Introducing the Women’s Activities in Armed Rebellion (WAAR) project, 1946–2015
| Published date | 01 May 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221128340 |
| Author | Meredith Loken,Hilary Matfess |
| Date | 01 May 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Special Data Features |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221128340
Journal of Peace Research
2024, Vol. 61(3) 489 –499
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433221128340
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1225162JPR0010.1177/00223433221128340Journal of Peace ResearchLoken & Matfess
research-article2023
Special Data Feature
Introducing the Women’s Activities
in Armed Rebellion (WAAR)
project, 1946–2015
Meredith Loken
Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam
Hilary Matfess
Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver
Abstract
This article introduces the Women’s Activities in Armed Rebellion (WAAR) project, a multi-methods project that
includes a cross-sectional dataset of women’s participation in more than 370 organizations fighting in civil conflicts
between 1946 and 2015. The dataset features 22 measures of women’s participation in rebel organizations: it
includes prevalence and presence measures of women’s participation in combat, non-combat and leadership roles;
details on all-female units within groups (and their primary focus – combat or support activities); and presence
measures for types of support work (disaggregated into clandestine work, outreach to civilian populations and
logistical support) and types of leadership activities (military or non-military) that women contribute. The WAAR
project also includes a detailed, qualitative assessment of women’s involvement in each organization, comprising an
approximately 360-page handbook of female rebel participation in the post-WWII period. This article describes the
WAAR project and suggests avenues for future research leveraging these data.
Keywords
rebellion, women, gender, civil war, political violence
Introduction
Research on women’s participation in rebellion has pro-
liferated in recent decades. Building on feminist progeni-
tors’ work, rigorous scholarship explores why and how
women join rebel organizations, which roles they take
on, and how women experience conflict in uniquely
gendered ways, or not (MacKenzie, 2012; Viterna,
2013; Parkinson, 2013; Matfess, 2017; Loken & Zelenz,
2018). A burgeoning field also examines the effects of
female combatants’ presence on rebel behaviour and
conflict outcomes (Cohen, 2013a; Thomas & Wood,
2018; Braithwaite & Ruiz, 2018; Szekely, 2020; Wood
& Allemang, 2022; Giri & Haer, 2021). This research is
supported by quantitative datasets assessing women’s
presence and prevalence in rebel organizations (Thomas
& Bond, 2015; Henshaw, 2016; Wood & Thomas,
2017; Henshaw et al., 2019). However, these data and
research in this area are constrained in consequential
ways. Existing prevalence assessments focus only on
front-line combatants, and, relatedly, data on women
in non-combat and leadership roles rely on binary mea-
sures of participation. We consequently know little
about the robust and comparatively varied contributions
that women make to rebel organizations off, and on, the
front line.
This article introduces the Women’s Activities in
Armed Rebellion (WAAR) project version 1.0, a multi-
methods project that includes a cross-sectional dataset of
women’s participation in more than 370 organizations
fighting in civil conflicts between 1946 and 2015. The
dataset features 22 measures of women’s participation in
Corresponding author:
m.m.loken@uva.nl
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