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Window-Dressing or Window of Opportunity? Assessing the Advancement of Gender Equality in Autocracies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2023

Elin Bjarnegård Open the ORCID record for Elin Bjarnegård [Opens in a new window]  and
Daniela Donno Open the ORCID record for Daniela Donno [Opens in a new window]
Elin Bjarnegård*
Affiliation:
Uppsala University, Sweden
Daniela Donno
Affiliation:
University of Cyprus, Cyprus
*
*Corresponding author. Email: elin.bjarnegard@statsvet.uu.se
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Extract

There is growing evidence of the international and domestic political benefits for autocrats to advance women’s rights (Bjarnegård and Zetterberg 2016; Bush and Zetterberg 2021; Donno and Kreft 2019; Tripp 2019). Research on the adoption of gender reforms in autocracies—including contributions in this Critical Perspectives section by Audrey L. Comstock and Andrea Vilán (2022) and Aili Mari Tripp (2022)—emphasizes the dual role of international pressure (Donno, Fox, and Kaasik 2021; Edgell 2017; Okundaye and Breuning 2021) and women’s movements (Giersdorf and Croissant 2011; Htun and Weldon 2012; Tripp 2015). Reforms can be “top-down” if the autocrat advances rights even while suppressing the women’s movement, or “bottom-up” if the regime allies with—and seeks to co-opt—civil society groups.

Type
Critical Perspectives Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 2024 , pp. 229 - 234
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association

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