Graduation Term

Fall 2024

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Department of Politics and Government: Political Science

Committee Chair

Michael Hendricks

Committee Co-Chair

Noha Shawki

Committee Member

Yusuf Sarfati

Abstract

While the existing literature on women’s rights has extensively studied the effects of international norms and regimes’ strategic choices on advancing women’s rights across time and space, the research on the effects of state capacity on women’s rights promotion has been strikingly limited. In this paper, I argue that the robustness of state institutions is a prerequisite factor for advancing women’s status irrespective of regime type and international incentives. Since high-capacity states possess higher ‘infrastructural power’ to devise complex policies, enforce the laws, and monitor unlawful activities, they are more likely to advance women’s rights and gender equality policies than low-capacity states that grapple with fulfilling more fundamental tasks such as providing security and delivering basic public goods. Furthermore, higher levels of fiscal, administrative, and legal capacity are more effective in advancing women’s rights than coercive capacity. To test my arguments, I rely on an assortment of historical (1945-2015) and contemporary (1990-2015) data using various panel regression models. The empirical results indicate that higher levels of state capacity are associated with advancements in women’s political, economic, and social rights across all aggregated and disaggregated measures. Unlike extractive, administrate, and legal capacity, the state’s coercive capability does not lead to improvements in women’s rights. This paper is the first to put state capacity at the center of the debates on women’s rights and gender equality.

Access Type

Thesis-Open Access

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