GENDER EQUALITY POLICIES IN AUTHORITARIAN
REGIMES AND ELECTORAL DEMOCRACIES
Senem Ertan
University of Siena
[email protected]
Paper presented at the 4th ECPR Graduate Conference
Jacobs University
4th - 6th July 2012
Abstract
This paper examines dynamics of gender equality policy adoption by having a particular focus on comparison
of authoritarian versus non-authoritarian states. There can be a number of factors which affect government’s
response to women’s problems such as domestic violence, equal treatment in employment or women’s
property rights. It has been demonstrated by some scholarly work that regime type could be one of those
factors. Many scholars argue that democracies in general are more woman-friendly than authoritarian regimes
while others demonstrate no significant impact of the level of democracy. The main aim of this study is to
assess these arguments by having a large N cross-national research design in mind and to question whether
being an authoritarian regime hinders government’s responsiveness for women’s issues. In doing this, this
study first analyze trends of gender equality policy adoption in between authoritarian and non-authoritarian
states and then focuses on different trends of gender equality policy adoption between authoritarian regimes.
To this end, this study ask questions such as ‘Are there some general patterns between authoritarian and nonauthoritarian countries about the adoption of the gender equality policies?’ ‘What are the determinants of
gender equality policies around the world and do they match the context of authoritarian regimes?’ ‘why
some authoritarian countries are more likely to adopt gender equality policies than others?’
1
Introduction
Authoritarian states have been historically less friendly for human rights and less responsive to citizen’s
demands for rights. Representation of citizens, including women’s representation, has been problematic in
authoritarian countries because ruling elite have been less willing to share their power with different stratums
of the society. However, there are even authoritarian countries which take steps to improve women’s rights as
much as democracies do. For example, the right to abortion is legally supported in Azerbaijan whereas
women’s property rights are well protected by Venezuelan law. In discovering the reasons of gender equality
policy adoption in Authoritarian countries, this research seeks to answer the question that what are the
determinants of gender equality policy in Authoritarian countries.
Even though there are limited numbers of cross-national studies exploring gender equality policies, there are
wide range case studies and small-N comparisons that examines determinants of gender equality in the world.
Some studies focused on the effects of culture and religion on gender equality (Paxton, 1999; Norris &
Inglehart; 2001; Paxton & Kunowich, 2003) while some others presented historical, economic or political
factors (Inglehart & Norris, 2003b; Paxton, 2009, 1997; Tripp& Kang, 2008; Tinker 2004; Matland, 2002 and
many others) as important determinants of gender equality policy adoption. Moreover, some other studies
approach the issue from another angle questioning the role of main actors such as women in parliament,
women’s policy agencies or women’s movement (Lovenduski, 2005; Childs and Withey, 2004; Bratton and Ray,
2002; Saint-Germain, 1989). This study aims to cover the effect of all the determinants of gender equality
policy adoption in authoritarian countries. In addition, in this study some empirical evidence is presented also
to explain the differences of gender equality policies between authoritarian countries and electoral
democracies. After all, the main argument of this paper is that the determinants of gender equality policies do
not only vary between electoral democracies and authoritarian regimes but it also differs from one policy issue
to the other. Moreover, it could be also argued that there are some characteristics which make an
Authoritarian country more women friendly than others such as being a Post-Soviet Union country, as will be
demonstrated in this study, could provide some advantages for gender equality policy adoption.
Exploring determinants of gender equality requires developing a good measurement for the analysis that is
one of the main contributions of this study in the literature. On the basis of previous literature this study
disaggregates gender equality policy into the policy sectors and introduces original measurements for each
policy sector. Therefore, this study presents an original way to study gender equality policies and intends that
these measurements are applicable for the cases that are not included in this research. This study starts with
definitional, conceptual and theoretical discussions about gender equality policies and democracy. Secondly,
measurement issues are discussed in detail and thirdly analyses and results are presented.
2
Which term to Use? Definition of Gender Equality Policy
Scholars have been using various terminologies in order to refer to the government actions which promote
women’s status in the society and equality between man and woman. In the literature one can come across
with at least nine different concepts: 1) Women/Female Friendly Policy 2) Women’s Substantive
Representation 3) Gender/Sex Equality Policy 4) Feminist Policy 5) Women’s Policy 6) Women’s Rights Policy 7)
Policies concerning women’s interest 8) Gender Policy/Gender Related Policy 9) Gender Equity Policy . Some of
these terms are used interchangeable (women’s policy and women’s rights policy) while some of them have
been used with deeper theoretical backgrounds and distinguishing features (women’s substantive
representation). In this study, the term gender equality policy is used to refer to the government acts in
response to problems that women face in their daily lives as well as in order to obtain gender equality in
society. These actions could be both adoption of legal regulations as well as policy regulations. Our definition
of gender equality policy has two important components; government response for gender equality and
government response for women’s problems. The definition of gender equality do not particularly incorporate
some of the women’s problems such as domestic violence, therefore I argue that it is necessary to include
those two parts in the definition. Htun and Weldon(2007)defines gender equality as “an ideal condition in
which men and women have similar opportunities to participate in politics, the economy and social activities;
their roles and status are equally valued; neither suffers from gender based disadvantage or discrimination;
and both are considered free autonomous beings with dignity and rights”. This definition disregards some of
the problems that women faces in their everyday lives particularly violence against women. Therefore, I
believe that the two components used in this study give a more accurate understanding of gender equality
policy for the aims of this study.
Democracy and Gender Equality Policy
The affect of the degree of democracy on gender equality and women’s rights has been widely scrutinized by
scholarly literature. Some studies demonstrated that democratic states are more likely to support women’s
rights in comparison with other types of political regimes (Sweeney, 2004; Hudson, Bowen and Nielsen, 2011).
Although „democracy does not necessarily imply protection of human rights, modern democratic states with a
vibrant civil society, free and fair elections, and widespread political freedoms are more likely than any other
type of political regime to advance women’s human rights” (Sweeney, 2004, p.14). Supporting these
arguments some studies examining transitions to democracy demonstrated that pluralist civil society contexts
enhanced during and democratization triggered gender equality policies (Guzman et. Al, 2010; Waylen, 2008).
Democratic government enhances gender equality by improving women’s representation in political sphere
and public institutions. Democratization particularly promotes integration of women’s policy agencies into the
state institutions and therefore leading institutional infusion of gender equality issues. However, those
3
women’s machineries might also be symbolic in some cases which leads to no or weak policy changes (Waylen,
2008). In addition, it is widely argued that democratic political systems and institutions enable all citizens,
including excluded populations such as ethnic minorities or women, to participate in the governance of their
countries through civil society movements. Political liberalization allows civil society groups, including
women’s groups, to mobilize and demand for a more gender equal society and therefore foster government’s
responsiveness to women’s issues.
Some studies demonstrated that democratic countries have lesser records of violence of human rights,
particularly violence against women (Weldon, 2002; Hudson, Bowen and Nielsen, 2011). However, even in fully
democratic society’s gender equality achievements could be obstructed by some conservative powers such as
religious organizations for the issues of family and sexuality or by interest groups such as business lobbies for
the issues such as maternal leave policies or equal employment policies. Therefore, even though democratic
societies provide unique advantages to women’s equality vis-à-vis men, to be a democracy could not be
always considered as a sufficient condition for women friendly policy adoption. Confirming these arguments,
some cross-national comparisons examining the relationship between women’s political representation and
democracy demonstrated weak, negative or statistically insignificant relationship (Paxton, 1997; Kenworthy &
Malami, 1999; Tripp & Kang, 2008).
Gender equality policies do not occur only in democratic regimes. Some authoritarian regimes also promote
women’s status in society and in politics. In authoritarian regimes elite women and feminists that have ruling
power or some progressive reformers, this could be even the Monarch its self, might push up advances in
women’s rights (Htun & Weldon, 2010; Jamal, 2010a, 2010b; Ertan, 2008). For example, in Morocco, where
the level of democracy is low and the rule of law is quite weak, King Mohammad VI was the key actor leading a
reform package on women’s personal status law in 2003 (Jamal, 2010). International influence and pressure
could be another reason of why authoritarian governments promote women’s rights. Transnational women’s
rights movements together with international conventions such as the UN and the ILO conventions put
pressure on national governments. Undemocratic governments, including those in democratic transition
period, utilize the ratification of these conventions as a source of international legitimacy.
On the other hand, studies examining communist period demonstrated that Marxist and Leninist government
ideologically supported some issues of gender equality and women under Communist regime was even more
advantageous than women living under industrial countries (Pollert, 2003). Women had high levels of
participation in education, employment and politics which even today has its reflections in today’s gender
equality indicators such as the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) or An alternative index, the Relative
Status of Women (Pollert, 2003). Statistics also demonstrated steep decreases in women’s political
representation after the collapse of communism (Galligan and Clavero, 2008; Pollert, 2003). However, the
4
high participation rates of women in those fields do not always mean peer equality. Many also argues that
political representation of women under communism was more symbolic than effective and women were also
employed in lower paid lower status jobs (Galligan and Clavero, 2008; Pollert, 2003). Therefore, the ideological
commitment to gender equality did not impede patriarchal arrangements of the state.
In sum, the effect of the level democracy on gender equality policy adoption of countries is a contested issue
and therefore requires more investigation. This study puts an effort into the contribution to scholarly
literature examining why authoritarian regimes supports or hinders gender equality.
Gender Equality Policy Adoption
All policies appear in a policy environment which is shaped by various factors and different actors.
