TY - JOUR
T1 - Legislative Gender Diversity and the Resolution of Civil Conflict
AU - Best, Rebecca H.
AU - Shair-Rosenfield, Sarah
AU - Wood, Reed
N1 - Funding Information:
A previous version of this paper was presented at the Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame in 2014. We would like to thank Patrick Regan and seminar participants at the Kroc Institute, Debra Leiter, and the five anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. All remaining errors are our own.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 University of Utah.
PY - 2019/3/1
Y1 - 2019/3/1
N2 - Policy makers and scholars have shown increased interest in gendered approaches to peacemaking, even as evidence of women’s impact on peace processes has remained unclear. In this paper, we explore the influence of gender diversity among decision-making elites on the outcome of ongoing civil conflicts. Specifically, we argue that increased female representation within the national legislature increases the likelihood that a conflict terminates in a negotiated settlement. However, the impact of legislative female representation on conflict termination is conditioned by the power of the legislature vis-à-vis the executive, suggesting that gender diversity exerts a greater impact in states with more authoritative legislatures. We evaluate our hypotheses using data on the manner of conflict termination and the proportion of women in national legislatures between 1945 and 2009. Our results show support for the central argument, suggesting that increasing female representation within legislative bodies increases the likelihood of war termination via negotiated settlement.
AB - Policy makers and scholars have shown increased interest in gendered approaches to peacemaking, even as evidence of women’s impact on peace processes has remained unclear. In this paper, we explore the influence of gender diversity among decision-making elites on the outcome of ongoing civil conflicts. Specifically, we argue that increased female representation within the national legislature increases the likelihood that a conflict terminates in a negotiated settlement. However, the impact of legislative female representation on conflict termination is conditioned by the power of the legislature vis-à-vis the executive, suggesting that gender diversity exerts a greater impact in states with more authoritative legislatures. We evaluate our hypotheses using data on the manner of conflict termination and the proportion of women in national legislatures between 1945 and 2009. Our results show support for the central argument, suggesting that increasing female representation within legislative bodies increases the likelihood of war termination via negotiated settlement.
KW - civil war
KW - conflict resolution
KW - legislative authority
KW - negotiated settlement
KW - women
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U2 - 10.1177/1065912918785459
DO - 10.1177/1065912918785459
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85049911920
SN - 1065-9129
VL - 72
SP - 215
EP - 228
JO - Political Research Quarterly
JF - Political Research Quarterly
IS - 1
ER -