University of Wisconsin Milwaukee UWM Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations August 2017 Power, Responsibility, and Sexually Violent War Tactics: a Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Rape During Civil War Jennifer L. Clemens University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uwm.edu/etd Part of the International Relations Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Clemens, Jennifer L., "Power, Responsibility, and Sexually Violent War Tactics: a Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Rape During Civil War" (2017). Theses and Dissertations. 1597. https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/1597 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. POWER, RESPONSIBILITY, AND SEXUALLY VIOLENT WAR TACTICS: A THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF RAPE DURING CIVIL WAR by Jennifer Clemens A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee August 2017 POWER, RESPONSIBILITY, AND SEXUALLY VIOLENT WAR TACTICS: A THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF RAPE DURING CIVIL WAR by Jennifer Clemens The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2017 Under the Supervision of Dr. Shale Horowitz Broadly, this dissertation asks why rape? In address, this research posits a leadership preference-based strategic theory of rape during war; marking the first large-N, quan- titative exploration of leadership preferences on the use of rape in civil war. Using an original dataset, preferences of armed group leaders are evaluated against the level of rape across all civil conflicts between 1980 - 2009. The results highlight three critical findings. First, evidence suggests that rape is distinctive from other human rights violations and is permitted or controlled differently than are more common forms of extra-combat violence (i.e., torture, extra-judicial killings, disappearances). This work argues that the symbolic meaning of rape, given its gendered nature and uniquely devastating outcomes, makes it a particularly attractive tool of war under some conditions. Second, statistical tests reveal that different factors predict state-perpetrated rape than predict rebel-perpetrated rape; with the strongest predictive power across rebel groups in ethnic war. Finally, results illustrate that the predictive power of the models is conditioned by the type of war. That is, provided the characteristics of ethnic war, models perform better in predicting rape in ethnic war than in non-ethnic war. ii c Copyright by Jennifer Clemens, 2017 All Rights Reserved iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures v List of Tables vi List of Abbreviations vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 - Theories of Rape in Civil War 4 0.1 Defining Wartime Rape . .5 0.2 Explanations of Wartime Rape: An Overview . .6 0.3 A Preference-based Theory of Wartime Rape . 16 0.4 Ethnic Versus Non-Ethnic War: The Case for Differentiation . 21 0.5 Data and Methods . 24 0.6 Contributions . 34 Chapter 2 - Rape: Just Another Human Rights Violation? 35 Chapter 3 - Explaining Rebel-leveraged Rape 61 Chapter 4 - Explaining Government-leveraged Rape 94 Chapter 5 - Conclusion 113 References 119 Appendix 135 Curriculum Vitae 154 iv LIST OF FIGURES 1 Government-perpetrated Rape versus Other Violations in Ethnic and Non- ethnic War . 48 2 Conflict-level Rape versus Other Violations in Ethnic and Non-ethnic War 48 3 Descriptive Statistics from Cohen (2013a, 12-13) ............. 137 v LIST OF TABLES 1 Correlation Matrix of Human Rights Violations Across All Wars . 49 2 Correlation Matrix of Human Rights Violations in Ethnic War . 49 3 Correlation Matrix of Human Rights Violations in Non-ethnic War . 49 4 Do Other Human Rights Violations Predict Government-perpetrated Rape? 51 5 Do Other Human Rights Violations Predict Conflict-level Rape? . 53 6 Factor Analysis: Uniqueness and Loadings Scores . 55 7 Distribution of Mass-killings Relative to Rape in Civil War . 58 8 Ordinal Rebel-leveraged Rape in Civil War: Group Fracture (model 1) . 86 9 Ordinal Rebel-leveraged Rape in Civil War: Recruitment Tactics (model 2) 88 10 Preferences Predicting Recruitment . 90 11 Ordinal Government-leveraged Rape in Civil War: Group Fracture (model 1) ....................................... 108 12 Ordinal Government-leveraged Rape in Civil War: Recruitment Tactics (model 2) ................................... 109 13 Preferences Predicting Recruitment . 111 14 Summary of Coding Rules: Levels of Wartime Rape . 138 15 Difference of Means Comparison . 145 16 Bivariate Rebel-leveraged Rape in Civil War: Group Fracture (model 1) . 146 17 Bivariate Rebel-leveraged Rape in Civil War: Recruitment Tactics (model 2) ....................................... 147 18 Rebel-Perpetrated Rape: Combination Log GDP and Democracy . 148 19 Rebel-Perpetrated Rape: Full Models . 149 20 Bivariate Government-leveraged Rape in Civil War: Group Fracture (model 1) ....................................... 