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Important announcements 1

Amy Alexander

Senior Associate Researcher

Adress: Gothenburg, Sweden
 
E-mail: amy.catherine.alexander@gmail.com 

CVPersonal Page

Education and academic positions:

  • Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) Quality of Government Institute, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; 
  • 2012 - 2014 - the Maria Goeppert Mayer Chair of Politics and Gender at Georg-August-University, Germany;
  • 2011 - 2012 - Postdoctoral Fellowship, Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana Universität, Lüneburg, Germany; 
  • 2011 - Ph.D., Political Science Institution, University of California, Irvine. 

Academic interests: women and politics, women’s rights, political structures and gender political representation, political culture, political participation, democratization.

Research projects:

  1. Why is Gender Equality Good for Governance? The Socialization Hypothesis
  2. Women in Legislatures and Anti-Trafficking Enforcement: A Global Analysis
  3. Sub-national disparities of attitudes toward gender equality in Egypt, Iran, and Turkey - A Multi-Level Study

Why is Gender Equality Good for Governance? The Socialization Hypothesis

Abstract

This research adds to a growing literature on gender equality and good governance. This literature has established various links between separate aspects of gender equality and good governance, including the provision of public goods such as democratic accountability, intra and interstate peace, economic growth, rule of law, low corruption and human well-being. However, while the literature on disparate aspects of the gender equality-good governance nexus continues to grow, there is no integrated approach that takes a comprehensive look at how the various aspects play together to create global gender equality-good governance patterns. As a result, theory and analysis fall short in explanations of why we see such frequent replication of these patterns across the globe and over time. Based on preliminary research, I assume that the direction of influence runs more strongly from gender equality writ large –facilitated through both the engendering of institutions and de-gendering of capabilities- to general public goods provisions. I argue that gender equality writ large is good for governance through gender role socialization. Traditional gender role socialization negatively affects governance by ascribing different sets of emotions, traits and styles of reasoning to sex differences, distorting opportunity structures for exercising power and creating myriad externalities that negatively affect generalized respect, trust, tolerance, reciprocity and well-being.

Women in Legislatures and Anti-Trafficking Enforcement: A Global Analysis (with Maria Ravlik)

Abstract

A powerful evidence base identifies human trafficking as a symptom of gender inequality and, as such, a women’s interest issue. The women and politics literature has long posited and evaluated whether there is a link between female descriptive representation and attention to women’s issues. Yet, not a single study to date evaluates whether the greater inclusion of women in positions of political power influences anti-trafficking legislation across the globe. This manuscript makes that step. We evaluate whether increases in women in leading political decision-making positions improves their countries’ anti-trafficking enforcement. Using ordinal regression analysis, we test whether higher levels of women in national legislatures lead to higher levels of enforcement with data on 162 countries measured in the late 2000s. We situate our findings in both the women’s substantive representation and good governance literatures. In addition to gender inequality, corruption is a powerful driver of failures in anti-trafficking enforcement. And, corruption is linked to many additional enforcement failures that have implications for gender inequality. This perspective links the representation of more specific female interests to broader good governance outcomes. Under this perspective, we use the focus on anti-trafficking enforcement to explore the implications of our findings for this larger nexus of women’s interests, women’s descriptive representation, and good governance.

Sub-national disparities of attitudes toward gender equality in Egypt, Iran, and Turkey - A Multi-Level Study (with Sara Parhizkari)

Abstract

A number of studies have examined trends in gender egalitarian attitudes across nations. Muslim majority countries often emerge as consistently more patriarchal from these analyses. While the country-level perspective shows that this religious legacy lags popular support for gender equality, it tells us little about the variation within Muslim majority countries. Indeed, the literature lacks a systematic, comparative analysis of regional variation in popular support for gender equality in Muslim majority countries and its drivers. This manuscript is a first attempt at explaining the regional variation in Muslim majority countries. Using data from the World Values Survey (WVS), we use the variable, “place of residence,” to model variation in sub-national units across Egypt, Iran, and Turkey. We also draw on reports of 2005, 2006, and 2008 censuses for sub-national data across the three countries. With this data, we model macro and individual-level variance across 64 Muslim majority countries with multi-level analysis using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). At the macro-level, we consider variables such as education level and female labor force participation. At individual level, we investigate the role of religiosity and other standard demographic characteristics in shaping popular support for gender equality.

 

 

 


 

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