Concerning gender equality policies, main actors which may play crucial role in the policy process are women’s
policy agencies such as commissions or ministries, women in office, party in government, actors involved in
women’s movement such as women’s organizations, and other international actors such as the ILO or the UN
which regulates international women’s rights norms.
Figure 1: Basic Model of Determinants of Gender Equality Policies
Policy Environment
Institutional and political factors
Socio-cultural factors
Historical factors
Economic factors
Gender
Equality Policy
Main Actors:
Women’s Policy Agencies
Women in Office
Party in government
Women’s movement
International actors
Issue specific actors
All of these actors are affected by different institutional, cultural, historical or economic factors, as
well as they have the ability to affect some of those factors such as the government’s ability to change the
electoral system or economic situation. However, depending to each policy issue there may be some other
actors included in the policy processes. For example, once the maternity leave benefits are in the agenda,
5
business corporations may want to involve in the process as the formulation of the policy may require extra
burden on the business owners. Therefore, it should be kept in mind that other actors and determining factors
may be always added to the analysis depending on the policy issue or policy sectors.
Key Actors
A considerable numbers of studies examined the effects of women’s representation on policy process
and political outputs. The studies of women’s representation mostly scrutinize this link by asking the questions
that ‘Do women in politics act for women?’ or ‘Do women’s representation in politics affect the political
outputs?’ However, the results of the scholarly researches are inconsistent regarding to the relationship
between descriptive and substantive representation of women.
Analyses of women’s political representation have mainly focused on the relationship between
descriptive and substantive representation1. Many scholars empirically demonstrated that there is a positive
association between descriptive and substantive representation of women (Caiazza, 2002; Chaney 2008;
Atchinson, 2008; Childs and Withey, 2004; Bratton and Ray, 2002; Saint-Germain, 1989). These scholars argue
that once women have place in the elected office or in a decision maker position, they mostly act for women.2
It is to say that increasing presence of women in politics will have an impact on the passage of women friendly
policies. This is because of the assumption that once women come into the office; they will be more likely than
their male counterparts to work on the areas that are considered of women’s interests (Saint-Germain, 1989).
Moreover, it is often argued that women would bring a women’s perspective into the politics once they enter
into the office. Empirical case studies as well as cross-national comparative studies of industrial parliamentary
democracies often support the assumption that increasing women’s representation in politics, including
parliament or cabinet, has a positive impact on women-friendly policies (For example; Saint-Germain, 1989;
Atchinson, 2008; Grey, 2001; Chaney, 2008; Caiazza, 2002). However, high female representation in the
parliaments of post industrial nations may „over-determine conclusions drawn about the relationship between
numbers of elected women and their political representational impact” (Beckwith, 2007, p. 33). There are
different factors such as party pressures (Ayata and Tutuncu, 2008) or wider political contexts (Waylen, 2008)
1
Hanna Pitkin, in her seminal work ‘The Concept of Representation’ (1967) introduced four dimensions of political
representation; formalistic representation, descriptive representation, symbolic representation and substantive
representation. In brief; formalistic representation refers to institutional rules and procedures regulating authorization
and accountability of representatives, whereas descriptive representation introduces the idea that the representatives
stand for their constituents therefore; there is an important resemblance between representatives and the represented
(Pitkin, 1967, 111). On the other hand, symbolic representation refers to the evaluations and attitudes of the represented
among a symbol representing them. That explains somehow the irrational side of the representation to the extent to
which the represented accepts and supports the symbols that are presented to them. Lastly, substantive representation
requires the action of representatives for the interest of the constituents.
2
The critics to this perspective mainly refer to its theoretical assumption that women share uniform interests (Karlsson,
2009). Many scholars argue that women’s interests are not stereotyped or given in a certain context. Some scholars
further contributed to these arguments by claiming that gender is an identity which is mostly constructed through the
practices of politics (Karlsson, 2009).
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that limit actions of female representatives. Supporting this argument, the case studies analyzing women’s
descriptive and substantive representation in countries such as Turkey or Rwanda denies the results of
previous studies done for the Industrial countries (Ayata and Tutuncu, 2008; Devlin and Elgie, 2008).
Moreover, a recent comparative research of maternity leave policies and descriptive representation of women
in 167 countries does not find any evidence about a positive relationship between descriptive and substantive
representation (Schumacher, 2008). Therefore, the results on the relationship between descriptive and
substantive representation of women are inconsistent.
On the other hand, state feminism literature has put a particular emphasis on two main actors in
gender equality policy adoption. Firstly, state agencies are essential in order to support and stimulate women’s
rights. These state based women’s policy agencies, the Women’s Bureau in the United Stated being the oldest
women’s policy agency (WPA) in the world, may be widely different from one country to the other such as
commissions on gender equality, various offices, departments, secretaries, advisory councils, ministries etc.
These state agencies play a crucial role in bridging the demands of women’s activist into the state apparatus
(Lovenduski, 2005). Second, women’s rights movements and civil society concepts, create an unavoidable
pressure on states, particularly in industrial democracies (Htun and Weldon, 2010; Weldon, 2002; Lovenduski,
2005). Celis et. al (2008) argued that women’s substantive representation do not only appear in elected
political bodies or other state agencies but also in different levels of political forums one of which is the
women’s movements. The characteristics of women’s movements is an important determinant of how much
does these movements will be successful in influencing the policy-makers. Autonomy and the strength
(Weldon, 2002), the development level of the movement, its closeness to the left, priority of the issue on the
movement agenda, and cohesiveness of the movement organizations (Lovenduski, 2005) are some important
characteristics of women’s movements effectiveness. Weldon (2002), in her empirical analysis of
representation of women in policymaking of 36 democratic countries concluded that the existence of strong
and autonomous women’s movements accompanied by effective women’s policy agencies increases the
likelihood of successful policymaking on women’s rights. Similarly, Lovenduski (2005) in her edited volume of
State Feminism and Representation demonstrates that state agencies alone are not an adequate source of
legislation, which is responsive to women’s demands; therefore, the creation of these agencies should be
supplemented by cohesive women’s movements for a more responsive substantive representation. At the
same time, however, different groups in women’s movements may represent different interests of women. In
short, one cannot assume a unique women’s interest in a whole society. In this context, success of different
interest of women’s groups may highly depend on the special and effective linkages of WPAs and those
particular groups in the women’s movements.
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How to measure gender equality policy?
As mentioned the concept of ‘gender equality policies’ is a contested and multi dimensional
phenomenon including various kinds of indicators which can be considered as women friendly. There are
couple of scholars who made valuable contributions in regard to the operationalization of the women-friendly
policies for quantitative analyses. First of all, Caiazza (2002) determined 7 indicators of those policies that are
women-friendly. These includes policies related to the issues of 1)Violence against women 2)child support
3)welfare policies 4)employment and unemployment benefits 5)sexual orientation and gender identity
6)reproductive rights 7) institutional resources. The common point of each of these seven policies is that they
aim to either improve women’s social or economic status in the society or they provide women’s equality visa-vis men. Secondly, Schwindt-Bayer and Mishler (2005) in their cross national analysis of 31 countries
operationalized substantive representation of women by using four indicators: 1) Gender equality in social
rights 2) Gender equality in political rights 3) national maternity leave policy 4) gender equality in marriage and
divorce. Thirdly, Schumacher (2008) in her analysis of 167 countries has taken maternity leave policies as a
proxy of women’s friendly policy because of the fact that maternity leave policy is considered by many
scholars as a proper international indicator of women’s friendly policy as these policies allow women to
participate in public life beside their roles as mothers (Schumacher, 2008; Grey 2001). However, Franceshet
and Piscopo (2008) find it problematic when substantive representation is measured with one indicator
because of the complexity of the concept of substantive representation. Therefore, multi level researches or
the usage of comprehensive indexes may minimize the problem of simplification of the concept of women’s
friendly policies to just one of its dimensions. In addition to those studies, Htun and Weldon has created a
gender equality policy index including 13 issues: Family law, maternity and parental leave, day care, legality of
abortion, abortion funding, legality of contraceptives, contraceptive funding, gender quotas, violence against
women, women’s health, women’s education, equality at work, constitutional equality. They used an elevenpoint scale to measure each of the area. (Htun & Weldon, 2007)
Beside those studies which mainly focus on various gender policy issues, Mazur (2002) in her book of
Theorizing Feminist Policy analyses feminist policies as a separate sector of government policy that includes
following eight sub-sectors;
1) Blueprint Policy (feminist government action): general principles for feminist government
action
2) Political representation: State action to promote women’s representation in the political
arena
3) Equal Employment: policies equalizing positions of men and women in the paid labor.
4) Reconciliation: policies related to the double burden of work and family
5) Family law policy: men’s and women’s rights in the family through legal systems
6) Body Politics: Reproduction: Policies related to the reproductive rights of women
7) Body Politics: Sexuality: Policies promoting feminist approaches to sexuality and violence
8) Public Service Delivery: government efforts to deliver some public services such as health,
housing, education or transportation.
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By having this sectoral understanding of feminist policy, she shows in her study that feminist policy, due
to its highly transversal nature; do not present homogeneous set of political patterns. She figures out that
feminist policies can be considered as a new sector of government action in industrial democracies and
therefore, policy making do not follow a common pattern of action (Mazur, 2002). However, this study do not
attempts to show different dynamics of gender equality policy sectors within countries as well as across
countries as it only focuses on 12 post industrial democracies and only 27 policy cases. Therefore, to asses
these arguments not only in democracies but also in non-democracies may shed some light on the arguments
about feminist policy as a sector of government action. Moreover, it is necessary to have more complete
information about the cross-sectional dimension of gender equality policies. Therefore, it would be more
accurate to create an index which includes all of the eight feminist policy sub-sectors.
