Primed for Violence: The Role of Gender Inequality in Predicting Internal Conflict

We know, most notably through Ted Gurr’s research, that ethnic discrimination can lead to ethnopolitical rebellion–intrastate conflict. I seek to discover what impact, if any, gender inequality has on intrastate conflict. Although democratic peace scholars and others highlight the role of peaceful domestic behavior in predicting state behavior, many scholars have argued that a domestic environment of inequality and violenceFstructural and cultural violenceFresults in a greater likelihood of violence at the state and the international level. This project contributes to this line of inquiry and further tests the grievance theory of intrastate conflict by examining the norms of violence that facilitate a call to arms. And in many ways, I provide an alternative explanation for the significance of some of the typical economic measuresFthe greed theoryFbased on the link between discrimination, inequality, and violence. I test whether states characterized by higher levels of gender inequality are more likely to experience intrastate conflict. Ultimately, the basic link between gender inequality and intrastate conflict is confirmedFstates characterized by gender inequality are more likely to experience intrastate conflict, 1960–2001.