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NOVAFRICA News

NOVAFRICA Seminar:
“The War at Home: Long-Run Individual Level Origins of Domestic Violence”

On Wednesday, May 25th, at 2.30pm, the NOVAFRICA Center welcomes Tilman Brück, from the International Security and Development Center to present his work on the origins of domestic violence in Angola.

Author:
Tilman Brück

Abstract:
This paper studies the long-run individual-level origins of perpetrating intimate partner violence. Using self-collected survey data from Angola, we demonstrate that the exposure to wartime sexual violence significantly increases a former soldier’s propensity to commit domestic violence more than a decade a.er the end of the war. To establish causality, we exploit a natural experiment in exposure to wartime sexual violence by armed groups induced by the Angolan war. We argue that being conditioned into gender-based violent practice causes an increase in perpetrated domestic violence, and that this effect is psychological and persistent in nature. The results support an interpretation of domestic violence as expressive behavior that is not triggered by payoff-relevant considerations, and are not consistent with dominant interpretations of domestic violence as a function of intra-family power structure or prevailing cultural norms.

Please find further information about this seminar here.