Table 1: Creating an Alternative Measurement of Gender Equality Policies
Policy Issue
Maternal, paternal and
parental leave policies
Abortion, contraception and
health service delivery policies
Women’s Quotas
Property Rights and
Age of Marriage Policy
Domestic Violence
Constitutional Equality
Gender Equality Action Plans
and
CEDAW
Principle of equal treatment in
employment
Policy Sector
1. Reconciliation
2. Body Politics: Reproduction
&
3. Public Service Delivery
4. Political Representation
5. Family Law
6. Body Politics on Sex
7. Blueprint Policy
Main Source of Data
McGill Institute’s World Legal Rights
Database
UNPD Abortion policies
Womanstats
WHO
Global Database on Quotas for Women
Womanstats
Womanstats
Womanstats
Un Women, Progress of World’s Women
Report 2011-2012
Women Business and Law report, World
Bank
Constitutions
Womanstats
ILO
State Reports for CEDAW
Women Business and Law report, World
Bank
8. Equal Employment
The Table 2 presents this study’s measurement of gender equality policies which based on the sectoral
divisional approach of Mazur. As this index takes one or two issues of each policy sectors, it differs from the
previously proposed indexes by taking not only issue dimension of the gender equality policies but also its
relevance to the different policy sectors. Therefore, this index may be helpful to understand different
dynamics of different policy sectors as well as policy issues. Mazur (2002) also proposes further evaluation of
hypotheses by large sample studies. Thus, this research will be a good tool to assess the hypotheses of sectoral
understanding of feminist policy. Particularly, this study may shed some light whether Mazur’s findings are
case-specific or generalizable to some extent. Moreover, it may contribute to the academic debate about
9
whether gender equality policy styles3 vary by sub-sectors or by individual policies? (Mazur, 2002, p.37). This
study also aims to provide a contribution to the literature while addressing some of Mazur’s research
questions such as “Do feminist policies correspond with a specific sub-sector of feminist policy, with a specific
country or with specific regional cluster of countries?” “Are there other important factors that can be
identified at the level of the policy sub-system, the nation state, or outside the nation state that produce
feminist policy success?” (p.173)
In the light with above theoretical discussions and literature review, the following hypotheses are
drawn for the aims of this study;
H1a: There are lower levels of government response to gender equality issues in Authoritarian
countries in comparison to electoral democracies.
H1b: The determinants of gender equality policy adoption are expected to be different between
authoritarian countries and electoral democracies.
H2: The determinants of gender equality policy adoption are expected to differ between the sectors
of gender equality policies because each of the policy sectors involves different policy adoption
dynamics.
H3: As far as representation in authoritarian countries is problematic and state feminist arguments
emphasizes the role of democracy, in this study there is an expectation that state feminist
arguments about the impact of women’s movement and women’s policy agencies and women’s
representation literature’s arguments on the impact of the proportion of female representatives
would not be hold by the gender policy adoption among authoritarian states. In short, we do not
expect to find a significant relationship between women’s representation, women’s policy agencies
and women’s movement on gender equality policy adoption in authoritarian countries.
Factors affecting gender equality policies: Further Independent Variables
Religion
Religious doctrine is widely seen as a determinant of gender equality policies. Many studies have
included variables measuring region or religion in their analysis and figured out that regions where Islamic
doctrine is present are less likely to promote women’s rights (Tripp & Kang, 2008; Paxton, 1997; Kenworthy &
Malami, 1999; Sweeney, 2006). The reasons of this backward trend among women’s rights may be linked to
the political Islam and levels of separation of state and religion in Muslim countries. As argued by some
scholars; separation of mosque and state is a precondition to any improvements on women’s status in Muslim
countries. The fusion of state and religion combined with the rise of political Islam worsens the social,
economic and political rights of women (Inglehart & Norris, 2003a; Sweeney, 2006; Kamguian, 2003; Ertan,
2008). Not only Muslim countries but also other countries where religion (all major world religions) is highly
involved in the policy-making process are less likely to protect women’s rights as well as most likely to produce
3
The term policy style refers to the general dynamics of how state and society actors interrelate and eventually influence
policy-making processes within the policy sub-system. (Mazur, 2002, p.35)
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oppressive practices against women(Sweeney, 2006, pp.vi,5). Moreover, the countries which combine
authoritarianism with the consolidation of state and religion are most likely to violate women’s rights
(Sweeney, 2004, p.23).
It is also argued by some scholars that the only way to liberate women would be full secularization of
the state through eliminating religion from law systems and education and identifying religion “as the private
affair of individuals.” (Azam Kamguian, 2003). On the other hand, some scholars such as Dahlia Eissa (1999) is
in denial of this particular argument that absolute equality of rights for women and men can only be obtained
through the secularization of Islamic law. In her view, secularization cannot achieve the aim of improving
women’s rights because it is commonly seen as Westernization or apostasy by the Muslim societies. More
importantly, secularization avoids solving the problem of wrong implementations of Islamic jurisprudence by
simply trying to keep religion out of scene. However, Islam defends equality of rights of women as a
substantial and talented religion, which is meaningful for changing the circumstances of men and women (Eissa,
1999, p.8). Similarly, Price (2002) found that Islamic political culture or Shari’a and the protection of human
rights have neither positively nor negatively related. His study also confirmed that democratic government is a
necessary condition for the protection of human rights. He concluded that Islam is not the reason for
despotism in the Muslim World but it is a justification of human rights violation, including women’s rights. In
other words, Islamic despots do not necessarily violate human rights more than non-Islamic despots or
secular-oriented despots in Muslim countries (Price, 2002).
Level of Economic Development
Inglehart and Norris claims that a nation’s economic development level, in addition to the religious
affiliation of a state, is critical in explaining the gender inequality cross-nationally. Modernization process in
wealthy post-industrial countries have transformed their values among gender issues and created a rising tide
of support for equality between men and women (Inglehart & Norris, 2003b, p.68). They argue that there is a
gender equality and sexual liberalization fault line between Muslim and non-Muslim societies in favor of
Western countries. In other words, developed countries, where the citizens have fundamental security of their
livelihood and secular principles are adopted are more likely to support gender equality than developing
countries with poor income distribution. At the very base, improvement of women’s economic conditions will
allow them to involve in milieus where parties draw their candidates and therefore to trigger women’s
presence in parliaments (Darcy, Welch and Clark, 1994 as quoted in Tremblay, 2006). Along this line of
research, some scholars tested the impact of economic development level and figured out that economic
development level is actually a significant determinant of women’s representation in legislatures (Tripp &
Kang, 2008; Hughes, 2007; Viterna et.al., 2006; Matland, 1998 ). Moreover, Matland (1998) claims that there is
clear threshold (a minimum level of development) in between countries that the factors assisting women’s
representation have simply no effect for the countries below this threshold. In other words, the variables such
as political/electoral institutions, cultural variables, and socioeconomic variables has significant effect on
11
determining women’s political representation in highly industrialized democratic countries while they are not
significant for less developed countries.
Existence of Conflict
Empirical studies in the literature demonstrated that existence of internal and/or external conflict
significantly detriments the rights of women particularly physical integrity rights (Sweeney, 2007; Poe & Tate,
1994). Hudson et. al, (2009 ) shows that states which has higher levels of violence against women are more
likely to have bad relations with neighbor countries and there are also less peaceful internationally. Conflicts
disrupts government’s economic and political infrastructures and disorder caused by conflicts mostly damages
weakest members of the society who are women and children. Countries which involve internal or external
conflicts are more likely to spend fewer resources for their citizens because the militarization costs cause
interruption in the delivery of public services.
Colonial history
The literature is not consistent about the effect of colonial past on the women’s rights attainments.
Some studies demonstrated that colonialism had positive effects on women’s situation because colonial
powers invested in the countries that they occupied (Poe & Tate, 1994). However, there is the fact that
colonial powers do not behaved in the same way to each of their colonies as well as not all the colonial powers
invested immensely to their colonies. For example, family law structures of the French colonies of Algeria,
Morocco and Tunisia has not been regulated equally by France and the different forms of colonial rule resulted
in diverse situations in three countries (Charrad, 2001). Accordingly, some empirical studies show a significant
negative as well as positive impact of former colonial experience (depending on the colonial power) on
women’s rights (Sweeney, 2007).
Electoral System
There is a consensus among scholars that electoral system has an effect on women’s representation in
politics (Paxton, 2009, 1997; Tripp& Kang, 2008; Tinker 2004; Krook, 2009; Tremblay, 2006). Proportional
representation (PR) system in comparison with plurality-majority electoral system allows women to participate
in the political institution in a greater proportion. This is because PR systems have closed lists, higher district
and party magnitude, and high electoral thresholds (Matland, 2002).
In this system parties introduce
candidate lists to the public and people vote for those party lists instead of voting for individual candidates. As
a result, women cannot be stuck down at the bottom of the candidate lists and therefore more likely to be
elected. On the other hand, PR systems help women as a process of contagion, referring to a process by which
parties adopt policies initiated by other political parties, is more likely to occur in these systems than in
majoritarian electoral systems (Matland, 2002).
