Do rights at home boost rights abroad? Sexual equality and humanitarian foreign policy

Abstract

Does women's empowerment strengthen global good citizenship? We test theories of democratic foreign policy and feminist international relations that suggest that more deeply democratic countries with greater gender equity will be stronger international human rights promoters. First, the direct empowerment of women as policymakers and civil society constituencies may shift states' incentives and ability to pursue international human rights initiatives. Second, greater sexual equality may lead to feminist socialization of the wider society to promote human rights values. We test these predictions by measuring the relationship between five different measures of sexual equality and a country's propensity to support 30 international human rights outcomes, including legal commitments, humanitarian assistance, and sanctions, controlling for previously established contributing factors such as level of development and democratic regime type. We find that more sexually equal countries are more likely to support international commitments to constrain state violence against individuals, international measures to combat gender and sexual orientation discrimination, and more and higher quality development assistance. However, sexual equality appears to yield less benefit for more costly human rights initiatives: yielding sovereignty to international legal institutions, promoting economic rights through concessionary trade policies, or adopting diplomatic sanctions against pariah states. These effects are stronger in democratic states, where citizen empowerment translates more readily into foreign policy, and are also found in a sample that excludes the Western powers.

Composite measures of women’s empowerment and their association with maternal mortality in low-income countries

“…Interestingly, none of these studies specifically analyzed whether having more women in political leadership roles had a bearing on maternal mortality. However, evidence suggests that female policymakers are more inclined to prioritize health and social welfare programming, including maternal healthcare [ 23 , 24 ]. For instance, a study in India found that, for every one standard deviation increase in the number of female political representatives, a 1.5% reduction in neonatal mortality occurred, because women politicians were more likely to support antenatal care and health facilities [ 25 ].…”

Cross‐Border Reproductive Care: Two Lenses in Political Science

“…(Davies et al, 2014). This attention from IR scholars to global public health is in addition to a deep literature that looks at the role of women and the place of women's issues in IR, including but not limited to the politics of fertility and economic development (Feng, Kugler, and Zak, 2000), demographic transitions and economic outcomes (Kugler & Swaminathan, 2006), and women's rights as framed and promoted by international institutions (Brysk & Mehta, 2014;Joachim, 2003).…”

Speaking Rights To Power

“…Concerned policy makers must be reminded that carefully designed international institutions, democracy assistance, civil-society promotion, and multilateral humanitarian intervention are an investment in US security. Perhaps one of the best supported worldwide patterns is the connection among each state’s respect for women’s rights, contribution to international peace and security, and global good citizenship (Brysk and Mehta 2014; Hudson et al 2012).…”