Journal of Peace Research

2017, Vol. 54(5) 701–714

The ties that bind: How armed groups ª The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permission:
use violence to socialize fighters sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0022343317713559
journals.sagepub.com/home/jpr

Dara Kay Cohen

John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Abstract
How do armed groups use violence to create social ties? What are the conditions under which such violence takes
place? In this article, I describe how armed groups use one type of atrocity, wartime rape, to create social bonds
between fighters through a process of combatant socialization. As a form of stigmatizing, public, and sexualized
violence, gang rape is an effective method to communicate norms of masculinity, virility, brutality, and loyalty
between fighters. Drawing on literature about socialization processes, I derive a set of hypotheses about individual-
level factors that may influence vulnerability to violent socialization, including age, previous socialization experiences,
and physical security. I analyze the support for these hypotheses using newly available survey data from former
fighters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The results show the broad applicability of considering group
violence as a form of social control within armed groups, suggest some of the limits of violent socialization, and have
implications for both theory and policy.

Keywords
armed groups, cohesion, DRC, political violence, rape, socialization

How do armed groups integrate new members and cre-
ate social ties where they are lacking? In particular, why
do some armed groups turn to violent rituals to create
cohesion between fighters? What factors make some
fighters more susceptible to participating in these violent
rituals? In this article, I explore how armed groups use
multiple perpetrator rape (also called gang rape) to create
social bonds in a process I call combatant socialization. As
Checkel (2017: XX) writes, socialization is defined as
‘the process through which actors adopt the norms and
rules of a given community’. Here, I analyze the ways in
which gang rape, by communicating norms of masculi-
nity, virility, brutality, and loyalty, is used as means for
creating and sustaining armed groups – Checkel’s ‘given
community’.
More broadly, violent groups commonly use violence
to generate ‘power, status and a sense of belonging’
among members (Littman & Palluck, 2015: 90). Brutal
practices that create high costs of entry to a group, such
as stringent hazing, have been found to create more
committed recruits (Gerard & Mathewson, 1966); in
addition, violence directed at people outside of a group
can increase individuals’ identification with the unit
(Littman & Palluck, 2015).1 Gang rape is a stigmatizing,
public, and sexualized form of violence, which can serve
to sever ties to fighters’ pasts, communicate norms about
life as a fighter, and signal commitment to the new
group. In previous work (Cohen, 2013, 2016), I intro-
duced this theory and tested a series of implications in a
cross-national sample and a set of three in-depth case
studies based on interviews with ex-combatants in Sierra
Leone, El Salvador, and Timor-Leste. Based on this
research, I find that abduction by armed groups is asso-
ciated with increased reports of wartime rape, and argue
that the socializing properties of violence by armed
groups have been largely overlooked by scholars of polit-
ical violence.
1
See also Rodgers (2017) for details on this dynamic in gang
members’ socialization.
Corresponding author:
Dara_Cohen@hks.harvard.edu
702
Table I. DRC armed groups: Reports of sexual assault, forced recruitment and time served
Perpetrated sexual Perpetrated Forced to
Armed group assault (%) sexual assault (N) join (%)
FDLR 7 6/93 61
FARDC 18 2/11 27
Mai-Mai 10 8/77 36
CNDP 17 4/23 57
PARECO 29 4/14 71
Source: Elbert et al. (2013).
A total of 224 people were surveyed, but 11 interviews were not completed to the end. As a result, the denominator varies slightly based on the
number of surveys completed. See Elbert et al. (2013) for more detail.
What types of factors influence individuals’ suscept-
ibility to participate in group atrocities like gang rape? In
this article, I consider a series of scope conditions of the
combatant socialization argument: namely, individual-
level resources that could serve to lessen an individual’s
susceptibility to violent socialization. The three resources
I consider are being older, having earlier socialization
experiences, and feeling physically secure. All three of
these resources may serve to reduce an individual’s sense
of agency in their ability to resist social pressures to
perform violent acts.
In this article, I briefly present the combatant sociali-
zation argument, building on the sociological literature
on cohesion in military units, and the criminological and
public health literature on gang rape. I illustrate the
plausibility of these arguments by drawing on the inter-
views I conducted with ex-combatants during field-
work,2 and address central theoretical questions about
combatant socialization: why is sexual violence selected
by some armed groups, and what are other plausible
mechanisms – both violent and nonviolent – for build-
ing unit cohesion? I then explore additional theoretical
considerations and scope conditions of the argument,
including issues of age, prior socialization, and physical
insecurity of the recruits. I ask whether is it possible for
commanders to prevent, or for fighters to resist, this form
of socialization through violence – and, if so, at what
cost? I assess the external validity of the argument by
drawing on an entirely new case, using newly available
data (Haer, 2015; Elbert et al., 2013) on over 300 ex-
combatants in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(DRC). Although the data were not collected for the
present analysis and as such do not provide a decisive
2
Details about fieldwork interviews with commanders and rank-and-
file soldiers from the major armed groups in Sierra Leone are available
in the Online appendix and in Cohen (2016).
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(5)
Forced to Heard orders Heard orders Average time
join (N) to rape (%) to rape (N) served (years)
58/95 16 15/92 7.3
3/11 0 0/9 9.5
28/77 4 3/76 4.9
13/23 30 7/23 3.6
10/14 14 2/14 3.3
test, I find support for a number of the most important
implications, suggesting that the combatant socialization
argument has broad applicability.
Combatant socialization: An overview
Armed groups that abduct new members are faced with
the problem of how to create a coherent group out of
often fearful strangers who do not feel loyalty towards
the group or each other. The process of being abducted is
frequently violent for the recruit and may involve beat-
ing, forced labor, rape, and other forms of sexual vio-
lence. Available evidence suggests that abduction is not
generally a type of bloc recruitment, where groups of
family or friends who are kidnapped together subse-
quently serve together. Rather abduction more typically
seems to result in units of ‘virtual strangers’ who had no
choice but to join.3 Thus, combatant groups with the
lowest levels of social cohesion are those that recruit their
members both randomly and through extreme force.
Weaker forms of forced recruitment, such as coercion
and conscription, more commonly involve implicit
threats of violence – and allow potential recruits a small
degree of agency in deciding to join (see also Gates,
2017). These differences in recruitment practices prove
to be highly consequential for the internal cohesion of
armed groups and ultimately for the violence they per-
petrate (Cohen, 2016). These findings are echoed in a
comparison of voluntary and abducted recruits in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which found
that voluntary recruits felt ‘more in control of their lives
and perceive[d] the armed group as less threatening’
3
Although no systematic global data exist, recent studies support this
finding in four different countries: Sierra Leone (Humphreys &
Weinstein, 2004); Mozambique (Weinstein, 2005); Uganda
(Vermeij, 2009); and El Salvador (Hoover Green, personal
communication). See Cohen (2016: 25) for more detail.
Cohen
(Hecker et al., 2013: 147). There is significant variation
in recruitment practices across contemporary armed
groups; of the 91 major civil wars between 1980 and
2012, there were reports of pressganging by states in
29% of the wars (26) and reports of abduction by rebel
groups in 22% (20) of the wars (Cohen, 2016).4
As Kier (1998) argues, although seminal WWII-era
studies emphasized the importance of the ‘primary
group’ in sustaining the members of the German army
(Shils & Janowitz, 1948), social cohesion is not necessa-
rily linked to military effectiveness; strong social cohe-
sion may even be counterproductive to the achievement
of military and organizational goals by, for example,
making fighters more likely to band together to desert
(McLauchlin, 2015). Rather, it is task cohesion, or the
ability of individuals to work together, that is correlated
with effectiveness, although the direction of causation
remains unclear (e.g. MacCoun, Kier & Belkin, 2006).