Societal attitudes towards women
Cultural factors and patriarchal attitudes of people towards women is seen one of the main reasons of
women’s subordinate position in some societies (Reynolds, 1999; Paxton, 1999; Norris & Inglehart; 2001;
12
Paxton & Kunowich, 2003). Societies’ general perception of gender roles and their opinion on women’s
position in the family and society could have detrimental or improving effect on government responses on
women’s needs. Public opinion and demands of civil society and the government’s policy priorities depends
significantly on the perception of which roles should women have in the society. Accordingly, Norris &
Inglehart (2001) demonstrates that culture matters in terms of women’s political empowerment. They argue
that countries with more gender egalitarian attitudes toward women have higher number of women in
parliaments. On the other hand, Paxton & Kunovich (2003) argue that the use of proxies, such as region or
religion, instead of a more comprehensive measure of societal attitudes is not adequate to predict women’s
political rights. Therefore, they developed a measure of gender egalitarian attitudes to examine the issue
systematically. Their study also confirms that gender egalitarian attitudes prove to be a stronger predictor for
women’s political representation than political or structural factors. Therefore, this study also includes in the
analysis culture as a determinant of government’s responsiveness towards gender equality issues.
The Table 2 summarizes the main independent variables that are mentioned in the above section and
the direction of their impact on gender equality policies. For the details of data and operationalization of these
variables please see Appendix.
Table 2: A Summary Independent Variables and
The Direction of the Hypotheses
Variables
Institutional and Political Factors
Democracy
Electoral system PR
Left party
Conflict
Intertwining of religion and state
Socio-cultural Factors
Religiosity
Gender Egalitarian attitudes
towards women
Religion
Islam
Economic Factors
GDP per capita
Historical factors
Colonial influence
Post-Soviet country
Impact on DV:
Hypothesis
direction
+
+
+
+
+
+
Analyses and Findings
For the objectives of this study, first of all a comparison between authoritarian regimes and electoral
democracies will be held. Secondly, a more in depth analyses will be run to discover gender equality policy
adoption in Authoritarian countries. As it is very crucial to include all the possible independent variables in our
analyses; we had to limit the selection of our cases to those which are included in latest waves of World Values
Surveys and the European Values Survey. The selection is made on this criteria because the database for this
13
variable is the widest of its type but it covers the smaller cases of countries in comparison with the databases
of other variables. However, it is still the widest international data source that may be used to measure
cultural values of societies and is therefore extremely valuable for our research. Furthermore, only countries
with more than 1 million population sizes are included in the analysis in order to reduce the possible
imbalances that may be resulted by the gap between big and small countries.4 There is not such a unique
comprehensive database which covers both all the sectors of gender equality as well as the independent
variables. Thus an original database is created for the aims of this study. The data collection for the dependent
variables is done for each variable for the latest possible time point but not later than 2010 except age of
marriage scale.5 Although the previous objective of this study was to have a longitudinal analysis,
unfortunately the time frame could not be extended because of the data availability issues for older periods.
Therefore, one of the limitations of this study is that trend of gender equality policies in time would not be
covered.
Comparing AuthoritarianCountries with Electoral Democracies
The Table 3 demonstrates that in all of the sectors of gender equality policies, democratic states have better
performance in comparison to the authoritarian states. The t-test mean comparison results are significant in
almost all the sectors except blueprint scale. Therefore, even though electoral democracies in this analysis
have higher mean level for Blueprint policy this does not show a statistically significant difference. Particularly,
the mean difference between authoritarian and democratic states is highly statistically significant at the level
of Pr (T > t) = 0.0000 in domestic violence and employment scales.
Table 3: Means Comparisons of Gender Equality Policies between Authoritarian and Democratic States
Blueprint scale (0-4)
Reconciliation scale (0-10)
Reproduction scale (0-9)
Domestic Violence scale (0-4)
Gender quotas scale (0-6)
Family law scale (0-4)
Employment Scale (0-8)
N
Authoritarian
states
N
Democratic
states
T-test results
25
24
24
25
25
24
24
1.96
7.208333
4.583333
3.16
2.28
1.916667
4.583333
59
53
49
59
59
58
59
1.254237
5.09434
2.714286
1.644068
1.762712
1.086207
2.016949
Pr(T > t) = 0.0630, t =
Pr(T > t) = 0.0025, t =
Pr(T > t) = 0.0014, t =
Pr(T > t) = 0.0000, t =
Pr(T > t) = 0.0106, t =
Pr(T > t) = 0.0031, t =
Pr(T > t) = 0.0000, t =
1.5458
2.8866
3.1073
6.3184
2.3508
2.8125
6.2258
For the aims of this study, at the first hand, we utilized pair wise correlations because of the fact that number
of cases for authoritarian countries is not big enough to run more complex statistical analyses such as
regression analyses. The Table 4 presents pair wise correlations of gender equality policy sectors and the
theorized determinants of them among the authoritarian countries. The existence of conflict significantly
correlated only with domestic violence policy adoption. This result is well adjusted with previous empirical
4
5
A complete list of countries may be found in the Appendix.
Age of marriage scale is gathered from WomanStats Database and the data is from 2011.
14
studies on violence against women that argues that existence of conflict in a country victimize women in
domestic space and lead to more violence at home. The variable of the existence of left party system at power
do not significantly correlates with any of the gender equality policies. Existence of PR system, on the other
hand, correlates at the level of -0.56 with gender quotas at politics and it is statistically significant at p< .05.
This finding suggests that the countries with proportional representation system are more likely to adopt
women’s quotas to improve female political representation. Our last political factor, the level of secularity or
government’s favoritism of religion, is significantly correlated with Blueprint policies (0.48), equal employment
policies (0.56), reproduction policies (.67) and family law (0.47). These results demonstrate that the more the
governments are in favor of religion the less they develop gender equality policies.
Looking to the socio-cultural factors, non-Muslim authoritarian countries in general produce better Blueprint,
equal employment and reproduction policies than Muslim authoritarian countries. The level of societal
religiosity is significantly correlated with reconciliation policies and family law policies. On the other hand, the
societal commitment to gender egalitarian values is statistically significantly related to blueprint policies (0.52), equal employment policies (-0.57), reproduction (-0.43) and family law policies (-0.48). From the
correlation table we can see that socio-cultural variables are not correlated with the adoption of political
gender quotas and domestic violence policies. Therefore, we can argue that societal religiosity and gender
egalitarian attitudes do not affect government policies on gender quotas and domestic violence. Also to be a
Muslim country do not significantly hinders or promotes adoption of policies for women’s political
representation or domestic violence.
Our only economic variable gdp level is significantly associated with blueprint policies and gender quotas
demonstrating that wealthy authoritarian countries spend more effort to improve general principles for
gender equality and women’s political representation.
Turning to the historical factors, both colonial history and history of soviet socialism, are highly correlated with
reconciliation and family law policies. This result demonstrates that historical factors are important in
determining gender equality policies in these two sectors. Moreover, being a Post-Soviet Union country also
positively associates with adoption of blueprint and reproduction policies. This results show that Soviet Union
regime created a more advantageous historical background for Post-soviet Union countries in comparison to
the other authoritarian regimes. T-test mean level comparisons also supports these findings since for equal
employment (Pr(T > t) = 0.5536, t = -0.13) , gender quotas (Pr(T > t) = 0.9125, t = -1.39 ) and domestic violence (Pr(T
> t) = 0.3135, t = 0.49), there is no statistically significant mean difference between Post-soviet authoritarian
countries and other authoritarian countries whereas for other sectors there is a statistically significant
difference.
15
Among the key actors women’s representation at ministerial and parliamentary level seems to be the most
important. This result is highly expected for gender quotas since it is the main aim of the adoption of women’s
quotas at political level. However, to determine the direction of this relationship is not possible with this
statistical method. In addition, women’s presence in political positions highly effects the adoption of Blueprint
policies and equal employment policies. Women’s movement significantly correlates with Blueprint policies at
the level of .44. Therefore, it can be argued that the role of key actors determined by state feminism literature
is limited among authoritarian countries.
The Table 4 shows that determinants of gender equality policies are much different for the sample of electoral
democracies. For the political factors while secularity was an important factor for authoritarian countries it is
not significantly correlated with none of the gender equality policy sectors. On the other hand, for electoral
democracies the existence of conflict is statistically significantly associated with five sectors including
reconciliation, equal employment, reproduction, family law and domestic violence. Left party governance has
an effect on gender quota adoption (.25) and proportional representation on blueprint (.35) and reconciliation
(.38) policies.
Table 4: Pair wise correlations of gender Equality Policy Sectors among Authoritarian Countries
Political Factors
Conflict
Left party
Pr system
Secularity
Socio-cultural Factors
Muslim
Religiosity
Gender egalitarian
attitudes
Economic Factors
GDP
Historical Factors
Colonial history
Post-soviet
Actors
Women’s movement
Women’s
representation
WPAs
Blueprint
Reconciliation
Equal
Employment
Reproductionª
Gender
Quotas
Family
law
Domestic
Violence
-0.3224
-0.0991
-0.1185
0.4842*
-0.1936
-0.0018
0.0718
0.2589
0.2153
0.0080
-0.2426
0.5685*
0.2068
-0.2630
-0.0535
0.6715*
0.0160
-0.2133
-0.5651*
0.2114
0.1691
-0.2067
-0.0946
0.4724*
0.4162*
0.0000
0.1107
0.2477
0.4270*
-0.0611
-0.5256*
0.2193
-0.4265*
-0.2008
0.5259*
-0.1483
-0.5758*
0.4264*
-0.2289
-0.4362*
-0.0956
0.3819
0.0832
0.3971
-0.4929*
-0.4836*
0.2527
-0.2315
-0.1488
0.4513*
0.0869
-0.0549
-0.0979
0.4042*
0.1053
-0.0752
0.2793
-0.5049*
0.6157*
-0.7894*
-0.1809
0.0290
0.2037
-0.4661*
-0.3034
0.2801
0.4432*
-0.5362*
-0.1135
-0.1022
0.4441*
-0.4789*
0.2743
0.0611
0.3852
-0.4296*
0.3972
-0.1326
0.1976
-0.4564*
0.2914
-0.1199
0.3503
-0.2176
-0.0369
-0.0941
0.1875
-0.1241
0.1087
-0.1071
-0.0697
* p<0.05
ª This variable only includes abortion and contraception measurements but not public service delivery. When the public service delivery added
secularity (0.33) and gender egalitarian attitudes (-.19) becomes insignificant whereas religiosity (0.55) and GDP (-.51) becomes significant.
