Is the Future Female? Lessons from a Conjoint Experiment on Voter Preferences in Six Arab Countries

Despite growing evidence of pro-female bias in the electorate elsewhere, conventional wisdom holds that voters in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) prefer male candidates, presumably due to sexism. We test this conventional wisdom using a conjoint experiment administered to over 30,000 respondents in six MENA countries. We find both male and female respondents are more likely to express support for female candidates and see them as more capable than their male counterparts, even in stereotypically male domains. We argue the increasing demand for political outsiders explains these results. In highlighting the importance of such changes, our study expands the application of gender congruity theory in the MENA and beyond by offering evidence that both changes in gender stereotypes (i.e., gender roles) and in what citizens desire in leaders (i.e., leader roles) reduce anti-female bias at the polls

Do Islamist Parties Help or Hinder Women? Party Institutionalization, Piety and Responsiveness to Female Citizens

Does electing Islamist parties help or hurt women? Due to Ennahda winning a plurality in the 2011 elections and women from all parties winning 31% of seats, Tunisia offers an opportunity to test the impact of legislator gender and Islamist orientation on women\u27s representation. Using original 2012 surveys of 40 Tunisian parliamentarians (MPs) and 1200 citizens, we find that electing female and Islamists MPs improves women\u27s symbolic and service responsiveness by increasing the likelihood that female citizens are aware of and contact MPs. Electing Islamist female MPs has a positive impact on women\u27s symbolic and service responsiveness, but decreases the likelihood that men will interact with legislators. We argue that Islamist deputies are more responsive to women due to an Islamic mandate effect—that is, Islamist parties\u27 efforts to institutionalize their constituency relations, provide services to the marginalized through direct contact with citizens, and respect norms of piety by using female parliamentarians to reach women in sex-segregated spaces. While Islamist parties positively impact some dimensions of women\u27s representation, they also reinforce traditional gender relations. Our results extend the literature on Islam, gender, and governance by demonstrating that quotas and party institutionalization improve women\u27s representation in clientelistic contexts

Does Casework Build Support for a Strong Parliament? Legislative Representation and Public Opinion in Morocco and Algeria.

Why do legislatures lengthen the tenure of authoritarian regimes? In order to gain insight into this question, this dissertation examines how parliamentary institutions influence members’ participation in debate and provision of casework and how the representative link shapes constituent attitudes toward the parliament. It argues that public opinion serves as a contextual factor in future rounds of elite-level bargaining over the prerogatives of the legislature and is a neglected part of a causal story which accounts for the empirical regularity identified by Gandhi and Przeworski. The project provides a description and analysis of casework practices in Morocco and Algeria. It makes three empirical contributions. First, it demonstrates that parliamentary institutions vary within a class of authoritarian regimes and shape members’ choice of activities. It suggests that representation is a mechanism of cooptation occurring as members bargain for reelection in elite and mass arenas. Incumbent preferences for level of debate and casework capacity vary by regime type, explaining why Moroccan members participate more frequently in parliamentary debate and have higher caseloads than do Algerian members and why debate and casework are substitutes in Algeria and complements in Morocco. Second, it illustrates that incumbent preferences for debate in Morocco create an institutional opening for opposition elites, in this case Islamist parties, to more fully develop party-focused strategies and programmatic benefits than their counterparts in Algeria. It shows that Moroccan Islamist deputies are more likely to perceive incentives to cultivate a party reputation and to devote time to policymaking, but no more or less likely to have higher caseloads than are members of other parties. Algerian Islamist deputies do not differ from other parties on these outcomes. Third, it demonstrates that incumbent strategies to engineer loyal parliaments have implications for public opinion. Provision of casework—arguably the primary representative function in Morocco and Algeria—is not associated with greater popular support for strong parliamentary prerogatives. Rather, individual-level support is related to perceptions that elections are more transparent and that political parties and deputies are more effective. The results inform literature on authoritarian politics and have implications for legislative strengthening programs.Ph.D.Public Policy & Political ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61674/1/lbenstea_1.pd

Explaining Backlash: Social Hierarchy and Men’s Rejection of Women’s Rights Reforms

Governments promote gender-sensitive policies, yet little is known about why reform campaigns evoke backlash. Drawing on social position theory, we test whether marginalized (women’s organizations) or intrusive (Western donors) messengers cause resistance across public rights (quotas) and private rights (land reform). Using a framing experiment implemented among 1,704 Malawians, we find that females’ attitudes are unaffected by campaigns, while backlash occurs among patrilineal and matrilineal males. Backlash among men is more common for sensitive private rights (land reform) than public rights (quotas) and Western donors than women’s organizations, suggesting complex effects generally more consistent with the intrusiveness hypothesis

Poor People\u27s Beliefs and the Dynamics of Clientelism

Why do some poor people engage in clientelism whereas others do not? Why does clientelism sometimes take traditional forms and sometimes more instrumental forms? We propose a formal model of clientelism that addresses these questions focusing primarily on the citizen’s perspective. Citizens choose between supporting broad-based redistribution or engaging in clientelism. Introducing insights from social psychology, we study the interactions between citizen beliefs and values, and their political choices. Clientelism, political inefficacy, and inequality legitimation beliefs reinforce each other leading to multiple equilibria. One of these resembles traditional clientelism, with disempowered clients that legitimize social inequalities. Community connectivity breaks this reinforcement mechanism and leads to another equilibrium where clientelism takes a modern, instrumental, form. The model delivers insights on the role of citizen beliefs for their bargaining power as well as for the persistence and transformation of clientelism. We illustrate the key mechanisms with ethnographic literature on the topic

