In her book, Dara Kay Cohen presents a landmark study of an undertheorized form of violence against civilians: gang rape. As Cohen and other scholars of sexual violence have observed, rape is not inevitable in war, it is not cost free, its frequency varies across and within conflicts, and not all armed groups commit or tolerate it. Rape in war is not a static phenomenon, but one that becomes more or less likely as wartime realities shift. While rape and other forms of sexual violence are deeply disturbing acts in war as in times of peace, it is impossible to bring an end to these forms of violence unless and until we truly understand their use and the purpose—if any—that they serve for armed groups. Rape During Civil War makes significant progress in this vein by debunking some of the prevalent myths about rape in armed conflict and advancing a logical explanation with clear implications for policy and practice.

Cohen addresses three puzzles through rigorous cross-national statistical analysis and three in-depth case studies. First, if gang rape is rare in peacetime, then why is wartime rape frequently perpetrated by multiple actors? Second, why do ordinary men and women, who do not reasonably fit within the perpetrators-as-monsters trope, commit rape in war? And third, if rape is used as a weapon as often as policy, media, and advocacy narratives seem to suggest, then why is evidence of rape as official strategy so scant and why do armed groups not use rape more frequently? Cohen finds that armed groups are likely to turn to rape as a tool to socialize fighters who have been brought into the group through forced recruitment methods, such as abduction and press-ganging.

Rape, especially gang rape, may serve to improve cohesion within the group by creating “bonds of loyalty and esteem from initial circumstances of fear and mistrust” (p. 2). Where professional military organizations establish basic training or boot camps to socialize recruits and disconnect them from their past (civilian) lives, armed groups without the resources for intensive training of combatants must find other ways to foster cohesive units. Gang rape functions as a mechanism for hazing new fighters and reaffirming the hierarchy among established group members “while also communicating norms of masculinity, virility, and strength” (p. 3). The combatant socialization argument suggests that when armed groups resort to forced recruitment of strangers, levels of rape and gang rape increase. Cohen’s cross-national data, compiled using reports of rape in the U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for the period 1980–2012, as well as interview research in El Salvador, Sierra Leone, and Timor-Leste, support the combatant socialization thesis. Rape, then, is less a deliberate weapon of war than an attempt to socialize fighters through shared culpability in a taboo act. Such socialization is essential if the armed group is to keep forced recruits from deserting at the first opportunity when they are not united by a shared commitment to the group’s victory over opposing forces. Understood this way, rape has little to do with the rape victim or survivor’s identity; instead, rape tells us more about the need to create a cohesive identity among those who fight unwillingly.

Alongside the combatant socialization explanation, Cohen assesses competing arguments focused on opportunism/greed, ethnic hatred, and gender inequality. Each argument draws from narratives in the literature on sexual violence and violence against civilians, as well as public perceptions of rape in war. The opportunism argument attributes the occurrence of rape to decreased inhibitions in the context of state collapse and wartime chaos, lack of professionalism or discipline in armed groups, or the importance of material resources in a conflict. If individuals are inclined to rape, they will seize upon opportunities presented in conflict zones. Opportunism can partially account for instances of rape in civil war in the case studies Cohen examines, but it cannot sufficiently explain the use of gang rape or the extreme brutality of some rapes.

The second competing argument suggests that rape is linked to ethnic hatred and communicates a message of domination from the perpetrator group to an out-group. If rape is motivated by ethnic hatred, it should be more likely in ethnic wars, genocides, and secessionist conflicts than in civil wars that are not driven primarily by ethnic divisions. Cohen’s cross-national analysis finds little support for this argument, and some interviewees noted that commanders viewed rape as separate from fighting, further undermining the notion of rape as military strategy.

The third competing argument claims that wars in states with high gender inequality are more likely to experience high levels of rape. Cohen finds little support for a link between gender inequality and levels of rape in civil war, a finding that speaks to research on sexual violence as part of a continuum of gendered violence (e.g., see Jelke Boesten, Sexual Violence During War and Peace: Gender, Power and Postconflict Justice in Peru, 2014). The observation that opportunism and secessionist aims offer partial explanations for rape in some cases highlights the complex relationship between war and rape; an analysis that embraces this complexity helps move the academic literature and public discourse on conflict-related sexual violence forward.

Still, the underlying relationships between opportunism, combatant socialization, and gender inequality, or the gender norms that create and maintain inequality, prompt further questions that are left unaddressed by Cohen. While the author finds a lack of support for the argument that rape in war is linked to statewide levels of gender inequality, it is important to note that the combatant socialization and opportunism arguments explore gendered phenomena. For the opportunistic perpetrator, why rape instead of another type of crime? For the group looking to socialize new members, why gang rape instead of a different form of hazing? That gang rape serves to cement group hierarchies and communicate group norms about masculinity and masculine behaviors is a reminder that this form of violence is firmly rooted in gender norms, even if its occurrence is unrelated to measurable indicators of gender inequality in a state.

Rape During Civil War offers important lessons and prompts difficult questions for scholars, policymakers, and human rights advocates alike. The combatant socialization argument provides insights into the rationale for wartime rape and contributes to the ongoing conversations about how best to respond to it. Foreign and domestic policy initiatives focus heavily on reducing impunity for perpetrators and improving mechanisms for prosecution, but Cohen’s work suggests that these efforts miss the mark if rape is not explicitly ordered by commanders. Related to this, the reminder that policymakers, advocates, and scholars alike must resist the temptation to presume that “widespread rape is systematic rape” (p. 198), or to infer intention from prevalence, is an important one. Furthermore, Cohen’s exploration of the trauma experienced by forced combatants during the recruitment process highlights another important predicament for scholars, policymakers, and human rights advocates: What are the legal, political, ethical, and social ramifications for the perpetrator—victim distinction in cases of gang rape committed by individuals who are forced into armed groups? While there is recognition of the plight of child soldiers, there is significantly less discussion of adult men and women who are abducted or press-ganged. Worse still, in a world of funding constraints and limited caring capacity, there are insufficient resources to attend adequately to the needs of survivors of wartime rape as well as to the rehabilitation of the perpetrators who are themselves also survivors of trauma.

Beyond the theoretical and empirical contributions of the book, Cohen communicates important messages about the difficulty of research on sensitive topics. First, the logistics of studying rape and sexual violence present significant challenges. It can be difficult to obtain accurate qualitative data and statistics on rape. The taboo nature of sexual violence can impede access to survivors and perpetrators, and official accounts may be incomplete or unreliable. Conceptually, the lack of a clear and consistent definition of “sexual violence” across the academic, policy, and advocacy arenas complicates efforts to study rape and other forms of gender-based violence. Second, studying sexual violence and other atrocities is emotionally demanding work for researchers and research participants alike. By recognizing this, scholars are better able to prepare themselves and their students for work in this area, and to ensure that research methods minimize potential harm. This work must be done with care, and Cohen has established a sound model.

Demonstrations of global political will throughout the past two decades show that policymakers are searching for ways to end the scourge of rape in war. Cohen observes that the assumption that mass rape is an element of military strategy or a weapon of war is now widespread, and she asserts that scholars “must study the perpetrators themselves” (p. 20) to parse out the motivations for and utility of wartime rape, especially since it is impossible for one explanation to account for all instances of rape in war. Rape During Civil War gives scholars, policymakers, and practitioners new material to work with in an effort to understand armed groups and their propensity—or aversion—to rape.