Similarly to authoritarian governments socio-cultural factors do not significantly affect adoption of women’s
quotas for political representation. Differently than authoritarian countries socio-cultural variables do not have
16
an important impact on Blueprint policies. Muslim electoral democracies produce less equal employment
policies as the correlation between two variables (0.29) is statistically significant at p<0.05. Moreover, both
religiosity and gender egalitarian attitudes of society are significantly associated with reconciliation, equal
employment, reproduction, family law and domestic violence policies. On the contrary to the results from
authoritarian countries, the level of economic development is significantly correlated with reconciliation (-.30),
equal employment (-.66), family law (-.43) and domestic violence policies (-.48).
Looking to the historical determinants, first of all blueprint policies do not significantly correlates with neither
colonial background nor being a post soviet union. For electoral democracies, beside reconciliation and family
law policies, also equal employment, reproduction and domestic violence policies are significantly associated
to gender equality policies. However, the effect of Soviet history is positively associated with reconciliation
policies (-.27) demonstrating that Post-soviet countries are more responsive to maternal paternal and parental
leave issues than other electoral democracies , whereas they produce worse gender quota policies (.32) in
comparison with other electoral democracies.
Table 5: Pair wise correlations of gender Equality Policy Sectors among Electoral Democracies
Political Factors
Conflict
Left party
Pr system
Secularity
Socio-cultural Factors
Muslim
Religiosity
Gender egalitarian
attitudes
Economic Factors
GDP
Historical Factors
Colonial history
Post-soviet
Actors
Women’s movement
Women’s
representation
WPAs
Blueprint
Reconciliation
Equal
Employment
Reproductionª
Gender
Quotas
Family
law
Domestic
Violence
0.1917
0.1144
-0.3568*
0.2002
0.5563*
0.1043
-0.3821*
-0.2053
0.5408*
-0.1329
-0.0553
-0.2090
0.2615*
-0.0437
-0.1026
-0.1359
-0.1309
-0.2580*
-0.0729
-0.0016
0.3037*
0.2138
-0.2138
-0.0660
0.3559*
0.0844
-0.1868
-0.0654
0.0152
-0.1005
-0.1151
0.2348
-0.4703*
-0.4059*
0.2948*
-0.5289*
-0.5498*
0.2346
-0.3510*
-0.3519*
-0.0336
0.0689
0.0403
0.0808
-0.5920*
-0.3775*
0.2235
-0.4578*
-0.3150*
0.1209
-0.3091*
-0.6679*
-0.1517
0.1413
-0.4385*
-0.4866*
0.2400
-0.0789
0.5789*
-0.2743*
0.2979*
0.2487
0.3554*
-0.1411
-0.0279
0.3279*
0.4108*
-0.0255
0.2982*
0.2217
-0.0490
-0.0610
0.0891
-0.3021*
0.2601*
-0.4492*
0.3460*
-0.1529
-0.1403
0.0236
0.1950
-0.2027
0.1728
-0.3900*
-0.0176
0.0772
-0.0236
0.0211
0.1489
-0.2364
-0.0600
* p<0.05
ª This variable only includes abortion and contraception measurements but not public service delivery. When the public service delivery added
proportional representation (-.28), Muslim (0.36), GDP (-.42) becomes significant.
Lastly checking the correlations between actors and gender equality policies, similarly to authoritarian
countries the number of women’s policy agencies does not correlates significantly with any of the sectors of
the gender equality policies. The proportion of women in parliament and ministerial positions has a significant
17
impact on reconciliation, equal employment and domestic violence policies and the strength of women’s
movement positively correlates with equal employment and reproduction policies.
Comparing Authoritarian States
Previous part of this study drew a brief comparison of the dynamics of gender equality policy adoption
between authoritarian countries and electoral democracies. This part of this study focuses on comparison of
gender equality policies in-between Authoritarian countries. First of all, in investigating the details of gender
equality policies in-between authoritarian states, the Figure 2 presents a comparison of normalized means
between the sectors of gender equality policies. As far as ‘0’ signifies the best and ‘1’ the worst performance,
the center of the spider graph shows the best performances whereas the periphery worst. Accordingly,
authoritarian countries perform the best in blueprint (0,24) and reproduction policies (0,32) and the worst in
domestic violence (0,79) and gender quota policies (0,76).
Figure 2: Sectors of Gender Equality Policy in Authoritarian Countries
Blueprint
scale
0.8
Employment
scale
0.6
Reconciliation
scale
0.4
0.2
0
Family law
scale
Reproduction
scale
Gender
quotas scale
Domestic
Violence scale
Figure 3 presents country distribution of the gender equality policy adoption among authoritarian countries.
As far as each of the sectors measured in different scales, normalized results are presented in this scale in
order to make comparisons possible. For each sector 0 refers to the best policies and 1 to the worse
demonstrating a total of 7 points including all of the gender equality policy sectors. Therefore, the shorter is
the bar the better the country produces gender equality policies. From this graph we can see that Iran, Saudi
Arabia and Nigeria are the least responsive governments to gender equality issues. Although Armenia is one of
the best countries among authoritarian regimes to produce gender equality policies, it is one of the worst
countries in developing domestic violence policies. In addition, we see a clear trend among the Eastern
European and Central Asian countries that they in general they perform better than countries in other regions.
18
They perform particularly well in Blueprint, reproduction, reconciliation and family law policies. This might be
because communist history of those countries that women in communist regime had significant progress in
gender equality in comparison even with industrialized countries (Pollert, 2003). Marxist Leninist government
had approved to have an ideological commitment to gender equality
East Asia &
Pacific
Lat
in
Am
eri
ca
So
&
ut
Car
ibb
h
Eastern Europe & ea Middle East & North Asi
Central Asia
Africa
n
a Sub-Saharan Africa
Figure 3: Country Scores of the Gender Equality Policies in Authoritarian Countries
Zimbabwe
Uganda
Rwanda
Nigeria
Ethiopia
Burkina Faso
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Morocco
Jordan
Iraq
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Egypt
Algeria
Venezuela
Russian Federation
Kyrgyzstan
Georgia
Belarus
Azerbaijan
Armenia
Viet Nam
Singapore
Malaysia
China
Reconciliation
Reproduction
Domestic Violence
Women's Quotas
Equal Employment
Blueprint
Family Law
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Note: Iraq employment policy, Georgia reconciliation policy, Singapore family law policy, Azerbaijan reproductive
rights policy are missing, that is why interpretation of this graph should be accordingly.
I run further statistical analyses in order to detect the effect of regional differences on gender equality policies.
Three different analyses are performed depending on the characteristics of dependent and independent
variables. ANOVA test was run for detecting the relationship between interval dependent variable and
categorical region variable. Secondly, Fisher’s exact test for region was run for ordinal level dependent
variables and categorical region variable. This method is an alternative to Chi square since chi square assumes
that each cell in the distribution would have five or more units in frequency distributions and our frequency
distributions did not fulfill this assumption. Thirdly, as far as from the previous graph there is some empirical
evidence that Eastern Europe and Central Asia Region performs better than other regions, we would like to
test this evidence in a statistical analysis.
19
Table 6: Mean Comparisons of Regions in Authoritarian Countries
Fisher’s exact
test for Region
ANOVA test for Region
Blueprint scale (0-4)
Reconciliation scale (0-10)
Reproduction scale 1 and 2ª
Domestic violence scale (0-4)
Gender quotas scale (0-6)
Family law scale (0-4)
Employment scale (0-8)
0.001
Pr > F= 0.0004, F= 8.01
Pr > F= 0.0000, F= 11.83
T-test results for Eastern Europe
and Central Asia (Dummy)
Pr(T > t) = 0.0050, t =
Pr(T > t) = 0.0000, t =
Pr(T > t) = 0.0011, t =
Pr(T > t) = 0.3135, t =
Pr(T > t) = 0.9125, t =
Pr(T > t) = 0.0035, t =
Pr(T > t) = 0.5536, t =
0.030
0.321
0.282
0.088
Pr > F= 0.0976, F= 2.22
2.80
6.031
3.45
0.49
-1.39
2.97
-0.13
ª ANOVA Results presented here reports Reproduction scale 2 (0-9) which also includes Public Service Delivery indicator. Fisher’s exact
test results on the other hand, reports the results for Reproduction scale 1 (0-5), which only includes abortion and contraception
indicators. For details of both scales, see Appendix.
