in their 2015 book "the hillary doctrine: sex and american foreign policy", texas a&m university professor valerie m. hudson and former world health organization manager and consultant patricia leidl examine the hillary doctrine at length, beginning with its premise. at first, the notion was considered counter-intuitive and sometimes received cursory dismissal within academic circles. but hudson surveys research that she and others have done, in part using the womanstats project database, on the link between violence against women and gender inequality within a state and the level of national security and stability of that state. they summarize one set of findings by saying: "what the research team found was that the best predictor of a state's peacefulness was not level of democracy, or wealth, or civilizational identity: the best predictor of a state's peacefulness was its level of violence against women. these findings cut across wealth, regime type, and region." several case studies are described that investigate causation, such as looking sex-selective abortion and female infanticide in asia, rape during the congo civil wars, the fate of women in the arab spring, and at greatest length, ongoing violence against women in guatemala.