Women at War and Peace
Women at War and Peace
My three-paper dissertation, "Women at War and Peace," examines the role of female leaders in the conflict behavior of states in addressing an international crisis. My dissertation explores the intersection of gender, conflict, and peace through three primary questions. The first empirical chapter examines how the gender of leaders influences states' involvement in military intervention, particularly those focusing on humanitarian crises. The following chapter shifts focus to domestic peace, emphasizing the role of women in the occurrence of civil wars, focusing on the role of gender equality norms in mitigating violence and several rebel groups. The last empirical chapter investigates gender differences in the use of economic sanctions and military action, suggesting that female leaders might prioritize military actions over sanctions when confronting male adversaries to counter perceptions of weakness due to persistent gender stereotypes and sexism against women in power. By offering a comprehensive analysis of the role of leaders’ gender in various conflict scenarios, this dissertation contributes to a deeper understanding of how female political empowerment shapes state conflict behavior and foreign policy decisions.
Paper 1
She Picks the Fight: How Female Leaders Choose When to Use Force
Working Paper
Are female leaders more likely to support humanitarian military interventions? Toward this end, I show how female leaders engage in humanitarian military interventions to overcome “double-bind gender bias” and fulfill their surrogate representation. I suggest that humanitarian military interventions serve as a unique opportunity for female leaders to demonstrate leadership expectations (use of military force) and align with gender roles (addressing human rights violations). Using data from 1966 to 2005, the empirical findings from weighted logit regressions indicate that countries with female leaders are around three times more likely to engage in military interventions to address humanitarian crises. These findings point to particular strategies adopted by female leaders to navigate gender stereotypes and sexism against themselves. This study contributes to the broader literature on gender and foreign policy by examining how female leaders approach humanitarian interventions. It also extends the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda by showing that its principles can be reflected in executive decisions about when and how to use military force.
Paper 2
Gendered Peace: Female Leaders and Civil War
In Progress
Paper 3
Gendered Foreign Policy: Female Leaders, Sanctions, and the Use of Force
Working Paper
The recent elections of Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah as Namibia's first female president mark a significant moment in a growing global trend of women taking positions as leaders. Yet, gender stereotypes and sexism continue to question the capability and authority of women as national leaders. Toward this end, building on "double-bind gender bias" that emerges due to persistent gender stereotypes and sexist attitudes toward female leaders, I developed a gendered foreign policy to capture how female leaders decide whether to impose economic sanctions or resort to military force in international crises, depending on the gender of their adversaries. Using an original survey experiment, I aim to show that (1) female leaders face greater audience costs for imposing economic sanctions (often perceived as overly conciliatory and not calculated, contradicting masculine leadership expectations) than their male counterparts, and (2) audience costs are shaped by the gender of the adversary: female leaders face greater audience costs for using military force against other women than a male-male dyad, given that such foreign policy decisions might be seen as overly aggressive, which conflicts with traditional gender roles.