Starting from the analyses for Blueprint scale, both Fisher’s exact test and t-test results lend some support to
the previous descriptive analyses that the region plays an important role in determining general principles of a
country’s gender equality policies. Eastern Europe and Central Asia Region, characterized by Post-Soviet Union
countries, particularly performs better than the rest of authoritarian countries. Similarly, reconciliation and
reproduction policies are significantly determined by regional differences. All three of the statistical mean test
comparisons report a significant regional difference between particularly in favor of Post-Soviet region. On the
other hand, for family law policies Fisher’s exact test result is statistically insignificant at the level of 0.08
whereas t-test results for Estern Europe and Central Asian dummy is statistically significant at 0.003. From this
result, we can say that there is Post-Soviet countries in general perform better than other authoritarian
countries even though other regional mean differences appear to be not important. This result confirms
arguments that capitalist economies was based on gendered structures of labor market whereas communist
system of Soviet Union even though produced contradictory gender equality policies, was still more gender
friendly in some issues than other industrial countries of the time (Pollert,2003).
0
.5
mean of scale_quota
1
1.5
2
2.5
Figure 4: Mean of Gender Quota Policies for countries with PR system
Other
PR
Lastly, looking to the domestic violence, gender quotas and employment policies, the mean difference do not
significantly differs between regions. Therefore, on the basis of the previous correlation results, I would like to
discover the effect of other factors on those three policy sectors. First of all, PR system was highly correlated (0.56) with the adoption of gender quotas in authoritarian countries. The following graph confirms that the
20
mean for countries with PR system (1.5) and the rest (2.5) has statistically significant difference at Pr(T > t) =
0.001, t = 2.80 in favor of countries with PR system.
Turning to the equal employment policy, secularity (.56) and gender egalitarian societal attitudes (.57)
significantly correlates with the adoption of gender equality policies in authoritarian countries. The Figure 5
presents the position of each country and the characteristic of these relationships. From the first scatter graph
we can see that the more the country has gender egalitarian attitudes6 the higher is the government’s
responsiveness for employment equality of women. The second graph demonstrates that the less the country
is secular the less it supports gender equality at work. However, there are countries which deviate from the
regression line such as Venezuela which performs quite well in equal employment policies but there is still a
high level of fusion of the state and religion. What could be also seen by these two graphs is that Muslim
countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan or Egypt in general have higher levels of government
favoritism for religion and the society in those countries are the least gender egalitarian in comparison with
other authoritarian governments. Thus, further t-test was run to see whether to be a Muslim country
statistically significantly detriments government’s responsiveness to gender equality at work. T-test reports
that there is a statistically significant mean level difference between Muslim (5.38) and non-Muslim (3.63)
authoritarian countries at the level of Pr(T < t) = 0.004 (t = -2.90). These findings also confirm high correlation
level (.52) between the dummy variable for Muslim countries and equal employment policies.
Figure 5: Authoritarian Countries, the Relationship between Equal Employment Policies and
a. Gender Egalitarian Attitudes
b. The Level of Secularity
8
PAK
6
AZE IRN
EGY
JOR PAK
MAL
NIG
GRG
KYR
4
ALG
AZE
6
JOR
SAU
MOR
CHN
VIE
ZIM
RWA
BLR
ETI
UGA VEN
2
jobs_scarce
Fitted values
BLR
MAL
IRN
EGY
ETI VIE
MOR
ALG
SIN
BFO
2
2
BFOARM
1.5
RUS
RWA
ZIM
CHN
SIN
1
NIG GRG
KYR
RUS
4
8
SAU
2.5
3
0
UGA
2
ARM
4
VEN
gfi2008
Fitted values
empl_score
6
8
10
empl_score
Lastly, checking country scores for domestic violence policy, the best performing country is Malaysia with a
score of 1 followed by Zimbabwe, Vietnam, Venezuela, Kyrgzstan and Azerbaijan with scores of 2. Even though
correlation results reported a statistically significant relationship between the level of peace and adoption of
6
For the measurement of gender egalitarian attitudes, World Values Survey question of ‘When jobs are scarce, men
should have more right to a job’ is used. Three point-scale was coded as following; 1 'Agree', 2 'Neither', 3 'Disagree'.
21
domestic violence policies, we did not find an interesting finding when running further descriptive analyses.
Therefore, more in depth analysis is required to explain domestic violence policy adoption in authoritarian
countries. Countries internal dynamics, issue specific actors, the relationship between various actors and the
effect of international dynamics could be some reasons why some authoritarian countries have better policies
for domestic violence.
Figure 6: Country Scores for Domestic Violence Policy
(Scale points 0-best policies, 4-worst policies)
Zimbabwe
Viet Nam
Venezuela
Uganda
Singapore
Saudi Arabia
Rwanda
Russian Federation
Pakistan
Nigeria
Morocco
Malaysia
Kyrgyzstan
Jordan
Iraq
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Georgia
Ethiopia
Egypt
China
Burkina Faso
Belarus
Azerbaijan
Armenia
Algeria
0
1
2
3
4
Conclusion
This study explored two main issues: first, the extent to which the determinants of gender equality policies
differs between authoritarian states and electoral democracies and second, the dynamics of different issues of
gender equality policy among authoritarian countries. The findings of the analyses suggest a number of
conclusions. First of all, some empirical evidence was found that in general electoral democracies perform
better than authoritarian states in adopting gender equality policies. Secondly, this study presented some
empirical evidence that gender equality policy adoption in authoritarian countries have been determined by
different factors than in electoral democracies. While in electoral democracies existence of conflict, societal
religiosity, gender egalitarian attitudes and colonial history are some of the important determinants for
domestic violence, family law, reproduction, equal employment and reconciliation policies, Pr system is the
22
only variable that significantly correlates with the adoption of Blueprint policies. The existence of left party
system and being a post soviet country are the only two determinants for gender quota adoption in electoral
democracies. On the other hand, for Authoritarian countries Pr electoral system and the level of GDP are the
two determinants of gender quota policy adoption whereas existence of conflict is the only predictor for
government responsiveness to domestic violence. In addition, in Authoritarian regimes religion variables such
as; secularity, being a Muslim country or societal religiosity level, are not only important for personal status
rights policies such as family law and reproduction but also for the policies for women’s public role such as
equal employment policies, reconciliation and blueprint policies. More interestingly, being a Post-soviet
country improves government’s performance in four sectors; Blueprint, reconciliation, reproduction and family
law policies. In short, this study presented some empirical evidence to argue that first, the gender equality
policy adoption in authoritarian countries functions differently than electoral democracies as far as the
determinants has been very much different for these two groups of countries. Second, the determinants of
gender equality policy adoption also differ between the different sectors of gender equality policies in both
electoral democracies and Authoritarian countries.
This research also aimed to contribute in the literature by introducing original scales to measure gender
equality policies. It is confirmed that disaggregation of gender equality policies into the smaller entities is
important in studying government’s responses to gender equality issues because each entity has differential
characteristics for policy adoption. Moreover, as far as there is a very limited comparative literature which
focuses on gender equality policy adoption in authoritarian countries, this study aimed to pave the way for
further researches. Particularly, researches focusing on country comparisons in each gender equality policy
sector might shed more light on the dynamics of policy adoption in authoritarian countries. On the other hand,
other kinds of research methods such as QCA could be utilized for analyzing authoritarian countries as far as
statistical analyses have limited implications for medium-N studies. Last but not least, analyses which are
detecting longer time periods would be very useful to understand trends in policy change in gender equality.
23
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Appendix
Appendix 1: List of Countries
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
Albania
Algeria*
Argentina
Armenia*
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan*
Bangladesh
Belarus*
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso*
Canada
Chile
China*
Colombia
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Egypt*
Estonia
Ethiopia*
Finland
France
Georgia*
Germany
Ghana
Great Britain/UK
Greece
Guatemala
Hungary
India
Indonesia
Iran (Islamic Republic of) *
Iraq*
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Jordan*
Korea, Republic of
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.
79.
80.
81.
82.
83.
84.
Kyrgyzstan*
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia, Republic of
Malaysia*
Mali
Mexico
Moldova, Republic of
Morocco*
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria*
Norway
Pakistan*
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russian Federation*
Rwanda*
Saudi Arabia*
Singapore*
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Tanzania, United Republic Of
Thailand
Trinidad and Tobago
Turkey
Uganda*
Ukraine
United States
Uruguay
Venezuela*
Viet Nam*
Zambia
Zimbabwe*
*Authoritarian countries
Note: The countries are grouped as either Authoritarian countries or Electoral democracies.
The electoral democracies are coded on the basis of information Freedom House Freedom in the World Report 2010.
28
Appendix 2: Description of Independent Variables
Variables
Actors
Women’s
movement
Scales
Data
number of women’s groups/ Squared root
of the country’s population
WPA
Number of women’s policy agencies
Women’s
representation
% of women in parliaments (mean of last
two terms ranging from 2000 to 2009) and
% of women in ministerial positions (mean
of 2005 and 2010 rates)
Historical Factors
Colonial history
Existence of a colonial history: whether the
country was ever colonized, mandated or
become protectorate of another country.
0-no 1-yes
Post-Soviet Union
1-Post-soviet country, 0-Others
Institutional and Political Factors
Secularity
higher score means higher level of
favoritism
Electoral Democracy
1-Electoral democracy 0-Others
Electoral system: PR
Conflict
Left party
1-PR, 0-other (Mixed and Plurality systems)
1-more peaceful to 5-less peaceful
‘1’ if the largest government party is leftist
and ‘0’ if not
Socio-cultural Factors
Gender Egalitarian
“When jobs are scarce, men should have
attitudes
more right to a job?”
