Authoritarian Institutions and Women’s Rights

• Published in: Comparative political studies Vol. 52; no. 5; pp. 720 - 753
• Main Authors: Donno, Daniela, Kreft, Anne-Kathrin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.04.2019; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: authoritarian regimes; Authoritarianism; Autocracy; Civil rights; Coordination; Democracy; Dictators; Elections; Human rights; Incentives; Institutionalization; Liberalization; Loyalty; Political parties; Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalization Studies); Politics; Rights; Statsvetenskap (exklusive studier av offentlig förvaltning och globaliseringsstudier); Women; Women and politics; women's rights; Womens rights; Kenya; Uganda; Tanzania; women and politics; women’s rights; human rights; authoritarian regimes
• ISSN: 0010-4140; 1552-3829; 1552-3829
• DOI: 10.1177/0010414018797954

While dictatorships perform worse than democracies in respect for most human rights, a large number of autocracies have prioritized the advancement of women’s rights. We present a theory of authoritarian rights provision that focuses on the incentives for dictatorships to secure women’s loyalty, and we identify the particular capacity of institutionalized party-based regimes to supply—and capitalize from—women’s rights policies. Analyzing a comprehensive sample of authoritarian regimes from 1963 to 2009, we find that party-based regimes are associated with greater economic and political rights for women irrespective of whether they hold multiparty elections. A comparative exploration of authoritarian Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya sheds further light on these findings and examines alternative explanations. Our account of women’s rights as a tool of autocratic party coalition-building contrasts with the provision of civil and associational rights—so-called “coordination goods”—which represents a concession to the opposition and tends to accompany liberalization.