The Impact of Women Legislators on Humanitarian Military Interventions

• Published in: The Journal of conflict resolution Vol. 61; no. 10; pp. 2043 - 2073
• Main Authors: Shea, Patrick E., Christian, Charlotte
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA Sage Publications, Inc 01.11.2017; SAGE Publications; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Conflict; Conflict resolution; Crises; Decision making; Domestic politics; Estimation; Foreign policy; Gender; Humanitarian aid; Humanitarian intervention; Humanitarianism; Legislators; Legislatures; Military intervention; Robustness; State legislatures; Women; humanitarian intervention; foreign policy; military intervention; domestic politics
• ISSN: 0022-0027; 1552-8766
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002716631105

In this article, we contend that the current gender and conflict literature ignores the context of military decisions and thus underestimates the support of women for certain types of military interventions. We argue that the issues related to humanitarian crises are likely to provoke support from women. Consequently, as more women enter elected positions in state legislatures, the more likely a state will become involved in a humanitarian military intervention. To test our argument, we compile a data set of humanitarian military interventions and women legislators from 1946 to 2003. A series of estimation approaches and robustness tests support our assertion that more women legislators impact the likelihood that a state will become involved in a humanitarian military intervention. Our research has specific implications on the role of gender in conflict processes and more general implications on the connection between domestic political processes and foreign policy decision making.