When Civilians Are Attacked: Gender Equality and Terrorist Targeting. (November 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Huber, Laura
• Is Part Of: Journal of conflict resolution. Volume 63:Number 10(2019)
• Page Start: 2289
• Page End: 2318
• Publication Date: 2019-11
• Subjects: civilian casualties -- terrorism -- gender -- women -- peace -- and security -- human rights; War and society -- Periodicals; Peace -- Periodicals; Arbitration (International law) -- Periodicals; 327.16
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002719835601
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0022-0027

Abstract

While scholars demonstrate a consistent negative relationship between gender equality and violence, the effect of women's rights on the quality of terrorism and the type of victims targeted remains unexplored. This article introduces a new model of terrorists' strategic targeting by examining the trade-off between the ease of a civilian-oriented attack and the negative public reaction these attacks invoke. Within this framework, gender equality increases the costs of civilian targeting by inducing public opinion costs. As gender equality increases, the costs of attacking civilians increase relatively more than government-oriented attacks. Using data on domestic terrorism between 1970 and 2007 and a subnational examination of a randomly implemented gender quota in India, this study demonstrates that as gender equality increases, the ratio of civilian-oriented to government-oriented attacks decreases. Overall, this study refines our understanding of terrorists' strategic targeting and identifies heterogeneity in the Women, Peace, and Security theory.