change in traditional gender norms, and in particular a change in what is considered to be masculine and not. Traditional gender norms are closely associated with a strict gender hierarchy, where those men who live up to society’s ideals of masculinity are at the top. Women, men who do not live up to those norms, and others who do not fit the ruling gender norms are, and should be according to the gender hierarchy, dominated by those on the top (Goldstein 2001; Bjarnegård and Melander 2011). Traditional masculinity is also closely associated with power and violence, meaning that violence often is an acceptable method to dominate others and impose ones will on others. As a result, domestic violence and homophobia is often widespread in countries with strong traditional gender norms (Theidon 2009). When applied to the context of rebel groups in conflict, these theories would suggest that in a society with positive attitudes towards, both individual rebels and rebel groups would be less inclined to use violence. However, as all these groups are armed rebel groups involved in active conflicts, they are still expected to use violence at some level. As such the biggest reduction is expected to be found in the use of one-sided violence as this in many ways goes against the norms of gender equality and non-violence. Three hypotheses are formed to help us answer the research question. First, attitudes towards gender equality are expected to reduce the overall violence in the conflict, and thereby also reducing the number of battle related deaths in the conflict. Second, one-sided violence is expected to be reduced as attitudes towards gender equality becomes more positive, based on previously mentioned studies that has shown that positive attitudes towards gender equality reduce propensity for violence both at the individual and at a group level. In sum attitudes towards gender equality is theorised to have an effect on both battle related deaths and one-sided violence, but the the effect may be equal on both dependent variables. One-sided violence is more of an ideological and 6 strategic choice, which is why the effects of attitudes towards gender equality is expected to have a greater on one-sided violence. To illustrate this effect, and also as a way to avoid possible confounders, the ratio between one-sided violence and total dead will be calculated. Our third hypothesis is therefore that a country with more positive attitudes towards gender equality will have a lower ratio of one-sided violence compared to countries with less positive attitudes. The data used for this study was collected from four different datasets; the Women in Armed Rebellion Dataset, Varieties of Democracy, and two datasets from Uppsala Conflict Database Program on battle related deaths and one-sided violence. The results were generated through regressions on the 172 available observations. In the end, clear support was only found for one of the hypotheses. Battle related deaths was consistently reduced as a result of attitudes towards gender equality, but in relation to one-sided violence the results were not clear enough to draw any substantial conclusions. However, the tendency of the results gives hope for future research into the subject. 2. PREVIOUS RESEARCH 2.1 Gender equality In his article from 2005, Melander lays out comprehensive evidence that gender equality at a state level reduces the risk of intrastate conflict onset, while looking at both leadership and at a more societal level through the ratio of men and women in higher education.
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