Mean levels for each country
1 'Agree', 2 'Neither', 3 'Disagree'
Religiosity
“Apart from weddings, funerals and
christenings, about how often do you attend
religious services these days?”
Mean levels for each country
(1 'More than once a week'…7 'Never
practically never')
29
Global List of Women’s
Organizations and
the World Atlas
UN Women; National
Mechanisms for Gender
Equality November 2011
Inter Parliamentary Union
Correlates of War,
Colonial/Dependency
Contiguity Dataset, 1816-2002
Author’s own classification
Government Favoritism of
Religion Index, 2008, (CrossNational Socio-Economic and
Religion Data, 2011 /The
ARDA)
Freedom House Freedom in
the World Report 2010
Unified IDEA Database
Global Peace Index 2010
Database of Political
Institutions 2010
World Values Survey(2000,
2005) and European Values
Surveys(1999, 2008)
World Values Survey(2000,
2005) and European Values
Surveys(1999, 2008)
Muslim
Economic factors
Economic
development
Dependent
variables
1-Muslim, 0-Others
The ARDA
Mean of GDP per capita level for the years
of 2009 and 2010
The lesser the better is the policy. See the
Appendix 3
The Worldbank Databank
Appendix 3: Operationalization of Gender Equality Policy Scales
Blueprint policy: In this study, a new original scale was created to measure Blueprint policies. Mazur (2002)
used the term Blueprint policy to refer the general formal framework of a country which regulates gender
equality in general. 3 indicators are taken into account when measuring blueprint policies; 1) Constitutional
declaration of gender equality 2) Existence of gender equality action plan 3) Commitment to the international
gender equality regulation: CEDAW.
The first component, constitutional declaration of gender equality, is measured by the existence of a gender
equality or non-discrimination clause in the constitution of the country. In case of the country having one of
these clauses the country gets 0 points and in lack of any statement the country gets 2 points. The main data
sources for this variable are World Bank Woman, Business and the Law 2012 Database and WomanStats
Database: Const-Law-1 variable; and constitutions. The legal changes that took place after 2010 December is
not taken into consideration for this variable.
The second component, existence of gender equality action plan, the country gets a 0 if it has a specific gender
equality action plan, the country gets a 1 if it has a national program but if it is not very comprehensive and
the country gets a 2 if it does not have any action plan or very weak national gender equality programs.
Information from various web pages has been collected and the content of each document is seriously
analyzed. Any action plans that took place after 2010 December is not taken into account for this variable.
Some coding rules applied in these two measures is that;
1) Countries that have one of the clauses regarding to non-discrimination or equality of men and women
before law is taken into account. If country does not have any declaration in constitution, specific
gender equality legislation has taken into consideration and country gets a 0 because existence of a
Gender Equality Law is considered as a valid framework for gender equality in the country. This coding
rule also applied to United Kingdom because it does not have any constitution in force.
2) Countries, in which customary or personal law are valid sources of law, and customary or personal law
are not invalid sources if they violate constitutional provisions on nondiscrimination or equality, are
coded as 2 because of the fact that many of those laws violates gender equality. (Source: World Bank;
Women Business and the Law Database)
30
Those countries are: Egypt, Ghana, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia,
Singapore, Zambia.
3) Give a country 1 for the action plan scale;
•
if the country has no specific national action plans but some other action plans covering
gender equality and women’s rights;
•
if the country does not have any specific action plan after 2005 but before 2005 specific action
plans were applied.
•
Even though after 2005 some other unspecific action plans have been in action the country
would get a 1 because it is not a specific plan(such as human’s rights action plans covering
women’s rights)
The third component, commitment to the CEDAW, is measured in two levels. In the first level, countries’
ratification of CEDAW is examined. The country gets a 0 in case of the ratification of the CEDAW and a 1 in case
of non-ratification. Second level takes into account the reservation to CEDAW in following way;
0. Good- no reservations
1. Not bad- reservations to arbitration (optional protocol)
2. Bad- any other reservations
The main data source for this scale is the UN Report of Progress of World’s Women 2011-2012.
Political representation: As a first indicator of political representation quota adoption policies of countries are
taken into account. A scale is created to measure government’s commitment to adopt women’s quotas in
order to improve the levels of women’s representation.. For this scale, two indicators are taken into account;
existence of quotas in different levels of governance and existence of voluntary party quotas. The main data
source for both of the indicators was gathered from IDEA Unified Database7.
The first scale is created as following;
0) Women’s quotas exist in all levels of governance including lower houses (and upper houses in case of
bicameral systems) and sub-national governments.
1) Women’s quotas exists but not in all levels of governance
2) There are no women’s quotas
And in second scale; the countries get a ‘1’ if they do not have a party with voluntary party quotas in power,
and they get a ‘0’ if they do.
7
Data downloaded on February 2, 2012 from http://www.idea.int/uid/search-adv.cfm
31
Combining these two scales; gender quota scale is a 4 point scale as being ‘0’ is better commitment to adopt
women’s quotas and ‘3’ no commitment to adopt gender quotas.
Equal Employment policy: A new original scale is created to measure government’s policies to improve
women’s employment status. The scale consists of two parts; 1) legal regulations 2) government’s policies and
programs to improve women’s position in employment.
In the first component, 5 legal regulations are used;
1) Are there laws or constitutional provisions mandating equal pay for equal work?
2) Are there laws mandating nondiscrimination in hiring practices on the basis of gender?
3) Can women work the same night hours as men?
4) Can women work in the same industries as men?
5) Does the statutory retirement ages for men and women in the private sector are different?
6) Are there laws protecting employees from sexual harassment in the work place?
Each question was weighted equally as being, 0 is positive and 1 is the negative answer. In total, ‘0’
demonstrates the best legal arrangements for women’s legal rights at work place and ‘6’ the worst. Sexual
harassment particularly counted in this section but not in the section of sexuality and violence policy because
the right to work without sexual harassment is considered as one of the main rights of working women. Sexual
harassment at work is mainly faced by women and in some countries male members of a family do not allow
the women in their family for reason of protection from sexual harassment at work. Therefore, sexual
harassment legislation could be seen as a very important determinant of a government’s willingness to
promote women’s rights at work place. Effective legal arrangements might support women’s participation in
work life. The data for this scale is gathered from World Bank Woman, Business and the Law 2012 Database.
The second component measures government actions, other than legislations, which address to improve
women’s status in employment. These include; government programs, specific women’s employment action
plans, vocational training, existence of equal employment offices such as equal employment commissions and
any kind of education restrictions for women particularly at tertiary level. Even though the information on all
of these policies was collected, existence and content of action plans, government programs and vocational
training is given higher weight than other issues. Particularly, this is because in many countries there are no
legal restrictions on education leading a very low variance in this indicator. Secondly, if the country has equal
opportunity office but if this office does not develop programs for women’s employment, this cannot be
considered as a sufficient government response but only a symbolic one. The data is mainly gathered from
CEDAW State Reports and WomanStats Database: ERBG-Practice-1 and ASR-Law-1. Scale points are arranged
in the following way;
32
(0) There are specific and comprehensive policies referring to the principle of equal treatment, equal pay
and sexual harassment for women in work place. There are no study restrictions for women.
Government has programs to train specifically women for nontraditional employment.
(1) There are some policies referring to the principle of equal treatment, equal pay and sexual harassment
for women in work place. There are no study restrictions for women. Government has some programs
to train specifically women for nontraditional employment.
(2) There are no or weak policies considering the principle of equal treatment, equal pay and sexual
harassment for women in work place. There may be study restrictions about certain areas of
employment. Government has no or weak programs to train women for nontraditional employment.
I also wanted to include another variable including the ratification of ILO conventions, C100 Equal
Remuneration Convention and C111 Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, but there is
not enough variance in both of the variables. Only the United States did not ratify ILO Convention on Equal
Remunerations whereas only 5 countries, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the United States, did not
ratify Discrimination Convention. Therefore, this part of the employment scale is excluded from the analyses.
Reconciliation policy: This sector of gender equality policies measures government actions addressing women’s
problems which caused by women’s double work load by home and work. In doing that 8 indicators are taken
into the 13-point scale. These indicators are as following;
1) Breast feeding breaks at work and length of breast feeding coverage
0) Breast feeding with more than 1 year or more
1) Breast feeding with less than 1 year
2) No breast feeding
2) Duration of paid leave for mothers
0) More than 26weeks
1) Less than 26 weeks
2) No paid leave
3) Wage replacement of paid leave for mothers
0) More than 75% replacement
1) No replacement
4) Duration of paid leave for fathers
0) More than 14 weeks
1) Less than 14 weeks
2) No paid leave for fathers
5) Wage replacement of paid leave for fathers
0) More than 75% replacement
1) No replacement
6) Duration of paid parental leave
33
0) More than 26weeks
1) Less than 26 weeks
2) No paid leave
7) Wage replacement of paid parental leave
0) More than 75% replacement
1) No replacement
8) Ratification of ILO Workers with responsibilities convention (No 156)
0) Yes
1) No
The main data source for this variable is the McGill Institute’s World Legal Rights Database (accessed on
February 2, 2012). For Tanzania, the variable of Wage replacement for mothers is gathered from the UN
Statistics and Indicators on Women web page on December 5, 20118. The original scale points includes more
categories including no paid leave, less than 14 weeks, 14-25 weeks, 26-51 weeks and 52 weeks or more.
