The Appointment of Women to Authoritarian Cabinets in Africa

Authors

Alex Kroeger, Texas State University - San MarcosFollow
Alice J. Kang, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

ORCID IDs

Kroeger https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7210-2899

Kang https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5443-8356

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2022

Citation

Government and Opposition (2022, FirstView): 1–24

doi: 10.1017/gov.2022.32

Comments

Copyright 2022, Kroeger and Kang. Open access material

License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Published by Cambridge University Press

Abstract

What explains variation in the inclusion of women in authoritarian cabinets? We theorize that leaders of electoral autocracies are affected by changing international norms of democracy and women’s rights to appoint women ministers. We propose two hypotheses. First, increasing dependence on aid from democratic donors encourages leaders of electoral autocracies to appoint more women ministers. Second, electoral autocrats uprooting democratic traits appoint more women ministers to minimize the reputational costs of their autocratization. Using data from authoritarian regimes in 38 African countries between 1973 and 2013, we find that increases in aid from democracies are associated with modest increases in women’s share of cabinet seats. As our theory suggests, this relationship holds only in electoral autocracies in more recent years when norms of gender equality have been strongest. Conversely, we find no evidence that autocratization periods are associated with increases in women’s cabinet share. Additionally, we show that supply-side factors and the politics of multi-ethnic coalition building appear to explain differences in women’s cabinet seat share in autocracies.