Insecurity and Support for Female Leadership in Conflict States: Evidence from Afghanistan

While women’s political inclusion is central to international conflict resolution efforts, public attitudes in conflict states towards women’s political inclusion remain underexplored. We expect insecurity to depress support for female political leadership in conflicts where women’s political inclusion is violently contested. Citizens wanting security through force prefer male leaders because of stereotypes privileging men’s military prowess. Citizens wanting security through reconciliation, however, also favour men for fear that female leadership would provoke more violence. We assess these expectations with experimental and observational data from the former Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. In the survey experiment, priming respondents to think about insecurity decreases support for female leadership – but only among women. In observational data, insecurity correlates with more polarized attitudes towards women's political representation in some regions, and greater support for female leaders in others. Insecurity’s impact on public support for female leadership in conflict states may be highly heterogeneous.

尽管女性政治参与是国际冲突解决工作的核心议题，但冲突国家民众对女性政治参与的态度仍未得到充分探索。我们提出如下预期：在女性政治参与遭到激烈暴力对抗的冲突场景中，不安全局势会削弱民众对女性政治领袖的支持。因诉诸武力寻求安全的民众，会受刻板印象影响——该刻板印象赋予男性更强的军事才干——从而更青睐男性领袖；而通过和解路径寻求安全的民众，也会因担忧女性领导层会引发更多暴力，同样倾向于支持男性领袖。我们借助来自前阿富汗伊斯兰共和国的实验与观测数据验证了上述预期。在调查实验（survey experiment）中，启动受访者思考不安全局势的议题，会降低其对女性领袖的支持率，但该效应仅存在于女性受访者群体中。在观测数据中，不安全局势在部分地区与民众对女性政治代表权的态度极化存在相关性，而在另一些地区则与民众对女性领袖的更高支持率相关。由此可见，冲突国家中不安全局势对民众支持女性领袖的影响可能存在极强的异质性。