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Women's Participation in Violent Political Organizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2015

JAKANA L. THOMAS  and
KANISHA D. BOND
JAKANA L. THOMAS*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
KANISHA D. BOND*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland–College Park
*
Jakana L. Thomas is Assistant Professor, Michigan State University, 368 Farm Lane, South Kedzie Hall, 314, East Lansing, MI 48824 (thoma977@msu.edu).
Kanisha D. Bond is Assistant Professor, University of Maryland–College Park, 3140 Tydings Hall, College Park, MD 20742 (kanisha@umd.edu).
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Abstract

While women have participated in a variety of militarized movements across time and space, the determinants of their participation have not been examined systematically. In this article, we seek to explain variation in women's involvement across different violent political organizations. Our research highlights the role that organizational attributes play in influencing women's presence in violent groups. We evaluate our hypotheses using an original dataset on women's participation in and characteristics of 166 violent political organizations across 19 African countries from 1950 to 2011. Our empirical results show strong support for our argument that organization-based opportunities for women's participation explain whether female members are present in a group.

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Type
Research Article
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American Political Science Review , Volume 109 , Issue 3 , August 2015 , pp. 488 - 506
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2015 

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