So, while social cohesion has not been found to be nec-
essary for operational success, every armed group needs a
minimal level of social cohesion to operate, given the
considerable sacrifices which may be involved. In short,
social cohesion helps to produce social bonds where they
are lacking, to increase trust among people who may oth-
erwise be predisposed to fighting each other, and to create
a sense of collective responsibility that reduces attempts at
desertions or mutinies.
A method for building trust in such groups is through
the perpetration of stigmatizing, public, group violence.5
Researchers have established that violence can serve an
important function in organizing the structure of groups,
integrating new members, and maintaining social order
(e.g. Humphreys & Weinstein, 2008). Gang rape – both
the process of perpetrating it and collectively boasting
about it in the aftermath – is a particularly efficient
method of both creating and perpetuating cohesion, not
just as an initial hazing practice but also as a sustained
socialization mechanism once the norms and beliefs
about the utility and symbolism of rape are internalized.6
Although in theory there might be diminishing returns
to violent socialization if units remain static, many
4
The study of why groups use different recruitment practices is still
nascent; see e.g. Eck (2014).
5
McLauchlin (2015: 671) similarly argues that combatants use
costly signaling as a means to ‘look for evidence that their unit-
mates are trustworthy or untrustworthy’.
6
Wood argues that this type of violence comprises a third category of
political violence, which is neither strategic nor opportunistic. Wood
(2014: 471) defines a ‘practice’ as ‘violence that is not ordered (even
implicitly) but is tolerated by commanders’.
703
armed groups undergo regular infusions of new members
– whether through recruitment drives or efforts to
replace losses – and thus participation in rape may
become a regularized practice of such groups.
Studies in psychology and sociology on gang rape find
that perpetrators experience an increase in the mutual
esteem they feel for one another (e.g. Franklin, 2004).
Gang rape is often understood as a performance (e.g.
Franklin, 2004), with the other perpetrators as the
intended ‘audience’ and the victim serving not as a target
per se, but rather as a ‘vehicle’ for the perpetrators (e.g.
Sanday, 2007; see also Fujii, 2017, on violent display).
Interviews with perpetrators of gang rape in peacetime
contexts, such as South Africa and Cambodia, provide
direct empirical support that confirms these social bond-
ing effects (Jewkes & Sikweyiya, 2013; Wilkinson, Bearup
& Soprach, 2005).
The process of using rape as a socialization mechan-
ism may initially be the result of a selection effect in
which a small proportion of men in every armed group
want to rape. A much-cited survey of ordinary college-
aged men found that an average of 35% of the respon-
dents answered that they would be more than ‘not at all
likely’ to ‘personally [ . . . ] rape, if they could be assured
of not being caught or punished’ (Malamuth, 1981:
140). In addition to the presence of at least some ‘bad
apples’ in small armed group units, research on gang rape
suggests that leadership plays an important role. One
study of 39 incidents that involved convictions for mul-
tiple perpetrator rape found that in nearly every case,
there was a clear leader who directed or modeled the
violence to the others in the group (Porter & Allison,
2001). Leaders report acting ‘out of a need to prove his
leadership – and by implication his masculinity – to the
others [ . . . ] [while followers] feel enormous pressure to
live up to [the leader’s] expectations’ (Franklin, 2004:
31). Although this research provides a basis for the idea
that a small percentage of fighters may actively seek to
rape non-combatants, and also that these fighters may
become leaders in initiating incidents of gang rape in
small groups, it is only under certain conditions that rape
becomes a widespread practice of an armed group. Rape
is more likely to spread across armed groups when the
group is suffering from low cohesion, such as during an
influx of new recruits, perhaps due to an explicit decision
to grow the size of the group, or to replace fighters who
have been lost to battle, disease or desertion (see
Checkel, 2017, on informal/horizontal socialization).
The cohesive benefits of rape may be one of the cen-
tral reasons the leadership of the combatant units may
not be successful in preventing rape from occurring, and
704
may not sincerely attempt to do so. However, creating
cohesion through gang rape need not be a conscious
decision by the combatants or the commanders. It is
unlikely that combatants themselves identify gang rape
as having the explicit purpose of forming social bonds,
but rather that regular participation in rape develops out
of the dynamics of the combatant group and the need for
bonding. Winslow (1999) notes a similar pattern among
the former Canadian Airborne Regiment (CAR), which
engaged in degrading and sometimes sexualized rituals,
forging bonds of loyalty and friendship. She argues that
the need for cohesion in the CAR was especially acute
because of the dangerous nature of their missions. In
interviews, commanders described tolerating rape in
part because they recognized the organizational benefits
that group rape brought to the group. But commanders
also had to confront the costs of rape, including the
potential for the spread of disease. As a result, comman-
ders seemed to encourage, tolerate, and sometimes lead
acts of group rape – but were rarely reported to order
participation.
In sum, conditional on being trapped in a group of
hostile strangers, individuals may often choose participa-
tion in stigmatizing group violence over continued
estrangement from their peers. While it may not be the
case that individual combatants are actively seeking
friendships within the group that has just forcibly kid-
napped them, exit from the group is often not a viable
option – and social ties offer a host of benefits like pro-
tection, food, and shelter in the chaos of war. The fact
that rape can also carry personal risks to the perpetrators
– such as exposure to sexually transmitted infections that
are likely to remain untreated during the war – may serve
to reinforce its utility as a costly signal of loyalty and
commitment, as a particularly useful intragroup organiz-
ing device and as a tool of cohesion (see also Checkel,
2017, on the strategic dimension of socialization
processes).
Why sexual violence? What are the
alternatives?
Scholars have established that participating in mass atro-
cities can increase social ties (e.g. Browning, 1992), and
that battle experiences themselves can forge friendships
(e.g. Kenny, 2011). Given that previous research has
shown that violence in a variety of forms can produce
bonds of social cohesion, why do armed groups with
especially low cohesion turn to sexualized violence?
Sexualized violence serves an important role in com-
municating norms of masculinity, virility, brutality, and
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(5)
loyalty. The symbolic power of sexualized violence has
been the focus of many studies of militarized
masculinity.7 Morris (1996) maintains that sexual vio-
lence is central to some types of all or mostly male groups
because of ‘rape-conducive sexual norms’ that are ‘inad-
vertently [ . . . ] imparted’ to members of military orga-
nizations. In their studies of fighters in the DRC,
Eriksson Baaz & Stern (2009) also argue that military
organizations contribute to ‘a certain heterosexual male
violent masculinity’ that affects all combatants, including
women, and may contribute to the selection of sexual-
ized forms of violence. The fact that evidence demon-
strates that the majority of reported victims of wartime
rape are women and the majority of perpetrators are men
(e.g. Johnson et al., 2010) shows that highly gendered
dynamics undergird this socialization process.8
The context of abduction, in which individuals are
violently separated from their families, abused, and
forced to fight, may create an environment where rape
as socialization is especially likely. In a series of psycho-
logical studies on ‘precarious manhood’, Vandello et al.
