Women and War: Women’s Rights in Post-Civil War Society

ABSTRACT

To what extent do women’s rights change in a post-civil war society, and what explains these changes? To address these questions, a number of studies emphasise the disruptions to daily home, work, and community environments brought about by the dynamics of conflict. While war is disruptive and has the potential to generate new opportunities for women, we argue that conflict alone fails to explain variations in women’s rights. Using a cross-sectional dataset, we examine the insurgent group’s political ideology as a central explanatory factor for changes in women’s rights in the aftermath of civil war. Results from a series of regression analyses show that while wartime dynamics help improve women’s political rights, this is not necessarily the case when it comes to women’s economic and social rights. These results demonstrate the need to account for the insurgent group’s political ideology in examining the change to women’s rights in the context of armed conflict.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We use the terms ‘internal armed conflict,’ ‘intra-state armed conflict,’ ‘war,’ and ‘civil war’ interchangeably to refer to a contested incompatibility over government or territory (or both), where the use of armed force between two parties, one of which is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths (Gleditsch et al. 2002, 618–619).

2. For cases where the years for which this variable was coded did not exactly match the pre- and post-war years, we used the values for the closest year available. For instance, the value for 2000 was used for the year 1999 for Liberia. However, where there were no recorded values for a time period longer than 5 years (e.g., Liberia between 1960 and 1995; Chad 1961–1990; Saudi Arabia 1960–2005; Yemen 1960–1990; Afghanistan 1976–1989; 1991–2005; Myanmar 1951–1974; 1987–2009), we opted to not use the values for the closest year available. The few cases for which the data on women in parliament were not available are treated as ‘missing.’ Finally, for the year 2016 we used the values for 2015.

3. The authors thank David Cingranelli for sharing the most recent version of the CIRI data.

4. To increase sample size, for those cases that started between 1978 and 1980, we used the value for 1981 to code the prewar levels of women’s rights. For example, for the El Salvadoran armed conflict that started in 1980 and ended in 1991 we used the values for 1981, the earliest year for which data were available, to code women’s political, economic, and social rights. These cases are Venezuela (1980–1984), Peru (1981–2010), Uganda (1981–1983), Uganda (1980–1981), Uganda (1980–1986), Uganda (1980–1989), South Africa (1978–1988), Egypt (1981–1998), Syria (1979–1982), Saudi Arabia (1979–1979), North Yemen (1979–1982), Afghanistan (1980–1989), Afghanistan (1980–2013), Afghanistan (1980–1988), Afghanistan (1980–1991), Afghanistan (1981–1988), India (1979–2006), India (1980–1993), India (1980–2009), India (1979–1988), and Sri Lanka (1978–1985).

5. These data were obtained from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.NE.ZS (accessed 29 March 2020, national estimates). Where data for the exact start and end dates were not available, we used data for the first closest available year provided that data were available for the first three years before or after the date. Where no national estimates were available (i.e., Bosnia) or national estimates were largely missing (i.e., Georgia; Mali; Niger; Cote D’Ivoire; Guinea; Liberia; Sierra Leone; Togo; Nigeria; Central African Republic; Chad; Congo; Democratic Republic of Congo; Uganda; Burundi; Rwanda; Somalia; Djibouti; Ethiopia; Eritrea; Angola; Mozambique; Comoros; Algeria; Sudan; South Sudan; Iraq; Lebanon; Afghanistan; Uzbekistan; India; Bangladesh; Myanmar; Laos), we used estimates drawn mainly from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) available here https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sl.tlf.totl.fe.zs, accessed 29 March 2020. To be consistent, however, we used one of these estimates for each country.

6. We utilised data from the United Nations Peacekeeping past and current operations to code this variable. https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/list-of-past-peacekeeping-operations, accessed 31 March 2020.

7. We also defined an interaction term between the rebel victory and leftist variables and obtained very similar results to those reported in the paper.

8. See, for example, Katumba-Wamala (2000) for how the leader of the NRA of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, was influenced by leftist revolutionary ideas and figures.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mehmet Gurses

Mehmet Gurses is a Professor of Political Science at Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of Anatomy of a Civil War: Sociopolitical Impacts of the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey (University of Michigan Press, 2018) and co-editor of Conflict, Democratization and the Kurds in the Middle East: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). He has published extensively in journals including, International Interactions, Social Science Quarterly, Defense and Peace Economics, Democratization, International Studies Perspectives, Party Politics, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Political Research Quarterly, and Comparative Politics.

Aimee Arias

Aimee Arias received her Ph.D. in International Studies from the University of Miami in 2001. She was formerly the Associate Director of the Miami European Union Center, serving also as an editor, research associate, and program consultant. Dr. Kanner's interests include comparative politics and international relations, particularly in the areas of Europe and Latin America. She has published several works including “European Union External Relations with the Andean Community: A Governance Approach,” in Joaquín Roy and Roberto Domínguez (eds.), The European Union and Regional Integration: A Comparative Perspective and Lessons for the Americas (U of Miami, 2005); “La Convención Europea: ¿Una Constitución para Europa?” in Alejandro Chanona, Roberto Domínguez, and Joaquín Roy (coordinators), La Unión Europea y el TLCAN (México: UNAM, 2003); “La institucionalidad del MERCOSUR,” in Roberto Domínguez Rivera, Joaquín Roy, and Rafael Velázquez Flores, Retos e Interrelaciones de la integración regional: Europa y América (México: Plaza y Valdés, 2003); and with Joaquín Roy, “Spain and Portugal : Partners in Development and Democracy,” in Eleanor E. Zeff and Ellen B. Pirro (eds.), The European Union and the Member States: Cooperation, Coordination and Compromise (Lynne Rienner, 2001); and España y Portugal en la Unión Europea (México: UNAM, 2001).

Jeffrey Morton

Jeffrey Morton received his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1995, specializing in international law. He has published across several important fields, including international law, security studies, international organization and international relations theory. The author of three books and numerous journal articles, Professor Morton received the FAU Researcher of the Year Award in 2004. Jeffrey Morton is founder and director of the Leon Charney Diplomacy Program, which competes annually in the National Model United Nations simulations in Washington, D.C. (fall term) and New York City (spring term). In 2012, Dr. Morton was awarded the prestigious Foreign Policy Medal by the New York-based Foreign Policy Association.