Ruling Rebel Parties and Accountability for Wartime Sexual Violence

Why do some post-conflict governments adopt accountability for wartime sexual violence while others do not? In this paper, we focus on how the wartime governance practices of rebel parties influence their postwar behavior. We argue that rebel parties in power are more likely than non-rebel parties to support postwar accountability for wartime sexual violence in order to restore their reputation and rebrand the party. This tendency will be more salient in ruling parties that exercised wartime justice measures when they were rebel groups. However, we expect that culpability in wartime sexual violence inhibits former rebels from prosecuting that violence for fear of highlighting their own crimes. Thus, former rebel parties are the most likely parties in power to prosecute for past sexual violence, especially if they also did so during preceding violence, but less so if their own members engaged in that violence. Using datasets on rebel governance and sexual violence prosecutions in post-conflict African countries from 1998 to 2018, we find support for our theoretical expectations. Our findings speak to the myriad avenues through which rebel party governance and culpability influence post-conflict politics and transitional justice.