Connecting the Dots: Regime Change and Political Parties’ Rhetoric regarding Women’s Working Rights

This paper examines political parties' rhetoric on women's labor rights during periods of autocratization and democratization. While existing research highlights the importance of women's rights in shaping regimes, the findings around the role of women's labor rights in explaining autocratization and democratization remain context-dependent and inconsistent. To address this gap, we systematically analyze the timing of shifts in political parties' discourse regarding women's rights in relation to regime change. Specifically, we investigate the various stages of regime transformation—before and at the onset of regime change, as well as throughout and after the transition period—to understand how regimes leverage women's rights during these critical junctures. We use global data on democracy levels, aggregate data spanning 3,467 parties represented in 178 parliaments between 1970 and 2019 from the V-Party dataset, and apply a sequatial approach by levereging logistic and multinomial functions. Our analysis reveals distinct patterns. In autocratizing regimes, attacks on women's labor rights tend to occur relatively late in the process, following earlier increases in violence and repression. Conversely, in democratizing contexts, a commitment to women's labor rights often emerges early, signaling a broader commitment to pluralism at the onset of regime change. Our paper contributes with a detailed account of how rhetoric on women's labor rights is strategically employed as part of the broader repertoire of legitimation and control in unfolding autocratization, and conversely, as a key building block of democratization.