(2008: 1326) argue that manhood is a status that is
‘achieved rather than [ . . . ] ascribed’ and, importantly,
that requires visible social proof.9 They argue that when
manhood status is threatened – as it clearly is in the case
of abduction into armed groups – common strategies for
restoring status include dangerous physical aggression,
especially public physical aggression that is ‘risky to enact
and costly to fake’, which well describes participation in
gang rape. In experimental settings, men who received a
‘gender-threatening’ treatment were more likely to select
an aggressive task to perform next (boxing) rather than a
non-aggressive one (finishing a puzzle) (Vandello et al.,
2008). Building on this body of work, public acts of
aggressive, masculinity-affirming violence might be seen
as important for abducted fighters in order to restore
some semblance of manhood and social status. It is not
necessary for this violence to be directed at people out-
side the group; however, as Littman & Palluck (2015)
7
As Eriksson Baaz & Stern (2009: 499) argue, ‘research underscores
how men/boys (and women/girls) learn to be “masculine” and violent
in the military through methods specifically designed to create
soldiers who are able (and willing) to kill to protect the state/
nation’. These methods are widely understood to construe the
feminine as weak, and can result in misogynistic training practices
(see Wood & Toppelberg, 2017; Goldstein, 2001: Chapter 5).
8
See also Cohen (2013) on female perpetrators of wartime rape and
Leiby (2011) on male victims of wartime sexual violence.
9
See also Goldstein (2001: 264), who argues ‘men are made, not
born [ . . . ] and must take actions, undergo ordeals or pass tests in
order to become men’.
Cohen
argue, violence against outsiders is more likely to form
bonds between insiders.
What plausible mechanisms for socialization and
cohesion-building exist – and under what conditions
might these alternatives be selected over rape? Kenny
(2011) suggests a number of potential pathways to
cohesion-building within military units: (1) training
exercises, especially boot camp drill aimed at indoctrina-
tion and instilling the importance of following orders;
(2) a shared sense of burden to face external threats/
stressful events; and (3) rituals, including the recruitment
process, hazing, and initiation rites. For many groups
involved in recent civil wars, the first two of these are
not options. Armed groups that abduct their fighters are
unlikely to engage in intensive and costly boot camp
training exercises. In addition, battles are relatively infre-
quent in contemporary civil wars (Collier & Hoeffler,
2007), so shared fighting experiences are rare.10 And
while mass killings and other forms of brutal violence
likely create some social bonds (e.g. Browning, 1992),
rape serves an important role in communicating norms
of masculinity that other forms of violence arguably do
not.
Because groups that recruit by force tend to be
weaker, less organized, and less resourced (Weinstein,
2007) – and, like many armed groups involved in civil
wars, cannot rely on regular, shared battle experiences for
forging bonds – these groups must turn to other activi-
ties for breaking ties to the past and building cohesion
between group members. It follows that violent rituals –
informal socialization processes, both sexual and other-
wise – are instead used to fill the void.
Scope conditions: Individual-level resources to
resist violent socialization
In this section I consider a series of individual-level
resources that could serve to lessen an individual’s suscept-
ibility to violent socialization by armed groups: being
older, having earlier and competing socialization experi-
ences, and feeling physically secure. All three of these
resources may serve to increase an individual’s sense of
agency in their ability to resist social pressures to perform
violent acts. Agency and individual choice play important
but not well-understood roles in socialization processes.
While previous research has considered the role of agency
10
While data on the exact numbers of battles in contemporary wars
do not exist, multiple studies confirm that both the numbers of wars
and the lethality of wars (in terms of battle-deaths) have decreased,
suggesting that it is likely that there are fewer battles over time.
705
on the part of leaders, how external factors affect the
agency of targets of socialization is the central focus of this
analysis (Checkel, 2017).
Age
Much of the previous literature on susceptibility to socia-
lization focused on the relative youth of the targets
(Checkel, 2017). An overarching assumption in much
of this previous work was that younger children are more
susceptible than older youths or adults to attempts to
introduce them to new ideas, norms, and rules. Evidence
from the conflict context provides some suggestive sup-
port for this. Child soldiers are rumored to be especially
brutal fighters, in part because they are separated from
their families and isolated from their normal social struc-
tures, and may be eager to fit in – and excel – at the new
norms and regulations of an armed group (e.g. Singer,
2006; Weierstall et al., 2013). Groups that recruit by
force may be more likely to also recruit children; Beber
& Blattman (2013) find that child soldiering is strongly
correlated with coercive forms of recruitment across a
sample of African rebel groups. Indeed, interviewees in
Sierra Leone shared that even very young boys partici-
pated in acts of gang rape. 11 Taken together, this
research indicates that armed groups that recruit by force
may be more likely to have younger cadre, who are
especially receptive to violent socialization rituals like
gang rape.
Previous socialization experiences
Earlier research also focused on the environments where
socialization could best occur, such as schools, religious
institutions, and within families (Checkel, 2017).
Because these studies largely focused on peacetime con-
texts in the developed world, few scholars of socialization
have seriously considered the broader environmental
context and how this may influence susceptibility to
violent socialization. If, as Checkel notes, state institu-
tions are weak or absent, schooling has been interrupted,
church attendance is less frequent, and families are dis-
persed due to conflict even prior to being recruited into
armed groups, then the trauma and isolation of wartime
may make people of all ages more vulnerable to accepting
11
Some interviewees reported that rape during the war was the first
sexual experience for the perpetrators, and that boys as young as nine
and ten years old would rape women in an effort to imitate their older
peers. Interviewee 11, male RUF ex-combatant, 28 May 2007;
Interviewee 14, male RUF ex-combatant, 31 May 2007;
Interviewee 6, male RUF ex-combatant, 1 August 2006.
706
new violent norms and enacting brutal behavior. Find-
ings suggest that the intensity and duration of particular
socialization experiences, such as years of formal school-
ing and positive relationships with teachers while young,
can have a significant impact on individuals’ later choices
to engage in violent activities (e.g. Theimann, 2015).
Interview evidence from Sierra Leone bears this out; it
was difficult even for adults to resist the strong pressure
to participate. As one former fighter said, ‘The new guys
never wanted to rape, but they were mocked a bit and
treated like they were not serious rebels – and, after a few
months, they got acclimated to the rape.’12
Physical insecurity
Finally, the marked physical insecurity of fighters
(Checkel, 2017), combined with the threatened mascu-
linity of abductees, as described earlier, are likely pow-
erful influences on the pace of the adoption of new
practices and norms – even ones that, prior to joining
the armed group, would have been unthinkable for ordi-
nary people. The vulnerability of lacking sufficient food
or even just feeling unsafe can serve to increase fighters’
propensity for succumbing to social pressures to be vio-
lent. Research in psychology has established at least two
routes through which physical insecurity might lead to
increased aggression in armed groups: increased percep-
tions of threat to individuals or to their in-group, and the
withholding of material goods, including food and cloth-
ing (Littman & Palluck, 2015). Interviewees in Sierra
Leone spoke of the constant search for food and medi-
cines, suggesting that the lack of both was a source of
much anxiety within the group.
Resisting social pressure and internalization
Evidence shows that fighters can – and sometimes do –
refuse to participate in acts of rape. These ‘resisters’
reported suffering social costs for not participating, but
there is little evidence that the costs, at least in this case,
were more severe (or lethal). Social pressure to commit
rape makes it difficult to refuse and to still be accepted by
combatant peers, and this intense pressure likely incites
many ordinary people to perpetrate gang rapes. As Gold-
stein (2001: 269) argues, prestige – and the avoidance of
shame – is ‘among the most central motivations of
human behavior’. However, unlike defying an order,
refusal to rape reportedly did not result in being killed
or even severely punished. This is similar to findings
from the peacetime context; Franklin (2004: 31) notes
12
Interviewee 6, male RUF ex-combatant, 1 August 2006.
