Polygyny, Conflict and Gender Inequality: A Cautionary Tale

ABSTRACT What is the role of polygyny and gender inequality in explaining violent conflict? Do these variables have distinct effects only or are they also mutually reinforcing? Our paper investigates this controversial question by providing theoretical arguments as well as empirical evidence for direct and combined effects of these two variables on small-scale violent conflict. Our analysis is based on data from 123 countries in the 1981–2011 period. Our results show that polygyny and gender inequality matter directly but also jointly in explaining the onset of internal armed conflicts, with the latter effect supported by both principal-component and interaction analyses. We show that the results are sensitive to regional sample splits as well as the choice of the dimension of gender inequality. In a subsample of 40 African countries, effects are particularly pronounced.