Why Now? Timing Rebel Recruitment of Female Combatants

Israelsen, Shelli

doi:10.1080/1057610x.2018.1445500

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…The Karen Women's Organization (KWO), for example, is the Karen National Union’s women’s wing. KWO women ‘primarily engaged in social work, such as care of orphans and war victims’ and mobilizing women’s participation (Israelsen, 2018: 392). All-female organizations are often important opportunities for female rebels to rise to leadership positions; after war, they may become autonomous civil society groups or retain their rebel affiliations.…”

Section: Motivating the Waar Project: Roles In Rebel Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing the Women’s Activities in Armed Rebellion (WAAR) project, 1946–2015

Loken

Matfess

2023

Journal of Peace Research

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This article introduces the Women’s Activities in Armed Rebellion (WAAR) project, a multi-methods project that includes a cross-sectional dataset of women’s participation in more than 370 organizations fighting in civil conflicts between 1946 and 2015. The dataset features 22 measures of women’s participation in rebel organizations: it includes prevalence and presence measures of women’s participation in combat, non-combat and leadership roles; details on all-female units within groups (and their primary focus – combat or support activities); and presence measures for types of support work (disaggregated into clandestine work, outreach to civilian populations and logistical support) and types of leadership activities (military or non-military) that women contribute. The WAAR project also includes a detailed, qualitative assessment of women’s involvement in each organization, comprising an approximately 360-page handbook of female rebel participation in the post-WWII period. This article describes the WAAR project and suggests avenues for future research leveraging these data.

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Section: Motivating the Waar Project: Roles In Rebel Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing the Women’s Activities in Armed Rebellion (WAAR) project, 1946–2015

Loken

Matfess

2023

Journal of Peace Research

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“…Wood (2019: 170–171), for example, finds that the estimated troop size is larger for groups that include female combatants than for those that exclude them. Similarly, Israelsen (2020: 128) suggests that recruiting women provides short-term infusions of resources that allow rebels to achieve strategic goals. Given the highly asymmetric nature of civil conflicts, the additional resources resulting from female recruitment—possibly hundreds or thousands of fighters—should also increase the group’s ability to mount an effective challenge to the incumbent regime.…”

Section: Female Recruitment As a Source Of Uncertaintymentioning

confidence: 99%

Female fighters and the fates of rebellions: How mobilizing women influences conflict duration

Wood

Allemang

2021

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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We investigate the potential relationship between female combatants and conflict duration. We contend that recruiting female combatants extends war duration via its influence on state–rebel bargaining. The recruitment and deployment of female combatants contribute to divergent perspectives between the rebels and the incumbent regarding the rebel group’s capabilities and the depth of its resolve, which impedes successful bargaining and extends the duration of the conflict. Results from duration analyses using data on the estimated prevalence of female combatants in rebel groups active between 1964 and 2011 support our central hypothesis and suggest that the use of female fighters is associated with longer conflicts.

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“…These findings are consistent with the recent scholarship emerging in political science and political sociology (especially studies on women’s participation in Latin American rebellions in 1970s and 1980s). Several other researchers also discovered that organizations that espouse Marxist–Leninist and egalitarian ideologies are more likely to recruit female combatants than other groups such as Islamist and nationalist ideologies (Israelsen, 2018; Thomas & Bound, 2015; Wood & Thomas, 2017). In fact, Thomas and Bond’s (2015) study indicated that positive gender ideology is the largest determinant of women’s participation in violent political organizations.…”

Section: The Ideology Of Equalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Women and the PKK: Ideology, Gender, and Terrorism

Haner

Cullen

Benson

2019

International Criminal Justice Review

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Women have had a long and varied participation in terrorist groups. This project explores the role of gender in one of the most prominent armed organizations in the Middle East, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, commonly known as the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (PKK). Rejecting the patriarchal values of traditional Kurdish society, the PKK has been particularly receptive to female membership. Insights on the nature of this participation are drawn from an extensive interview with a long-term, high-ranking PKK official. Inspired by secular egalitarian ideology from its inception, the PKK has created an organizational culture that encourages substantial gender equality in recruitment, training, military missions, leadership, and protections against sexual victimization. It is possible that gender equality in the PKK will have a feedback effect on the broader Kurdish society where patriarchal values remain dominant.

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Why Now? Timing Rebel Recruitment of Female Combatants

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Introducing the Women’s Activities in Armed Rebellion (WAAR) project, 1946–2015

Introducing the Women’s Activities in Armed Rebellion (WAAR) project, 1946–2015

Female fighters and the fates of rebellions: How mobilizing women influences conflict duration

Women and the PKK: Ideology, Gender, and Terrorism

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