Oxford Studies in Culture and Politics Women in War: The Micro-Processes of Mobilization in El Salvador, (Paperback)

Jocelyn Viterna develops an 'identity-based' theory of political mobilization to explain why and how some women, but not others, joined the clandestine camps of El Salvador's armed revolutionary movement during the 1980s. Her account wisely encompasses broad political and economic factors while emphasizing the importance of activist strategies and the collective identities of the women targeted for recruitment. All future research on social movements,political violence, and gender will have to grapple with Viterna's provocative theory." --Jeff Goodwin, New York University"Women in War is an in-depth look at how women were mobilized, served, and transformed by their roles as combatants and non-combatants by the FMLN - the guerrillas - in the Salvadoran civil war. Having myself served for a year in the midst of that conflict as a physician, the gender dynamics, insights, and experiences that Women in War present are a valuable contribution to understanding the post-conflict reality of these women in today's El Salvador."--Charlie Clements, M.D., M.P.H, author of Witness to War"In this stellar book, Jocelyn Viterna brings much needed sophistication to the literature on women and war. She shows that the tired debate on political participation in war as empowerment or victimization should be superseded by analysis of the specific conditions under which women exert agency and those under which they are victimized. This book should be read not only by scholars of civil war and insurgency, but also by policy-makers working towardpost-conflict reconciliation and development." --Elisabeth Jean Wood, Yale University"Viterna develops a sophisticated, micro-level, political mobilization theory to explain individual variations in social movement participation. This is an important contribution to the study of gender, violence, and political mobilization. Highly recommended." --CHOICE"Women in War provides an innovative theory of micromobilization that will serve collective action scholars and students for decades to come. Viterna's participation identity theory complements the microstructural revolution of movement recruitment and participation that scholars such as David Snow, Doug McAdam, Bert Klandermans, Roger Gould and important others pioneered in the 1980s and 1990s. By emphasizing the process of activist role taking, herconceptual scheme convincingly moves beyond social networks alone as the principal causal force driving political participation. ...a 'must read.'" --Mobilization"Women in War [is] a very historically, methodologically, theoretically, and empirically compelling read. It is a stellar piece of sociology and necessary reading for gender, social movements, revolution, and violence scholars as well as students seeking models for their own research designs." --American Journal of Sociology