Women in International Negotiations: Evidence from the Council of the European Union

What is the impact of increasing women’s participation in international negotiations? Although a growing international relations scholarship is examining the role of women leaders on interstate conflict and crisis bargaining, we know less about the wider dynamics of women getting a seat in the rooms where the terms of international cooperation are negotiated. Although long-standing assumptions hold that women are more peaceful, cooperative, and empathetic than men, it has been suggested that women who have made it to the relevant top offices are likely unrepresentative. Leveraging text-as-data from the negotiations at the Council of the EU in 2011-2016, combined with novel data on gender-composition of speakers and the member-state delegations, we investigate whether women employ systematically different negotiation strategies than men. Which negotiations do women get sent to? Do they speak more often or at length than men? Do they deploy more cooperative language or make harsher demands? Building on existing work on international relations, psychology, and business studies, the project investigates a set of hypotheses about the individual-level sources of negotiation strategies, as well as the challenges and opportunities disproportionately affecting women at the negotiation table.