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1. Strengthening Women’s Civic and Political Participation: A Synthesis of the Scholarly Literature

Author:
Wayne Eckert, Kyu-Nahm Jun, Sharon F. Lean, Nicole Gerring, Matthew Lacouture, Juan Liu, and Amanda Walter
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute of International Education
Abstract:
In 2016, USAID’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance launched its Learning Agenda—a set of research questions designed to address the issues that confront staff in USAID field offices working on the intersection of development and democracy, human rights, and governance. This literature review—produced by a team of WSU professors and graduate students representing the academic disciplines of communication, history, and political science—synthesizes scholarship from diverse research traditions on the following Learning Agenda question: What are the most effective ways to encourage women’s civic (e.g., volunteer, advocacy, etc.) and political (e.g., voting, running for office) participation? What are the risks to women of these strategies in contexts where resistance to changing gender norms is strong? The team identified four strategies for increasing women’s civic and political participation that are analyzed in academic scholarship: Using quotas to enhance women’s representation. Using social media platforms to mobilize women and amplify their voices. Targeting women as participants or beneficiaries of social programs. Mobilizing women through their intersecting identities. The team found that quotas are effective in increasing the number of women in elected office at the national and local levels and may also encourage women to participate in political and civic activity more generally. However, how quotas are designed and implemented greatly influences their success, and it is unclear whether more women in office leads to substantive changes to women’s agency within the legislature. In addition, although gender equity reforms implemented in the legislature can make such reforms more likely in other institutional settings, quotas are not common in other government branches. Social media is a double-edged sword: it provides a relatively inexpensive, accessible tool for women to participate in civic and political life and bring attention to issues that disproportionately affect women; however, it also creates a new space in which women are contested, harassed, and silenced. Social programs that target women also can be effective, but they almost always impose unanticipated costs, burdens, or risks on the women who participate, and so can depress women’s participation while seeking to increase it. These adverse effects have predictable patterns, and programs that target women as beneficiaries should take these patterns into consideration during the design phase. Mobilizing women through their intersecting identities—as mothers, workers, members of a religious group—is an underdeveloped area of the literature. Although several articles covered cases of this sort of mobilization, the results are ambivalent. In addition, although mobilizing women through certain frames—such as “motherhood”—can be effective, this strategy also reinforces traditional norms of gender roles.
Topic:
Communications, Women, Social Media, Political Science, Representation, USAID, and Participation
Political Geography:
North America and Global Focus

2. Increasing the Civic and Political Participation of Women: Understanding the Risk of Strong Resistance

Author:
Vanessa Ochs, Denise Walsh, Swati Chawla, Dannah Dennis, Paromita Sen, and Catalina Vallejo
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of International Education
Abstract:
In 2016, USAID’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance launched its Learning Agenda—a set of research questions designed to address the issues that confront staff in USAID field offices working on the intersection of development and democracy, human rights, and governance. This literature review—produced by a team of UVA professors and graduate students representing the academic disciplines of anthropology, history, political science, religious studies, and sociology—synthesizes scholarship from diverse research traditions on the following Learning Agenda question: What are the most effective ways to encourage women’s civic (e.g., volunteer, advocacy, etc.) and political (e.g., voting, running for office) participation? What are the risks to women of these strategies in contexts where resistance to changing gender norms is strong? Building on an ODI report, “Women’s Voice and Leadership in Decision-Making: Assessing the Evidence” (2015) that identified seven strategies to support women’s civic and political representation, the UVA team focused on the second half of the research question, using a flexible systematic review process that included defining and operationalizing strong resistance. Overall, the team found that 1) research on resistance that aims to limit or end challenges to the status quo is under-theorized and in need of concept-building before researchers can make the analytical distinctions necessary to assess resistance fully and 2) where the literature does exist, it has an almost exclusive focus on female politicians. With these limitations in mind, key findings include: Resistance—which may include physical and sexual violence; social and familial censure; ostracization by the religious community; and various overt or subtle forms of restriction, deprivation, and exclusion—varies according to multiple factors, including by not limited to gender norms, the broader cultural context, regime type, local power structures, economic opportunities, and the form of participation sought. All women do not experience the same levels of risk, and are not vulnerable to the same types of resistance. For example, even within a single socio-cultural context, women who are marginalized (economically, racially, linguistically, religiously, or otherwise) are likely to bear greater burdens of risk. Strong resistance in response to the seven strategies identified in the ODI report is not pervasive but does occur, and that it can discourage women’s participation. Low to moderate resistance is ubiquitous, but generally has less deleterious effects. Sites where strong resistance occurs vary within countries and even among local areas within a single country, suggesting that a country-level analysis of gender norms is inadequate and ineffective for assessing and understanding women’s risk of strong resistance. The implications of these findings are that practitioner risk assessments should be: Routine and done prior to engaging in any intervention, and require information extending far beyond local gender norms. Focused on low to moderate forms of resistance in situations of backlash, and attentive to the possibility of strong resistance in situations of entrenched resistance. Designed for the specific site where the intervention occurs, while remaining attentive to national- and individual-level factors that shape resistance.
Topic:
Politics, Women, Gender Based Violence, and Participation
Political Geography:
North America and Global Focus

3. News Media Consumption and Political Behavior in Latin America

Author:
Ryan Salzman
Publication Date:
08-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
News media are an important factor in any democratic society. Research focused on developed democracies has paved the way for anal- ysis in the context of less well-developed democracies. The project en- deavors to continue that investigation into whether and how news media consumption affects democratic behavior among individuals in a region comprised of developing democracies: Latin America. Employing rich survey data available from the 2008 Latin American Public Opinion Project, traditional analyses are used to test one of the most basic ques- tions for political communication researchers: Does news media con- sumption motivate or depress political participation? The results indicate that, on average, news media mobilize political participation, albeit to different degrees per medium and participation type. This seems to hap- pen because those media socialize Latin Americans to value political participation.
Topic:
Mass Media, Elections, Democracy, Media, and Participation
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and North America

4. Contentious Engagement: Understanding Protest Participation in Latin American Democracies

Author:
Mason W. Moseley
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Why has protest participation seemingly exploded across much of Latin America in recent years? How do individual- and country- level characteristics interact to explain the rise of contentious politics in countries like Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela? I contend that the recent wave of protests in Latin America is the result of trends in community engagement and institutional development across the region’s young democracies. Specifically, I argue that low-quality institutions in demo- cratic regimes push an increasingly large number of civically active Latin Americans toward more radical modes of political participation, as gov- ernments’ abilities to deliver on citizens’ expectations fail to match the capacity for mobilization of active democrats. Drawing on cross-national surveys of Latin America, I test this argument, finding that an interactive relationship between community engagement and ineffective political institutions helps explain the recent spike in protest activity in certain cases and the vast differences in protest participation observed through- out the region.
Topic:
Social Movement, Democracy, Protests, and Participation
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and North America