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(5)
that costs for not participating in group rape include
‘be[ing] branded as nonmasculine, [ . . . ] expulsion from
the group, or, in extreme cases, becom[ing] victims
themselves’. A former fighter in Sierra Leone reported,
‘Some men chose not to rape, and they were teased. We
would ask them, “Maybe you are a homosexual?”’13
Related to resistance is the question of the depth or
degree of internalization, what Checkel (2017) refers to as
Type I or II socialization. As applied to the use of rape by
armed groups, it may be argued that rape has become fully
internalized – Type II – by the members of the group
when it regularly occurs in the absence of orders, or even
in the absence of overt coercion or threats. In Checkel’s
words, Type II results in ‘a deep [ . . . ] change in an actor’s
self’ (Checkel, 2017). But research suggests that rape, even
when it occurs on a massive scale, is rarely directly ordered
(Cohen, 2016; Wood, 2014). Does the apparent near-
absence of direct orders imply that gang rape as socializa-
tion generally becomes internalized by fighters?
One observable implication of internalization may be
whether former combatants continue to participate in
acts of sexual violence after they demobilize or the war
has ended. Research shows that sexual violence some-
times increases in the aftermath of wars that were char-
acterized by massive rape, such as the alarming rise in the
reports of rape of children in Liberia a decade after the
end of the civil war (Toral, 2012). Another observable
implication may be the decreased psychological stress
around perpetrating acts of violence over time; one study
found that the number of years abductees spent in the
Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda was negatively corre-
lated with PTSD symptoms (Pfeiffer & Elbert, 2011).
Both of these patterns are suggestive of prolonged expo-
sure to traumatic violence, and violent sexual practices,
serving to change attitudes and behaviors about gender,
sex, and sexuality by making sexual violence more accep-
table – and perhaps ultimately more prevalent in the
postwar society.14 Whether this type of deep change in
beliefs has occurred is consequential for policy (Littman
& Palluck, 2015; Wood & Toppelberg, 2017) because it
suggests different (and more intensive) interventions
than if the participation in group sexual violence was
only temporary role-playing, or Type I socialization.
In conclusion, these scope conditions imply several
testable hypotheses about how age, earlier socialization
13
Interviewee 12, male RUF ex-combatant, 29 May 2007.
14
Weierstall et al. (2013) suggest that those who joined armed
groups at earlier ages are more likely to internalize violent norms
and may require intensive resocialization into the norms of a
peaceful society upon demobilization.
Cohen
experiences, and physical security influence feelings of
agency and susceptibility to violent socialization. These
hypotheses include:
 Combatants who were recruited at younger ages
are more vulnerable to violent socialization.
 Combatants who lacked formal socialization
experiences at earlier points in their lives – such
as through schooling or church – are more vulner-
able to violent socialization.
 Combatants who reported greater physical inse-
curity – such as lacking access to sufficient food
or feeling unsafe in the group – are more vulner-
able to violent socialization.
Data and methods
There are a number of methodological challenges to
studying combatant socialization. The process of form-
ing bonds through co-perpetrating atrocities is largely
internal to individuals, and may be mostly subconscious.
How is it possible to observe an internal process?
Although it is difficult to study socialization using the
tools and data of political science, my strategy in this
project is to analyze a wide range of observable implica-
tions of combatant socialization, and then to evaluate
whether there exists sufficient supportive or, at very least,
suggestive evidence from a range of sources, including
survey data, interviews, and scholarly analyses.
In the following case study, I draw on data from two
main sources. The primary source is a survey of 224
ex-combatants, conducted in 2011 at two sites in the
city of Goma. The results of the survey are detailed in
a 100-page World Bank study (Elbert et al., 2013) and
serve as the basis for a psychological study on the mental
health of ex-combatants (Hecker et al., 2013). The
second source, used in the Online appendix, is a semi-
structured interview questionnaire administered to a
sample of 95 former combatants in the DRC in 2009
(Haer et al., 2013; Weierstall et al., 2013). In the follow-
ing section, I analyze some of the relevant patterns in these
two extraordinary datasets to test hypotheses and see if
there is support for a range of observable implications.15
Both sets of interviews – more than 300 in all – are
richly detailed and shed important light on the members
of many armed groups in the DRC, using information
provided by the ex-combatants themselves. There are,
however, important limitations to the data. The samples
15
See notes on the availability of replication data files in the Online
appendix.
707
are non-representative, and thus findings cannot be read-
ily extrapolated to the combatant population at large. In
addition, responses may be biased because the interview-
ees are mainly drawn from ‘welcome centers’ or demo-
bilization camps set up to assist former combatants who
have left or escaped their respective groups; the responses
may therefore be intended to elicit help or to evade
responsibility. The interviews are also conducted at one
point in time, not collected over a series of meetings
designed to develop rapport gradually as, for example,
Eriksson Baaz & Stern (2009) have done in their work.16
This type of one-time interview may be more likely to
lead to biased responses, as the authors themselves recog-
nize (Hecker et al., 2013: 147 on social desirability bias).
However, the direction of this bias is unclear.17 It might
be the case that respondents are more likely to report
being forcibly recruited rather than having volunteered,
or more likely to report being forced or ordered to com-
mit the most brutal violence, such as rape. Alternatively,
respondents may be less likely to report orders to rape,
perhaps in order to protect former commanders. Finally,
survey data provide evidence of patterns across a large
number of respondents, but important contextual details
are necessarily missing. I therefore supplement the survey
data with evidence from existing qualitative interview-
based studies, when possible.
Additionally, there are limitations in terms of precisely
testing the combatant socialization argument. The two
surveys were designed to study the psychological effects
of serving in armed groups, and many of the questions
evaluate the respondents’ degree of post-traumatic stress
and their enjoyment of violence (what the authors term
‘appetitive aggression’).18 In addition, because cohesion is
difficult to measure, the form of recruitment can serve
as an alternate measure of the strength of internal cohe-
sion in a group. While the survey instruments contain
questions about the most important dependent and
16
See also Wood (2003: chapter 2) for a discussion on repeat
interviewing in the ‘shadow of civil war’.
17
This is illustrated by the fact that a minority said that they were
ever ordered to rape in the Elbert et al. survey while a majority
reported the same in the Haer survey.
18
‘Appetitive aggression’ is violence that ‘is driven by an anticipation
of an increase in excitement [ . . . ] and associated with an increase in
positive arousal’ (Weierstall, 2013: 506) and that ‘is rewarding in
itself [ . . . ] and is perceived as appealing during the act’ (Haer
et al., 2013: 1). Appetitive aggression may be one manifestation of
Type II socialization in which the new norms of brutal violence have
become fully internalized. Weierstall et al. (2013: 505) note that
people within armed groups may have ‘attitudes and values that
favor harming others when socialized within a combatant force’.
