Talking with the Shameless? Sexual Violence and Conflict Resolution in Civil Wars

To what extent does sexual violence influence the likelihood of resolution in intrastate conflicts? Despite a growing body of research that explores actors’ motives for engaging in certain types of violence, such as civilian victimization and wartime rape (Cohen 2013, 2016, Hultman 2007, Kalyvas 2006, Wood 2010, Wood and Kathman 2013), the literature presents little insight on the effects these forms of violence have on the conflict and how it ends. The questions of how disputants respond to the deliberate targeting of civilians, particularly to sexual violence, and how this victimization influences the likelihood of conflict resolution, have been left largely unexplored. This paper addresses these questions by applying a gender lens to the power to hurt argument (Schelling 1960) and rationalist conflict bargaining theories (Fearon 1995). Specifically, I argue that there is a two stage relationship between sexual violence and conflict resolution. Initially, sexual violence promotes peaceful conflict management because it is a particularly hurtful kind of victimization. Yet, as sexual violence persists chances of conflict resolution decrease because it undermines actors’ commitment credibility. I systematically test this argument on all civil war conflict years from 1989 to 2015 using the Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict (SVAC) dataset as well as the Civil War Mediation (CWM) dataset and the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Termination (ACT) dataset. The results provide robust support for my argument and open new avenues for both the research and practice of civil war resolution, particularly in connection with sexual violence.