How do periods of conflict and peace shape women's empowerment around the world? While existing studies have demonstrated that gender inequalities contribute to the propensity for armed conflict, we consider how the anticipation and realization of armed conflict shape women's opportunities for influence in society. Some scholars have pointed to the role that militarization and threat play in entrenching male dominance, while others have argued that periods of warfare can upend existing gender hierarchical orders. We posit mechanisms by which the preparation for and experiences during war affect change in women's empowerment. We develop and test observable implications using cross-national data from 1900 to 2015. We find that, at least in the short and medium term, warfare can disrupt social institutions and lead to an increase in women's empowerment via mechanisms related to role shifts across society and political shifts catalyzed by war. Reforming institutions and mainstreaming gender during peace processes stand to have important legacies for gender power relations in postconflict societies, though much more may be needed for more permanent change.
Recent scholarship shows war can catalyze reforms related to gender power imbalances, but what about reforms related to ethnic inequalities? While war can disrupt the political, social and economic institutions at the root of ethnic hierarchy—just as it can shake up the institutions at the root of gender hierarchy—war is also prone to have either a reinforcing effect or a pendulum effect. Our project uses data from the Varieties of Democracy project to examine specific manifestations of changes in gender and ethnic civil-liberty equality (1900–2015). Interstate war, but not intrastate war, tends to be followed by gains in ethnic civil-liberty equality, and intrastate war tends to be followed by long-term gains in gender civil-liberty equality. Wars with government losses are prone to lead to improvements in civil-liberty equality along both dimensions. In considering overlapping gender and ethnic hierarchies, we find that when wars open up space for gains in gender equality, they also facilitate gains in equality for excluded ethnic groups.
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