708
independent variables for the combatant socialization
argument – namely, sexual violence, forced recruitment,
and cohesion – none of the questions directly inquire
about whether an individual perpetrated rape. The Haer
study asked only about whether rape was ordered in the
unit while the Elbert et al. study inquired about witnes-
sing, being victimized or committing ‘sexual assault’, as
well as whether the respondent had heard about orders to
rape in the unit. None of these questions are ideal for the
present study.19 Sexual assault is a broader category than
rape, and it is not clear exactly what type of violation
particular respondents were reporting. In addition, rape
can be frequent but not ordered, so an answer of ‘no’ on
Haer’s survey does not indicate that rape did not occur,
only that it was not directed by the command. In the
proceeding analysis, I primarily rely on the Elbert et al.
data for information on perpetration of rape, and use
the Haer data for reports on closeness between fighters
(in Online appendix).
The form of sexual violence was not a part of either of
the surveys, so the relative prevalence of gang rape is
unknown. However, multiple sources confirm that rape
– and particularly gang rape – has been very frequent,
especially in the Eastern DRC, beginning around 1998
(e.g. Samset, 2011; Johnson et al., 2010). Rape prior to
the war had been mostly one-on-one and in private; the
wartime rapes had multiple perpetrators, were public and
quite brutal – and as a result were ‘a shock’ to local
people (Samset, 2011: 236). In one study in Eastern
DRC, about two-thirds of the respondents – all women
who experienced some form of sexual violence – reported
that they were gang raped (Kelly, 2010). Furthermore,
scholars’ descriptions of gang rape emphasize that perpe-
trators watched each other.20 Elbert et al. (2013: 54)
describe gang rape as a ‘competition of cruelty’ through
which sexuality, masculinity, and virility were observed,
measured, and compared.
Despite these issues, the two ex-combatant datasets
used in the case study are some of the only available
quantitative datasets of combatants’ experiences in
19
The Elbert et al. survey instrument includes an item about being
‘forced to commit sexual assault’. However, the authors stated that
they asked first about committing the act (not being forced), then if
the answer was no, whether the respondent had been forced. The
answers to these questions were aggregated into one response, which
is reported in the published report and should be interpreted as
having ‘committed sexual assault’. Personal correspondence with
author, 28 June 2016.
20
Eriksson Baaz & Stern (2009: 513) quote a respondent describing
watching a gang rape: ‘The whole section raped her, this one raped her,
then the other one and the other one and the other one and so on [ . . . ]’
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(5)
DRC.21 Both are impressive efforts to gather systematic
evidence directly from former fighters, and reflect the
experiences of a variety of respondents, including repre-
sentatives from numerous armed groups, commanders
and rank-and-file fighters, a range of ages, and male and
female former fighters (although only a small number of
women are in either survey). The patterns that the two
studies reveal should not be taken as definitive. How-
ever, they can provide suggestive evidence of broad pat-
terns, and as such, are valuable data with which to
explore the external validity of the combatant socializa-
tion argument.
Rape as socialization in the DRC: Evidence
from survey data
Background to the conflict and armed groups
The DRC has experienced several periods of civil war
and conflict punctuated by long periods of peace. These
periods of fighting include independence era conflicts
between 1960 and 1965, a secessionist attempt in
1977–78, widespread intensive fighting between 1996
and 1997 (often called the First Congo War), again
between 1998 and 2002 (called the Second Congo War
or the Great War), and most recently between 2012 and
2013.22 The conflicts in DRC are renowned for terrible
and brutal violence, including enormous numbers of
deaths from fighting and disease,23 and thousands of
rapes. The extent of rape was so widespread that former
UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Con-
flict famously called the DRC ‘the rape capital of the
world’ (BBC, 2010). The causes and dynamics of the
fighting are complex: both an ethnic conflict and a land
and resource-based war, that was heavily internationa-
lized due to foreign support for some armed groups by
neighboring Uganda and Rwanda. One scholar esti-
mated that at some points, up to 14 foreign militaries
21
Elbert et al. (2013) note that there are two other sets of studies that
have focused on interviews with perpetrators: Eriksson Baaz & Stern’s
(e.g. 2009) research on the FARDC soldiers and Kelly’s (e.g. 2010)
work on the Mai Mai militia. However, these two sets of authors have
not made their data publicly available, and they each focus on only
one combatant group: Kelly (2010) interviewed 33 former Mai Mai
militia; Eriksson Baaz & Stern (2009) interviewed 193 people in the
national military.
22
See the UCDP Conflict Encyclopedia entry on DRC for further
details: http://ucdp.uu.se/#country/490.
23
For an analysis of the controversy surrounding estimating the
number of direct and indirect deaths resulting from war in DRC
between 1998 and 2007, see the Human Security Report 2009/
2010, Chapter 7.
Cohen
were involved (Autesserre, 2010), prompting one US
diplomat to dub the 1998–2002 Congolese conflict
‘Africa’s first World War’. Although a series of peace
agreements were signed over the years, violence contin-
ued, especially in the eastern region of the country.
Samset (2011: 230) calls the fragile situation in 2002–
09 a period of ‘no war, no peace’.
This study joins with others who have argued that
disaggregating and comparing armed actors is essential
to understanding conflict and post-conflict dynamics,
whether analyzing different armed groups active in a
single war (e.g. Weinstein, 2007), or examining different
subgroups of the same faction (e.g. McLauchlin, 2015;
Hoover Green, 2017). Turning to research on the DRC
more specifically, Autesserre (2010), for example, studies
the inner workings of international interveners, such as
diplomats and UN staffers. The five armed groups ana-
lyzed in this case study include only a subset and an
aggregation of the over two dozen such groups that have
been active in recent years; respondents to the surveys
reported membership in 16 different groups (Elbert
et al., 2013).
Following Elbert et al., the data below are reported for
five of the main armed groups: the national military or
Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo
(FARDC); the Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du
Rwanda (FDLR), derived from ethnic Hutus who
escaped the genocide in Rwanda (and triggered a Rwan-
dan intervention into DRC); the Congrès National pour
la Défense du Peuple (CNDP), a group representing Tutsi
tribes in North and South Kivu; the Patriotes Résistants
Congolais (PARECO), an umbrella group that includes
some Mai-Mai militias; and then a number of other
Mai-Mai militia groups, each defending their own local
tribal community.24
Reports of sexual assault and rape by former fighters
A large proportion of the respondents in the Elbert et al.
survey reported that they had some experience with
sexual violence. While only 11% (24 of 224) of the
respondents reported that they had perpetrated sexual
assault, 59% (133) reported that they had witnessed
sexual assault and 12% (27) reported that they had
themselves been sexually assaulted.25 There was also
24
For further details on the definitions, histories, recruitment
practices, collaborations, and structures of each of these groups, see
Annex 2: Profile of Armed Groups (Elbert et al., 2013).
25
Although the definition of ‘sexual assault’ is unclear in the survey
instrument (examples include unwanted sexual touching or injuring
of genitals, rape, object rape, and being given as a wife), the author of
709
variation across armed groups: the majority of those who
perpetrated a sexual assault were in PARECO, while the
majority of the witnesses to sexual assault and the major-
ity of those reporting being sexually assaulted were in the
Mai-Mai or the FDLR.26
Combatant socialization: Evaluating hypotheses and
observable implications
The combatant socialization argument yields a number
of observable implications. One of the most important
implications – explored below – is that rape should be
more likely to be perpetrated by members of armed
groups that abducted the majority of their fighters than
by those that recruited their fighters through voluntary
methods. Two other implications are evaluated in the
Online appendix.27 The remainder of the proceeding
analysis is centered on the three hypotheses about
individual-level factors that may be associated with sus-
ceptibility to violent socialization: younger age, physical
insecurity, and a lack of previous formal socialization
experience.