Differentiation and Diffusion: Shifting Public Opinion Attitudes Toward Foreign Policy in North Africa

Drawing on Arab Barometer data, this article provides the backdrop for understanding continuity and change since the Arab Spring in national-level public opinion attitudes toward economic and political foreign policy issues in North Africa, inclusive of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. The article leverages the concepts of differentiation and diffusion to understand how international affairs shape public opinion in North Africa since the Arab Spring. Three findings emerge. First, public opinion about domestic and international issues are linked in the minds of North African citizens and foreign policy issues are more important factors underlying pre- and post-Arab Spring politics than are often recognised. Especially in the post-Arab Spring era, Arab citizens widely see external interference as a problem and this perception increased in every North African country between 2013 and 2016. Moreover, there is considerable variation across and within North African states in attitudes toward economic and political foreign policy issues, including the Arab-Israeli conflict and attitudes about economic and security relationships with Israel. Anti-Israeli sentiment increased substantially in the years leading up to and following the Arab Spring. Finally, since the Arab Spring, anti-Americanism, as measured by negative perceptions of U.S. culture, has declined in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, but risen slightly in Egypt, even as North Africans demonstrate increased support for a U.S. role in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict during this same time period. These trends suggest that anti-Americanism is highly dependent on specific domestic and international developments and is highly complex in the Arab world

Conceptualizing and Measuring Patriarchy: The Importance of Feminist Theory

Why do we know so little about gender and politics in the Middle East? Most obviously, few women were elected to office in the Arab world until recently, limiting the study of women in formal politics. In Morocco, the first female was elected to the lower house in 1993, while in Saudi Arabia, women first ran for office—in municipal elections—in 2015. Systematic data on politics has also been historically scant, making the study of women’s informal participation, such as voting and civil society activities, also difficult. The Middle East tends to contribute less to comparative politics than have other regions, and so, it is unsurprising that little is known about a sometimes marginalized, though sizeable area of political science—gender and politics—in the Arab region. In a working paper, Marwa Shalaby and I discuss these and other reasons the Middle East lags behind in its contribution to gender and politics literature. We also summarize insights from new avenues of research which are transforming the ways we think about gender relations within and beyond the Arab world. In this memo, I discuss another barrier: the need for improved conceptualization and measurement of patriarchy. I argue that political scientists under-conceptualize patriarchy and fail to draw on existing feminist theory. By better engaging with feminist theorists such as Kandiyoti (1988), who conceptualized gender relations as a “patriarchal bargain,” and Sadiqi (2008), who distinguished private and public patriarchy, political scientists can better explain mechanisms promoting women’s empowerment

Survey Research in the Arab World: Challenges and Opportunities

Survey research has steadily expanded in the Arab world since the 1980s. The Arab spring marked a watershed when surveying became possible in Tunisia and Libya, and questionnaires included previously censured questions. Almost every Arab country is now included in the Arab Barometer or World Values Survey and researchers have numerous datasets to answer theoretical and policy questions. Yet some scholars express the view that the Arab survey context is more challenging than other regions or that respondents will not answer honestly. I argue that this reflects biases of “Arab exceptionalism,” more than fair assessments of data quality. Based on cross-national data analysis, I find evidence of systematically missing data—a possible indicator of social desirability bias—in all regions and political regimes. These challenges and the increasing openness of some Arab countries to survey research should spur studies on the data collection process in the Arab world and beyond

Understanding Backlash to Women\u27s Rights Campaigns in Malawian Society with Lindsay Benstead

In this episode of PDXPLORES, Lindsay J. Benstead, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Middle East Studies Center (MESC) at Portland State University discusses her recent publication, Explaining Backlash: Social Hierarchy and Men’s Rejection of Women’s Rights Reforms. Benstead draws on social position theory to explore the resistance of empowered groups to social reform and women’s empowerment, and how messaging campaigns intended to advance gender sensitive policies increase adverse reactions in society. Click on the Download button to access the audio transcript

Civil Society, Insecurity and Arab Support for Normalization with Israel: Contextualizing the Abraham Accords

Extant literature suggests that public support for peace accords plays a role in their durability. Yet while the Abraham Accords represent significant rapprochement between governments, the region is marked by the conditions of violence and insecurity that harm social trust and reduce the likelihood of conciliatory views among citizens. Using Arab Barometer data from twelve countries (2012–2014), I explore the factors that lead Arab citizens to be more supportive of normalization. I argue that while instability undermines the demand for peace, civil society engagement develops bonding and bridging social capital that supports conciliatory views. I find that perceived insecurity is negatively related to support for Arab-Israeli peace, yet greater social capital, in the form of tolerance, associational membership, and social media use, produced demand for peace. Country of residence and religious identity are important predictors, with Sunni and Shi’a Muslims being less conciliatory towards Israel than Christians. Contrary to assumptions underlying US foreign policy, participating in politics by voting in democratic or authoritarian elections or protesting were related to lower demand for peace. By illustrating the role that civil society and perceived security play, the results have implications for scholars of security studies and policymakers working to support peacemaking