Agents with Principles? Domestic Norms in Conflict-Related Sexual Violence

• In Event: Gender and Violence

Abstract

Principal-agent arguments have contributed substantially to our understanding of conflict-related sexual violence. We argue, however, that such frameworks are mediated by domestic institutions comprised of human rights laws. We posit that domestic laws—such as physical integrity rights and women’s political rights--embody gender norms. Furthermore, we argue that these laws constrain the behavior of government actors during intrastate war—regardless of whether government troops are present at home or abroad. To test this proposition, we analyze the perpetration of conflict-related sexual violence by government troops. Our unit of analysis for this project is the dyad-year, i.e. the perpetrator country-location country-year. We employ sexual violence data from 787 actor-incidents from 1989-2011. Our findings suggest that domestic laws—such as women’s political rights and physical integrity rights—are statistically significant for the behavior of government troops who participate in conflicts both at home and abroad.

Authors

• Sally Sharif, University of Notre Dame

• Kathryn Overton, University of New Mexico