150 21 Bivariate Government-leveraged Rape in Civil War: Recruitment Tactics (model 2) ................................... 151 22 Government-Perpetrated Rape: Combination Log GDP and Democracy . 152 23 Government-Perpetrated Rape: Full Models . 153 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS GDP - Gross Domestic Product GIA - Groupe Islamique Arm GSF - Graduate School Freakout GSW - Graduate School Work JVP - Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (Communist and Marxist-Leninist Party) PTWR - Preference-based Theory of Wartime Rape LTTE - Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam UN - United Nations vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank all of the members of her dissertation committee for their insights, expertise, and professional support. In particular, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Shale Horowitz, for his incredible knowledge, unending patience, and encouragement when seemingly all significant results were lost. I would like to thank Dr. Natasha Borges Sugiyama for her commitment to my academic and professional success. I am especially grateful for her reminders that academic success does not need to come at the expense of my own voice. I would also like to thank Dr. Dave Armstrong for his calm diplomacy amid more than one code-writing disaster, for making palatable a set of statistical skills I did not think (personally) attainable (and reminding me just how many I have yet to attain), and even more so for opening the door to a world of questions I would not be able to ask otherwise. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Steven Redd for his insistence on theoretical specificity and precision. Knowing I would have to satisfy his theoretical standards has made me a more thoughtful conference participant and a better scholar. A very special thank you to Dr. Kathy Dolan for being equal parts role model, mentor, and friend. I can't imagine what it would have been like to go through the last few years anywhere else. Unquestionably, I would not be writing this without Dr. Dolan's overwhelming strength and support. Also, a big thank you to Dr. Kennan Ferguson. I am grateful for the friendship, random discussions in an office door way, and the guidance in person-hood first and academics second. I would like to thank Dr. Michael Hansen for challenging me and believing in my abilities when I had doubts. Without your help, encouragement, and presence in my life, I would not be who I am. For taking me under her wing and providing me with a home, a Wisconsin-based family, sounding board, safe harbor, and an endless stream of baked goods, a very special thank you to Renee Van Someren and her incredible husband Mike; without whom my world would be a darker place. I would like to thank Nadia Shah for her friendship and the ineffable logic that kept me grounded, sane, and moving forward; and to the incredible Shah family for their wisdom, generosity, exquisite fashion, and sugar-laden coffee. Mr. Adeel Shah and his inspiring world vision (disseminated through many a notebook-guided discussion across the breakfast table) helped shape and inspire pieces of this work. I would also like to thank Lindsey and Dave Erickson, who adopted a Michigan stray without realizing the permanence of their decision, and Megan Wertz for her friendship, margarita recipe, and packing abilities. Finally, I would like to thank my family. To my sisters, Lori and Michele, who have been the most incredible role models, inspirers, cheerleaders, confidants, care-givers and friends. I cannot thank you enough for everything you are and all you have done. A special thank you to Thom, whose contributions cannot be quantified, but who has been equal parts father-figure, brother, mentor, and friend. I am also grateful for my extended Michigan family, Jessica Reeser Savage, Justin Savage, and Sarah Zajac, who remind me where I've been, what I am, and the kind of person I want to be. You have each been there to celebrate my highs, talk through the lows, and wade through the trenches. I would to thank my mom for all of her wisdom and self-sacrifice. I owe every opportunity I've ever had to you. My every success, now and always, is made possible because of everything you've been in my life. I would not have finished this project if it weren't for your unwavering strength and encouragement. Lastly, I want to thank my dad. There isn't a page, a sentence, or a word in this work that does not echo your voice (or at the very least, your infernal red pen). Not a day goes by that I am not grateful for your humor and intellect, your stubbornness, kindness, and courage; for after-dinner swims, summers at the lake, ski trips, stories, poetry and chess. Thank you for being the kind of person I could grow up trying to emulate and in that effort, be proud of the woman I became. I told you I'd finish this, and I will always wish more than anything that I could have told you in person.