Genocide and the Gender Gap in Political Representation

• In Event: Historical Roots of Democratic Support

Abstract

Women remain underrepresented in political office around the world. The gender gap in political representation is particularly stark in developing countries, where women both lack economic resources to run for office and face patriarchal social structures that exclude them from opportunities to accumulate resources to advance their political ambitions. Societal transformations that afford women economic autonomy and avenues to enhance their material well-being are therefore predicted to improve women’s representation in political office. In this paper, we examine the effects of one such watershed societal transformation: the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, during which 50% to 70% of the country’s working-age men were killed. Our contention is that areas that suffered the worst killings during the genocide should have registered the largest uptick in female-headed households, with implications for long-term trends in women’s political representation. We leverage exposure to the Khmer Rouge genocide as a plausibly exogenous determinant of the number of female-headed households in a community and analyze this variation to study the relationship between the legacy of war, women’s economic autonomy, and gendered representation. Using an original dataset on economic and political conditions in Cambodian communes, we find that exposure to the genocide is positively associated with women’s economic advancement and, in turn, present day indicators of women’s representation in local-level elected office. We supplement our quantitative analyses with original, in-depth ethnographic interviews with genocide survivors in Cambodia to explore the mechanisms by which wartime killings spurred women into elected office. A crucial finding emerges: Where women obtained control over household finances and economic responsibilities, they gained a clearer stake in the policy decisions of the state, and found greater incentives to become politically engaged. Our results shed light on how conflict impacts the empowerment and representation of women in politics, and help advance a key theoretical claim regarding the joint role of economic and cultural factors in determining the gender gap in political representation.

Authors

• Nikhar Gaikwad, Columbia University

• Erin Lin, Ohio State University

• Noah Zucker, Columbia University