Author Topic: The Heart of the Matter. The Security of Women, The Security of States  (Read 411 times)

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The Heart of the Matter
The Security of Women, The Security of States

Valerie M. Hudson, PhD
Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, PhD
Mary Caprioli, PhD
Chad F. Emmett, PhD


What are the roots of conflict and insecurity for states? Some scholars argue that civilizational differences, defined by ethnicity, language, and religion, are the primary underlying catalysts for conflict and insecurity.1 Others have spoken of the importance of differentiating between democratic and nondemocratic regime types in explaining conflict in the modern international system.2 Still others assert that poverty, exacerbated by resource scarcity in a context of unequal access, is at the heart of conflict and insecurity at both micro and macro levels of analysis.3

In this article, we argue that there is another more fundamental, and perhaps more powerful, explanatory factor than those conventionally suggested that must be considered when examining issues of state security and conflict: the treatment of females within society. We have come to that conclusion through exhaustive research, both qualitatively as well as quantitatively. Unfortunately, the supporting statistical analyses and descriptions of methodology are too expansive and perhaps a little esoteric to be presented here for this relatively short article, and so we present here the major key findings of our conclusions. For those who have interest in seeing a concise treatment of the data analyses in significantly more detail with accompanying graphic outlays, these can be found in our book, Sex and World Peace.