Do Gender Quotas Enhance Countries' International Reputations? Evidence from an Experimental Approach

The global spread of electoral gender quotas has been characterized as one of the most significant political developments of the last decades (Hughes, Krook and Paxton 2015). The adoption of quotas has presented a puzzle to researchers given that many of the countries that have adopted these laws are (semi-)authoritarian countries that have stark gender inequalities and thus might not be expected to take proactive steps to increase women’s representation. To understand quota adoption in these countries, it has been suggested that political elites have strategic motives to introduce quota policies: to establish the legitimacy of a particular regime. It is often assumed that (semi-)authoritarian countries adopt gender quotas as a strategy of improving their international reputations. Some initial research has demonstrated patterns of quota adoption that are consistent with that story (e.g., Bush 2011). However, there is – to our knowledge – no research on whether leaders are successful in their strategy of using quotas to enhance their reputations. Do authoritarian governments really improve their international reputations and potentially win other tangible benefits (e.g. foreign aid, direct investments, and/or loans) through gender inclusion measures? This paper addresses that question by conducting a survey experiment on a nationally representative sample of approximately 1000 US citizens. An experimental framework allows us to study the effect of a hypothetical (semi-)authoritarian country having a gender quota on its reputation by giving information about the gender quota to only some, randomly selected respondents in the context of a survey. The reputation-based outcome measures that we examine are whether individuals would choose to give the country foreign economic aid and to what extent they would describe the country as being democratic.