However, the benchmark of 75% is taken by this study because even though the original data has 4 categories
there is a kind of skewed picture that countries are loaded in one or two categories. Moreover, in this study
we are more interested in full wage replacement rather than partial replacement. Therefore, the benchmark is
chosen in order to keep a certain amount of variance in the data as well as according to the objectives of the
study. In this way the skewness was minimized and scale points was reduced to 13-point. The same strategy is
applied to 14 and 26weeks benchmarks of Duration of paid leave indicators.
Family law policy: Two indicators have been used to measure family law policies of countries. These are the
Age of Marriage Scale and the Women’s Property Rights Scales which were originally developed by the
WomanStats Project is utilized9. The age of marriage scale has three categories;
0) Underage (16 or younger) marriage is rare and/or only granted with judicial approval.
1) Underage marriage (16 or younger) is not legal, but there is no government enforcement of marriage
law and/or there are many exceptions to the law such as underage marriage only requires parental, not
judicial,
consent.
2) Underage (16 or younger) marriage is legal.
Secondly, women’s property rights scale which has been developed by the WomanStats Project will be used.
The description of the scale points are as the following;
O- Comprehensive Laws
The law requires that contradictory religious/customary/ethnic laws and practices be subservient to the
law. The law requires women’s equal rights/opportunities to access land, loans, credit, business ownership and
8
Accessible at the following link; http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/indwm/
Both of the variables (AOM SCALE 2 and LO SCALE 1 ) are accessible at the following link;
http://www.womanstats.org/index.htm .
9
34
other forms of property. Women can own, buy, sell or transfer property at will, without the interference of a
man or the need for a man's consent, and regardless of their marital status. The law states that daughters are
legally able to inherit, and they inherit equally to sons, regardless of their marital status. The law states that
spouses together should manage the assets of the family, and joint property sharing between spouses is
required or is the default property regime. The administration of their common property requires the consent
of each spouse. Property acquired by the spouses during marriage is jointly owned and the spouses have
equal rights to own, use, and dispose of the property, irrespective of whether it was acquired out of the
earnings of the husband or of the wife and regardless of whose name is on the title. (The government
recognizes the property rights of women in common law/customary/religious marriages). The law requires
that women receive an equal (50/50) division of assets upon death/divorce/separation. Value is placed upon
the care of children and other domestic duties in the division of marital property (perhaps in the form of
economic or monetary value). Widows generally inherit half of the estate, while the other half is divided
between the surviving children. (The government recognizes the property rights of women in common
law/customary/religious marriages). The law requires equitable property rights (and an equal division of
property upon death/divorce/separation for each wife) for multiple wives where multiple wives are legal.
1- Somewhat Comprehensive/Somewhat Discriminatory Laws
The law may imply that contradictory religious/customary/ethnic laws and practices be subservient to the
law, though it may not be clearly stated. The law sometimes requires women’s equal rights/opportunities to
access land, loans, credit, business ownership and other forms of property. Women may own, buy, sell or
transfer property at will, without the interference of a man or the need for a man's consent, although their
marital status may have an effect on their ability to own property. The law states that daughters are legally
able to inherit at least some part of the inheritance, though the law does not explicitly require that they inherit
equally with sons. The law states that spouses together may manage the assets of the family, or some other
marital property regime may also be applied. Either spouse may administer his or her own property and the
administration of any common property requires the consent of each spouse. Property acquired by the
spouses during marriage is sometimes considered jointly owned and the spouses usually have equal rights to
own, use, and dispose of the property, irrespective of whether it was acquired out of the earnings of the
husband or of the wife, although the name on the title may be an inhibiting factor for women. (The
government does not recognize the property rights of women in common law/customary/religious marriages).
The law requires that women receive a division of assets upon death/divorce/separation, though this division
may not be equal (50/50). The care of children and other domestic duties in the division of marital property
(perhaps in the form of economic or monetary value) is not usually considered. Widows may inherit, but their
inheritance is often less than half of the estate, shared with other survivors. (The government does not
recognize the property rights of women in common law/customary/religious marriages). The law requires
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property rights (and a division of property upon death/divorce/separation for each wife) for multiple wives
where multiple wives are legal, though the property rights granted to each wife may not be equitable.
2- Discriminatory Laws
The law does not require that religious/customary/ethnic laws and practices be subservient to the law,
and may even state so in the law and in cases where religious law is codified, the religious law does not meet
the international standards of CEDAW. The law does not require women’s equal rights/opportunities to access
land, loans, credit, business ownership and other forms of property. Women cannot own, buy, sell or transfer
property at will. The interference of a man or the need for a man's consent is often required, and their marital
status may be an inhibiting factor. The law explicitly states that daughters are legally able to inherit, but the
law also explicitly states they do not inherit equally to sons, and their marital status is often an inhibiting
factor. The law does not state that spouses together should manage the assets of the family, but rather that
this is usually the duty of the husband (or the head of the household, who is assumed to be male). The wife
may not administer her own property freely, and the administration of any common property does not require
the consent of the wife. Property acquired by the spouses during marriage is not jointly owned and the wife
does not have equal rights to own, use, and dispose of the property. (The government does not recognize the
property rights of women in common law/customary/religious marriages). The law does not require that
women receive an equal (50/50) division of assets upon death/divorce/separation. The care of children and
other domestic duties in the division of marital property (perhaps in the form of economic or monetary value)
is not considered. Widows do not usually inherit; rather, the property is automatically inherited by another
male. If the widow does inherit but chooses to remarry, she risks losing the inheritance. (The government
does not recognize the property rights of women in common law/customary/religious marriages). The law
does not require equitable property rights (or a division of property upon death/divorce/separation for each
wife) for multiple wives where multiple wives are legal.
Reproductive rights policy: The government response to women’s reproductive rights was measured by using
two scales. The first scale only includes abortion and contraception policies, whereas the second scale also
includes public health service delivery for women. Two scales were created because there is a higher number
of missing cases in the components of public health service delivery scale that reduces the number of cases to
73.
First of all, abortion policies have been measured by looking 5 areas;
1. To save the life of the mother
2. To preserve the physical health of mother
3. To preserve the mental health of mother
4. In cases of rape and incest
5. When the unborn child has medical problems or birth defects
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Each area is weighted equally giving a ‘1’ if the country does not allow the abortion and ‘0’ if it does.
Secondly, contraception policies are measured with a 3-point scale;
0) Direct support
1) Indirect support
2) No government support
On the other hand, Scale 2 includes 3 more components which includes women’s public health delivery;
1- Maternal Mortality Rates Scale of WomanStats, which was originally coded by Matthew Steamer in 2010,
was used. The original scale points are as the following;
0)
0-10 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births
1) 11-30 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births
2) 31-100 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births
3) 101-300 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births
4) 301+ maternal deaths per 100,000 live births
The original scale points were recoded as the following resulting in a four-point scale;
0) 0-30 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births
1) 31-100 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births
2) 101-300 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births
3) 301+ maternal deaths per 100,000 live births
2- Midwife and nursing personal per 1000 people: The mean level of all countries has been taken and the
countries that has more than mean level (5,380527711) of midwifery and nursing personal has got a ‘0’ and
below gets a ‘1’. Scale categories are as the following;
0) More than 5,380527711 midwife and nursing personal per 1000 people( mean level)
1) Less than 5,380527711
3- The births attended by skilled health personnel: The same strategy as the second indicator was applied also
in this case by assigning a ‘0’ to the countries which are above the mean level (86,75%) and a ‘1’ below the
mean.
0) More than 86, 75% of births attended by skilled health personnel
1) Less than 86, 75% of births attended by skilled health personnel
The data on Midwife and nursing personal and births attended by skilled health personal was gathered from
the World Health Organization webpage10 which was reported as the latest available time points ranging from
1995 to 2009 (for many countries the data is from 2000s).
Sexuality and violence policy: An original domestic violence policy scale was developed in order to measure
sexuality and violence policies. 3 main components are taken into account when creating these scales. First of
10
Accessed on February 2, from: http://apps.who.int/ghodata/?vid=93000
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all, the existence of a domestic violence laws is analyzed. Secondly, state actions to prevent domestic violence,
particularly victim protection programs are scrutinized. These actions includes budget for domestic violence or
violence against women, gender budgeting, creation of shelters, creation of hot lines, police training for the
victims of domestic violence, specific campaigns, programs and/or national action plans, legal aid to victims
(direct money, free councelling, free lawyer, etc..), and other policies such as residency permit for domestic
violence victims. Thirdly, the existence of laws recognizing marital rape as a crime was examined. The 5-point
scale is as the following;
0) (very good responsiveness)There are comprehensive laws against domestic violence including marital
rape. There are good policies, campaigns run by government institutions. There are wide-ranging
services (shelters, hotlines, etc.) and funding provided to victims.
1) (good responsiveness)There are laws outlawing domestic violence including marital rape. The laws are
satisfactory. Government has some policies campaigns and services towards victims but they are not
enough.
2) (not enough responsiveness) There are laws against domestic violence including marital rape. The laws
are satisfactory but the government produces very weak policies or the government signals that these
crimes are definitely not a priority.
3) (weak responsiveness)There are some laws against domestic violence but not necessarily for marital
rape. There are weak or no policies or campaigns to support those laws. Services and funding provided
to victims are not enough.
4) (weak responsiveness)There are no or weak laws against domestic violence and marital rape.
Government addresses the issue by weak or any policies. Funding for services for victims is not
existent or very weak.
The data for this variable is gathered by WomanStats Database; the variables of DV Law 1, DV Law 2, DV
Practice 2, LRCM Law 2. The scale was created in October and November 2011 and the latest time point that
data is collected was December 2010.
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