 Rape is more likely to be perpetrated by armed
groups in which the majority of recruits were
abducted.
Table I displays the proportion of combatants who
reported committing sexual assault while serving as a
member of an armed group, the proportion who were
reportedly forced to join, and the proportion who
reported hearing orders to rape in their unit, based on
the data from the Elbert et al. study. The patterns provide
some initial suggestive evidence for the combatant socia-
lization argument. Two of the groups with the highest
proportions of forced fighters, the PARECO and CNDP
at 71% and 57%, respectively, were also among the
groups with the highest proportion admitting to having
committed a sexual assault (29% and 17%, respectively).
However, the pattern is not clear-cut. Counter to expec-
tations, the FDLR has a high proportion of forced
the dataset reported that most respondents specifically reported rape.
Personal communication with the author, 28 June 2016.
26
There are only two women in the survey sample in the Elbert et al.
dataset and both reported being sexually assaulted by the FDLR; the
remainder of self-reported victims of sexual assault are men. See
Johnson et al. (2010) for a survey that uncovered a significant
proportion of male victims of sexual violence in the DRC.
27
These observable implications are (1) orders to rape are relatively
rare, even when rape occurs on a large scale and (2) combatants
describe participating in gang rape as a cohesive, bonding or
enjoyable activity.
710
recruits, but a relatively low rate of sexual assault, and the
FARDC had the second-highest proportion of perpetra-
tors of sexual assault but a relative minority of abductees.
However, calculating the correlations across these propor-
tions also provides suggestive support: committing a sex-
ual assault is positively correlated with being forced to join
(0.35). Table I also shows the average length of service;
this was the lowest for PARECO, the group with the
highest proportion of perpetrators of sexual assault. This
suggests a higher turnover rate – and possibly a greater
need for violent socialization among the members of the
group.
One reason for this mixed support may be the diffi-
culty of defining forced recruitment in the DRC.
Observers report that forced recruitment in DRC is
widespread and frequently both sudden and violent:
‘Forced recruitment often happens at gunpoint and there
are credible accounts of incidents in which the choice
given to the subject was either to join or to die’ (Elbert
et al., 2013: 13). However, ‘voluntary’ recruitment is
rarely understood to be truly voluntary because ‘peer
pressure on individuals, families, and communities is
coercive and often set against the threat of attack by
other groups and forced recruitment’ (Elbert et al.,
2013: 13). Because the ‘boundaries between forcible and
voluntary recruitment were [ . . . ] sometimes blurred’
and it is measured only through self-reports, the data
reflect the ‘combatant’s subjective perception of his
recruitment’ (Hecker at al., 2013: 143). Among the
armed groups in DRC, these data show that there was
not a truly voluntary group – at least a quarter of the
cadre reported that they were forced to join in all groups.
 Combatants who were recruited at younger ages
are more vulnerable to violent socialization.
Broadly, the evidence supports the hypothesis that
youth are especially susceptible to violent socialization.
A large proportion of respondents in the Elbert et al.
survey had served as child soldiers. Across all armed
groups, about two-thirds of respondents in each armed
group reported joining before the age of 18. On the
armed groups level, there is not much variation in
recruitment of child soldiers across groups, so the pro-
portion of child soldiers cannot explain the wide varia-
tion in reports of sexual assault across groups. Turning
to the individual level, about 15% of child soldiers
reported perpetrating sexual assault (21/140), but only
4% (3/78) of adults reported that they had perpetrated
sexual assault. These results suggest that recruits under
age 18 were more than three times more likely to
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(5)
sexually assault someone than adults over age 18. The
pattern remains robust when looking at very young
child soldiers, defined as those recruited at under age
14: 14% (12/84) of these very young child soldiers
reported sexual assault compared to 9% (12/134) over
the age of 14.
These disturbing patterns provide preliminary sup-
port for the idea that children may be particularly sus-
ceptible to pressures to commit violence within groups,
and echo findings from Weierstall et al. (2013), who find
that age of recruit is an essential factor – more important
than training or the duration of service – in predicting
appetitive aggression, or the enjoyment of violence. In
addition, although groups that recruit by force are more
likely to recruit children, such groups are not comprised
of majority children (under the age of 18). For example,
armed groups with ‘considerable’ numbers of child sol-
diers in recent years, such as state-allied armed groups in
the Central African Republic and Yemen, were estimated
to be comprised of only one-third and 15% children,
respectively (Child Soldiers International, 2012: 87).
Because child recruits make up only a minority of the
membership of armed groups even in extreme cases, they
may be especially impressionable to new norms of
behavior.
 Combatants who lacked formal socialization
experiences at earlier points in their lives are more
vulnerable to violent socialization.
Unlike age, years of formal schooling are not associ-
ated with fewer reports of committing sexual assault.
Counter to the hypothesis, the mean number of years
of education was higher for those who reported perpe-
trating sexual assault (6.2 years) than for those who did
not (4.8 years) (Elbert et al., 2013). Similarly, assuming
literacy is a proxy for basic education and perhaps also for
religious education, 14% (21/155) of literate respon-
dents reported perpetuating sexual assault while only
5% (3/63) of illiterate respondents did. These results
reflect the reality that average levels of basic education
are very low for all in the DRC, and of extraordinarily
poor quality.28 The mean number of years of education
in the entire sample was just below 5, and it is telling that
the mean number of years of education even for the
youngest child soldiers (<14 years) was not much lower,
28
A news article on education in DRC noted poor access to basic
primary education, a shortage of teachers, very large class sizes, and
schools in ‘deplorable’ condition (Irin, ‘Millions Miss Out on Basic
Education’, 14 November 2011).
Cohen
at 4.7 years. Child labor is common in DRC, including
the ‘worst forms’, such as the forced mining of gold and
other mineral (US Department of Labor, various years).
These factors combined suggest that the potential for
countervailing socialization through formal schooling is
poor, especially given the weak state of the educational
system in the DRC. It may well be the case that the
difference in years of schooling between perpetrators and
non-perpetrators (6.2 years and 4.8 years) is too small to
matter in this case; a context where educational access
and quality was greater might yield different results.
Ideally, information on numerous forms of prewar
formal socialization – such as membership in religious
or tribal communities, or civil society organizations –
would be available. Having multiple measures would also
allow comparisons across these forms of formal socializa-
tion in order to understand which types serve as stronger
resources for individuals’ agency and resistance. Unfor-
tunately, neither survey asks extensive questions about
the respondents’ backgrounds, so data are not available
on other forms of pre-war formal socialization that may
help to explain variation in susceptibility to violent socia-
lization. This is a promising avenue for future research.
 Combatants who reported greater physical inse-
curity are more vulnerable to violent socialization.
Finally, the evidence largely supports that physical
insecurity – such as lack of access to sufficient food and
feeling unsafe – is a powerful influence on the suscept-
ibility to violent socialization. Sexual assault was far more
likely among those individuals who reported food inse-
curity. Of those who reported stealing food to survive,
14% (23/166) reported perpetrating rape; of those who
did not need to steal food to survive, only 2% (1/52)
reported perpetrating sexual assault (Elbert et al., 2013).
