Dr Stacey Scriver, NUI Galway, presented this talk on the dynamics of public and private violence on behalf of the Conflict, Humanitarianism and Security research cluster at the 2017 Whitaker Institute Research Day held on the 6th of April 2017.

1. Dynamics of Public and Private
Violence:
SITUATING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE WITHIN CONFLICT
RESEARCH
STACEY SCRIVER AND NATA DUVVURY,
CENTRE FOR GLOBAL WOMENS’ STUDIES
WHAT WORKS TO PREVENT VIOLENCE: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COSTS OF VAWG

2. A gap in understanding…
 Research into the causes of violent conflict has leaned towards greed or grievance
approaches.
 Largely gender blind.
 More recently some researchers have looked at relationship between gender inequality
and likelihood of intra or inter-state conflict.
 Empirical evidence finds that:
 states with higher levels of social, economic and political gender equality are less likely to rely
on military force to settle external of internal disputes (Capriolig, 2005; Hudson et al. 2008;
Ekvall, 2016).
 modernisation predicts conflict in low income countries; but wealth does not have a
demonstrable pacifying effect, other than that of increased gender equality (Melander 2005:
711).
 regardless of overall levels of gender equality, people with gender equitable beliefs and
attitudes are more supportive of peaceful approaches to conflict than those with traditionally
gender normative attitudes (Tessler and Warriner 1997)
 norms and attitudes toward gender equality, rather than behavioural and demographic
factors alone, are associated with levels of political and socioeconomic gender equality,
absence or presence of armed conflict, and level of general peacefulness (Ekvall, 2016)

3. Explaining the relationship between
gender inequality and conflict
 Thus, strong evidence that gender equality is associated with more
peaceful states.
 But, explanations for this relationship remain contested.
 Three, non-exclusive, primary explanations:
1. Gender inequality results in states being ‘primed for violence’ due to
patriarchal structural conditions.
2. Hegemonic masculinity that associates violence with power
3. Women are inherently more peaceful and thus in more equal states, where
women have greater representation in state, less likely to choose violent
means of conflict resolution.
 Empirical evidence offers little support for this explanation

4. Linking public and private violence
 Explanatory potential among combination of the structural explanations for
gender inequality and higher rates of conflict and role of hegemonic
masculinity in legitimising violence as a means of asserting power and
settling disputes.
 Violence against women is both an expression of structural inequality and
intrinsically connected to hegemonic masculinity.
 Domestic violence/IPV most pervasive form of violence in the world.
 Yet, domestic violence has not been considered as a potential contributor, via
gender inequality, to instability and conflict.
 = a gap in conflict research.

5. What we know about the relationship between DV
and Violent conflict
 To date, no empirical research evidence of the relationship between intrapersonal gender
based violence against women and levels of violent conflict
 But, ‘If gendered violence can be undermined at its taproot—domestic violence within the home—
the effects… should cascade outward to affect many social phenomena, including state security
and behaviour’ (Hudson et.al. 2008).
 Evidence supports the link between
 Witnessing violence in the home, particularly against mother, and perpetration of violence towards
men and women, including violence with weapons, participation in gang violence and in sexual
violence (alone and in groups) (e.g. Fulu, et.al. 2014; Carvalho and Soares, 2016; Gerard 2014)
 Clear link between youth homicide and witnessing DV (Heide, 2003; Gerard, 2014)
 Strong link between perpetration of DV and mass shootings in US between 2009-2015 – in 57%
of incidents a partner/spouse was also killed and 16% of all shooters had a previous DV charge.
 experience, including witnessing of, domestic violence impacts on boys’ and young men’s
expectations surrounding masculinity, and may lead to an association of masculinity with violence
(Holligan and Deuchar 2015).
 Evidence to support that being witness to DV shapes attitudes and norms that increases
tolerance for the use of violence to assert power and/or resolve conflicts.

6. Developing understanding of the pathways through which
DV is connected to gender inequality and violent conflict.
 Theoretical foundations:
 Ecological frameworks
 Connect ontological, micro, meso and macro
social levels
 Addition of chronological element to traditional
frameworks to better understand process over
time.
 Socialisation process
 Primary socialisation – the family
 Secondary socialisation – education, peer
group, media, religion etc…
WHO, 2017: http://www.who.int/violenceprevention/approach/ecology/en/

7. A Pathways Model

8. Contribution of the model
 highlights how domestic violence and inequality, across the elements of
chronology and sites of socialisation, influence the development of norms
and attitudes that contribute both to gender inequality and to the
normalisation of violence to settle disputes.
 aims to demonstrate that violence against women/IPV/GBV in the home is
an important factor in fully understanding contributors to violent conflict and
the undermining of peace-fostering.
 Engages with conflict research to make an intervention in the agenda –
that domestic violence matters, and thus to encourage further empirical
research to test this hypothesis
 Points towards potential avenues for interventions to challenge cyclical
relationship between public and private violence and, ultimately, to reduce
violence and conflict, between states, within states and within the home.

9. Contribution of the What Works to Prevent
Violence: Economic and Social Costs analysis
 In the current DFID project we will be able to test aspects of this model
using the data collected from over 9000 individuals across Ghana,
Pakistan and South Sudan.
 Using this data we will:
 Explore the links between violence in the home and community level security
and safety
 Conduct comparative analysis of Ghana and South Sudan in terms of
prevalence of partner violence and links to broader structural inequality in both
countries
 Assess the impact of IPV on women’s engagement in politics and public
participation

10. Thank you.
PRESENTATION BASED ON PAPER, ‘WHY DOMESTIC VIOLENCE MATTERS TO PEACE
AND CONFLICT RESEARCHERS’, SCRIVER, S., BALLANTINE, C. AND DUVVURY, N.
FUNDING FOR THIS WORK: DEPARTMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT UK.
WHAT WORKS TO PREVENT VIOLENCE: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COSTS OF VAWG