In addition, 79% (19/24) of those individuals who had
their own lives threatened by their commander (for
attempted escapes, disobeying rules or any other reason)
reported perpetrating sexual assault, while only 7% of
those who did not face fatal threats reported sexual
assault. These stark differences suggest that the relative
levels of an individual’s discomfort and fear may be key
to understanding the process of how ordinary people are
compelled to commit abuse. These findings reinforce
earlier work by Eriksson Baaz & Stern (2009) who found
through interviews with government forces in the DRC
that soldiers largely justified sexual violence as a result of
deprivation, including not being paid. The results here
extend this previous work to non-state armed groups,
and suggest that not only disrespect, but also physical
711
discomfort and mortal fear, may lead to a reassertion of
masculinity through the use of rape.
Alternative arguments
While the previous discussion provides suggestive sup-
port for the use of rape as a tool of socialization by armed
groups in the DRC, there are three alternative arguments
that are worth considering. First, the DRC is frequently
described as an environment where rape is used as a
‘weapon of war’, strategically deployed by commanders
as a tool of terror. The rape in Eastern DRC has unde-
niably provoked terror in the population. However, this
explanation has been dismissed by numerous experts,
who argue that there is little evidence of high-level strat-
egy to do so. Indeed, many scholars caution against con-
flating the consequences of rape with its intended
purpose (e.g. Eriksson Baaz & Stern, 2013).
Second, I argue that physical insecurity, such as a lack
of food, may increase the likelihood that an individual
will be susceptible to social pressures to be violent. How-
ever, it is possible that the causation could be reversed;
that is, abusive groups may need to steal food because the
civilian population does not trust them (e.g. Weinstein,
2007). The correlation between civilian abuse and food
insecurity alone is not decisive, but combined with the
other measures of insecurity, such as mortal threats, these
results are indicative of an increased vulnerability to peer
pressure.
Finally, as previously mentioned, some scholars have
argued that rape may be used as a form of payment for
uncompensated solders in DRC. Eriksson Baaz & Stern
(2009) find evidence for this through their interviews
with government soldiers. But rape as payment raises the
question about the form of rape (why gang rape?) as well
as its brutality (why so violent?). These puzzles are best
resolved by viewing rape as a cohesion-building exercise
rather than a selective incentive. Further, Eriksson Baaz
& Stern (2009: 511) argue that individuals’ frustration
with poverty and neglect plays an important role in
‘anger rape’. The combatant socialization argument
builds on this important previous work by broadening
the scope beyond an individual’s frustration to include
the collective benefits of violence, from the perspective of
the armed group (see also Samset, 2011, who makes a
similar point).
Conclusion
In this article, I have further developed the theory of
combatant socialization in armed groups, and how the
performance of stigmatizing, public group violence can
712
serve to create bonds between fighters. I argue that pub-
lic acts of aggressive, masculinity-affirming violence are
employed by abducted fighters in order to restore social
status. This article joins a number of other recent studies
that have turned to studying the perpetrators themselves
in order to better understand how violence takes shape
with an armed group.
Theoretically, I consider an extension of the argument
that implies new mechanisms for violent socialization: the
age, physical security, and previous formal socialization of
the individual. These each suggest hypotheses that can be
tested using individual-level data from ex-combatants in
the case study of DRC. While the data do not allow for
definitive tests, they suggest that younger age and physical
insecurity – perhaps more so than pre-conflict formal
socialization – may be of primary importance to under-
standing susceptibility to performing group violence.
This analysis indicates avenues for additional research
as well as policy implications. Future studies could
include a number of other factors related to individuals’
susceptibility to violent socialization, including more
biographical details that could highlight previous formal
socialization, such as regular church attendance or mem-
bership in community organizations. In addition,
research can explore whether the endpoint of the socia-
lization process described here is indeed internalization,
or was simply role-playing during the conflict. For exam-
ple, longitudinal studies of ex-combatants after they
return home – as well as which violent practices and
beliefs continue into the postwar period – would be
invaluable to the development of more robust policy
interventions, and would shed light on gradual changes
in individuals’ attitudes and behaviors. Finally, this study
has potential implications for policy; it suggests that
interventions that gird individuals against social pres-
sures to commit violence may help to alleviate the use
of violence as a socialization tool. Such interventions
may include pre-war interventions like better access to
formal education, or interventions during conflict, such
as food aid to fighters.
Replication data
The Online appendix can be found at http://
www.prio.org/jpr/datasets.
Acknowledgements
I thank Jeffrey T Checkel for helpful comments on pre-
vious versions of this draft, the three anonymous
reviewers for detailed feedback, and the participants in
the Socialization and Organized Political Violence
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(5)
Workshop at Yale University. I am very grateful to Roos
Haer and her colleagues for generously sharing data and
for assistance in understanding the data.
References
Autesserre, Severine (2010) The Trouble with the Congo: Local
Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
BBC News (2010) UN official calls DR Congo ‘rape capital of
the world’. 28 April (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/
8650112.stm).
Beber, Bernd & Christopher Blattman (2013) The logic of
child soldiering and coercion. International Organization
67(1): 65–104.
Browning, Christopher (1992) Ordinary Men: Reserve Policy
Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York:
Harper Collins.
Checkel, Jeffrey T (2017) Socialization and violence: Intro-
duction and framework. Journal of Peace Research 54(5):
592–605.
Child Soldiers International (2012) Louder than Words: An
Agenda for Action to End State Use of Child Soldiers. Lon-
don: Child Soldiers International.
Cohen, Dara Kay (2013) Female combatants and the perpe-
tration of violence: Wartime rape in the Sierra Leone civil
war. World Politics 65(3): 383–415.
Cohen, Dara Kay (2016) Rape During Civil War. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
Collier, Paul & Anke Hoeffler (2007) Civil war. In: Todd
Sandler & Keith Hartley (eds) Handbook of the Defense
Economics: Volume 2: Defense in a Globalized World.
Amsterdam: Elsevier, 711–740.
Eck, Kristine (2014) Coercion in rebel recruitment. Security
Studies 23(2): 364–398.
Elbert, Thomas; Harald Hinkel, Anna Maedl, Katharin Her-
menau, Tobias Hecker, Maggie Schauer, Heike Riedke,
Nina Winkler & Philip Lancaster (2013) Sexual and
gender-based violence in the Kivu provinces of the Demo-
cratic Republic of Congo: Insights from former combatants.
LOGICA Report, Vivio International 86055. Washington,
DC: World Bank (http://documents.worldbank.org/
curated/en/795261468258873034/Sexual-and- gender-ba
sed-violence-in-the-Kivu-Provinces-of-the-Democratic-Repu
blic-of-Congo-insights-from-former-combatants).
Eriksson Baaz, Maria & Maria Stern (2009) Why do soldiers
rape? Masculinity, violence, and sexuality in the armed
forces in the Congo (DRC). International Studies Quarterly
53(2): 495–518.
Eriksson Baaz, Maria & Maria Stern (2013) Sexual Violence as
a Weapon of War? Perceptions, Prescriptions, Problems in the
Congo and Beyond. London: Zed.
Franklin, Karen (2004) Enacting masculinity: Antigay vio-
lence and group rape as participatory theater. Sexuality
Research & Social Policy 1(2): 25–40.
Cohen
Fujii, Lee Ann (2017) ‘Talk of the town’: Explaining pathways
to participation in violent displays. Journal of Peace Research
54(5): 661–673.
Gates, Scott G (2017) Membership matters: Coerced recruits
and rebel allegiance. Journal of Peace Research 54(5):
674–686.
Gerard, Harold & Grover Mathewson (1966) The effect of
severity of initiation on liking for a group: A replication.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 2(3): 278–287.
Goldstein, Joshua (2001) Gender and War. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Haer, Roos (2015) Armed Group Structure and Violence in
Civil Wars: The Organizational Dynamics of Civilian Kill-
ing. Abingdon: Routledge.
Haer, Roos; Lilli Banholzer, Thomas Elbert & Roland
Weierstall (2013) Analyzing the microfoundations of
human violence in the DRC: Intrinsic and extrinsic
rewards and the prediction of appetitive aggression.
Conflict and Health 7(11): 1–8.
Hecker, Tobias; Katharin Hermenau, Anna Maedl, Harald
Hinkel, Maggie Schauer & Thomas Elbert (2013) Does
perpetrating violence damage mental health? Differ-
ences between forcibly recruited and voluntary comba-
tants in DR Congo. Journal of Traumatic Stress 26(1):
142–148.
Hoover Green, Amelia (2017) Armed group institutions and
combatant socialization: Evidence from El Salvador. Jour-
nal of Peace Research 54(5): 687–700.
Humphreys, Macartan & Jeremy Weinstein (2004) What the
fighters say: A survey of ex-combatants in Sierra Leone,
June–August 2003. New York: Center on Globalization and
Sustainable Development, Columbia University (http://
www.columbia.edu/*mh2245/Report1_BW.pdf).
Humphreys, Macartan & Jeremy Weinstein (2008) Who
fights? The determinants of participation in civil war.
American Journal of Political Science 52(2): 436–455.
Jewkes, Rachel & Yandisa Sikweyiya (2013) Streamlining:
Understanding gang rape in South Africa. In: Miranda AH
Horvath & Jessica Woodhams (eds) Handbook on the Study
of Multiple Perpetrator Rape: A Multidisciplinary Response to
an International Problem. New York: Routledge, 116–131.
Johnson, Kristin; Jennifer Scott, Bigy Rughita, Michael Kisie-
lewski, Jana Asher, Ricardo Ong & Lynn Lawry (2010)
Association of sexual violence and human rights violations
with physical and mental health in territories of the Eastern
Democratic Republic of the Congo. Journal of the American
Medical Association 304(5): 553–562.
Kelly, Jocelyn (2010) Rape in war: Motives of militia in DRC.
USIP Special Report 243 (http://www.usip.org/publica
tions/rape-in-war-motives-of-militia-in-drc).
Kenny, Paul (2011) Organizational weapons: Explaining
cohesion in the military. Households in Conflict Network
working paper 107. Institute of Development Studies, Uni-
versity of Sussex (http://www.hicn.org/wordpress/wp-con
tent/uploads/2012/06/wp1071.pdf).
713
Kier, Elizabeth (1998) Homosexuals in the US military: Open
integration and combat effectiveness. International Security
23(2): 5–39.
Leiby, Michele (2011) State-perpetrated wartime sexual vio-
lence in Latin America. Unpublished PhD thesis. Univer-
sity of New Mexico.
Littman, Rebecca & Elizabeth Levy Paluck (2015) The cycle
of violence: Understanding individual participation in col-
lective violence. Political Psychology 36(S1): 79–99.
MacCoun, Robert; Elizabeth Kier & Aaron Belkin (2006)
Does social cohesion determine motivation in combat?
An old question with an old answer. Armed Forces & Society
32(4): 646–654.
Malamuth, Neil (1981) Rape proclivity among males. Journal
of Social Issues 37(4):138–157.
McLauchlin, Theodore (2015) Desertion and collective action
in civil wars. International Studies Quarterly 59(4): 669–679.
Morris, Madeline (1996) By force of arms: Rape, war and
military culture. Duke Law Journal 45(4): 651–781.
Pfeiffer, Anett & Thomas Elbert (2011) PTSD, depression
and anxiety among former abductees in northern Uganda.
Conflict and Health 5(14): 1–7.
Porter, Louise & Laurence Alison (2001) A partially ordered
scale of influence in violent group behavior: An example
from gang rape. Small Group Research 32(4): 475–497.
Rodgers, Dennis (2017) Bróderes in arms: Gangs and the
socialization of violence in Nicaragua. Journal of Peace
Research 54(5): 648–660.
Samset, Ingrid (2011) Sexual violence: The case of eastern
Congo. In: Mats Bergdal & Astri Suhrke (eds) The Peace
in Between: Post-War Violence and Peacebuilding. New
York: Routledge, 229–247.
Sanday, Peggy Reeves (2007) Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Broth-
erhood, and Privilege on Campus. New York: New York
University Press.
Shils, Edward & Morris Janowitz (1948) Cohesion and dis-
integration in the Wehrmacht in World War II. Public
Opinion Quarterly 12(2): 280–315.
Singer, Peter W (2006) Children at War. Berkeley, CA: Uni-
versity of California Press.
Theimann, Maike (2015) School as a space of socialization and
prevention. European Journal of Criminology 13(1): 67–91.
Toral, Almudena (2012) History of violence: Struggling with
the legacy of rape in Liberia. Time 30 April (http://world.
time.com/2012/04/30/history-of-violence-struggling-
with-the-legacy-of-rape-in-liberia/).
United States Department of Labor (various years) Bureau of
International Labor Affairs, Child Labor and Forced Labor
Reports: Democratic Republic of the Congo (https://www.
dol.gov/agencies/ilab/resources/reports/child-labor/
congo-democratic-republic).
Vandello, Joseph; Jennifer Bosson, Dov Cohen, Rochelle
Burnaford & Jonathan Weaver (2008) Precarious man-
hood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95(6):
1325–1339.
714
Vermeij, Lotte (2009) Children of rebellion: Socialization of
child soldiers with the Lord’s Resistance Army. Unpub-
lished Masters thesis. University of Oslo.
Weierstall, Roland; Roos Haer, Lilli Banholzer & Thomas Elbert
(2013) Becoming cruel: Appetitive aggression released by
detrimental socialization in former Congolese soldiers. Inter-
national Journal of Behavioral Development 37(6): 505–513.
Weinstein, Jeremy (2005) Resources and the information
problem in rebel recruitment. Journal of Conflict Resolution
49(4): 598–624.
Weinstein, Jeremy (2007) Inside Rebellion: The Politics of
Insurgent Violence. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wilkinson, David John; Luke Samuel Bearup & Tong
Soprach (2005) Youth gang rape in Phnom Penh. In: Shi-
reen Jejeebhoy, Iqbal Shah & Shyam Thapa (eds) Sex With-
out Consent: Young People in Developing Countries. New
York: Zed, 158–168.
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(5)
Winslow, Donna (1999) Rites of passage and group bonding
in the Canadian Airborne. Armed Forces & Society 25(3):
429–457.
Wood, Elisabeth Jean (2003) Insurgent Collective Action and
Civil War in El Salvador. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Wood, Elisabeth Jean (2014) Conflict-related sexual violence
and the policy implications of recent research. International
Review of the Red Cross 96(894): 457–478.
Wood, Elisabeth Jean & Nathaniel Toppelberg (2017) The
persistence of sexual assault within the US military. Journal
of Peace Research 54(5): 620–633.
DARA KAY COHEN, b. 1979, PhD in Political Science
(Stanford University, 2010); Associate Professor, Harvard
Kennedy School (2012– ); author of book: Rape During
Civil War (Cornell University Press, 2016).