Lindsay J Benstead
Biographic Data
| ID | 1403438 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lindsay J Benstead |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lindsay J |
| FAMILY NAME | Benstead |
| SIGNATURE | BENSTEAD L J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Portland State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2459-5857 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 281 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Dominant Party Affiliation and Perceived Institutional Performance: Evidence from Local Governance in Algeria
Do Islamist Parties Reach More Women? Party Institutionalization and Constituency Service in Algeria
Why do Islamist parties succeed electorally? Some scholars posit that Islamists' success stems from their ability to institutionalize constituent relations and serve marginalized citizens. I test this hypothesis using an original survey of 782 Algerian citizens focusing on constituency service interactions with legislators. I argue and show empirically that Islamist parties' more institutionalized constituency service practices allow them to reac…
Is the Future Female? Lessons from a Conjoint Experiment on Voter Preferences in Six Arab Countries
Despite growing evidence of pro-female bias in the electorate elsewhere, conventional wisdom holds that voters in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) prefer male candidates, presumably due to sexism. We test this conventional wisdom using a conjoint experiment administered to over 30,000 respondents in six MENA countries. We find both male and female respondents are more likely to express support for female candidates and see them as more cap…
What Explains Voter Preferences in Transitional Tunisia? The Role of Particularistic Benefits
What explains electoral support for Islamist parties? Existing literature assesses the role of programmatic appeals, in the form of religious ideology and economic programs, but lacks the data needed to test the role of particularistic benefits in shaping voter choice. Drawing on an original survey of 1,202 Tunisians conducted in 2012, I test the role of programmatic and particularistic benefits in explaining voter choice in Tunisia's 2011 Consti…
The US View of the Transforming Strategic Context in the Mena
Explaining Backlash: Social Hierarchy and Men’s Rejection of Women’s Rights Reforms
Governments promote gender-sensitive policies, yet little is known about why reform campaigns evoke backlash. Drawing on social position theory, we test whether marginalized (women’s organizations) or intrusive (Western donors) messengers cause resistance across public rights (quotas) and private rights (land reform). Using a framing experiment implemented among 1,704 Malawians, we find that females’ attitudes are unaffected by campaigns, while b…
Do Islamist parties help or hinder women? Party institutionalization, piety and responsiveness to female citizens
Does electing Islamist parties help or hurt women? Due to Ennahda winning a plurality in the 2011 elections and women from all parties winning 31% of seats, Tunisia offers an opportunity to test the impact of legislator gender and Islamist orientation on women's representation. Using original 2012 surveys of 40 Tunisian parliamentarians (MPs) and 1200 citizens, we find that electing female and Islamists MPs improves women's symbolic and service r…
Two Classes of “Marriage”: Race and Sexual Slavery in Al-Shabaab-Controlled Somalia
Some Somali majority clan girls and women receive economic and security benefits from marriage to Al-Shabaab fighters. Yet, the literature treats women’s experiences monolithically and misses the role that race plays in determining the circumstances of such unions. The authors argue that one should not refer to the unions of Somali Bantu girls and women with Al-Shabaab fighters as a “marriage” but rather as sexual and domestic slavery – a form of…
Civil society, insecurity and Arab support for normalization with Israel: Contextualizing the Abraham Accords
Extant literature suggests that public support for peace accords plays a role in their durability. Yet while the Abraham Accords represent significant rapprochement between governments, the region is marked by the conditions of violence and insecurity that harm social trust and reduce the likelihood of conciliatory views among citizens. Using Arab Barometer data from twelve countries (2012–2014), I explore the factors that lead Arab citizens to b…
Do women face a different standard? The interplay of gender and corruption in the 2014 presidential elections in Malawi
Poor people’s beliefs and the dynamics of clientelism
Why do some poor people engage in clientelism whereas others do not? Why does clientelism sometimes take traditional forms and sometimes more instrumental forms? We propose a formal model of clientelism that addresses these questions focusing primarily on the citizen’s perspective. Citizens choose between supporting broad-based redistribution or engaging in clientelism. Introducing insights from social psychology, we study the interactions betwee…
Female Electability in the Arab World: The Advantages of Intersectionality
Many studies of women's electability in the developing world focus on single traits such as gender, ethnicity, or religion. Employing an original survey experiment in Jordan, we examine the impacts of multiple, intersecting candidate identities on voter preferences. We show empirically that existing theories of electoral behavior alone cannot account for women's electability. An intersectional lens that considers how power structures shape electa…
Does it matter what observers say? The impact of international election monitoring on legitimacy
Scholars and democracy promoters often suggest that electoral observers’ (EOs’) assessments impact public opinion in a straightforward manner, yet, research on communication cautions against these sanguine assumptions. We test the impact of EO statements on public opinion in two very different contexts using survey experiments conducted among 3,361 Jordanians and Tunisians. Our results demonstrate the need for democracy promoters to consider nega…
Conceptualizing and measuring patriarchy: The importance of feminist theory
‘Patriarchy’ is increasingly part of the political science lexicon, particularly in work on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Yet I argue that political scientists often under-conceptualize patriarchy, failing to draw on existing feminist theory. This hinders explanation of the mechanisms sustaining gender inequality. By engaging with Kandiyoti’s ‘patriarchal bargain,’ which sees gender relations as the outcome of negotiation, and Sadiqi’s…
Do Female Local Councilors Improve Women’s Representation
Tunisia’s 2018 municipal elections, in which a legislated quota was implemented and women won 47 percent of seats, raises questions about whether electing female councilors improves women’s representation in clientelistic settings. Using data from the Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI), an original survey of 3,600 Tunisians conducted in 2015 by the Program on Governance and Local Development (GLD), this article investigates the relationshi…
Why the Gender of Traditional Authorities Matters: Intersectionality and Women’s Rights Advocacy in Malawi
Traditional leadership often coexists with modern political institutions; yet, we know little about how traditional and state authority cues—or those from male or female sources—affect public opinion. Using an original survey experiment of 1,381 Malawians embedded in the 2016 Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI), we randomly assign respondents into one of four treatment groups or a control group to hear messages about a child marriage reform…
Differentiation and diffusion: Shifting public opinion attitudes toward foreign policy in North Africa
Drawing on Arab Barometer data, this article provides the backdrop for understanding continuity and change since the Arab Spring in national-level public opinion attitudes toward economic and political foreign policy issues in North Africa, inclusive of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. The article leverages the concepts of differentiation and diffusion to understand how international affairs shape public opinion in North Africa since …
Survey Research in the Arab World: Challenges and Opportunities
Survey research has expanded in the Arab world since the 1980s. The Arab Spring marked a watershed when surveying became possible in Tunisia and Libya, and researchers added additional questions needed to answer theoretical and policy questions. Almost every Arab country now is included in the Arab Barometer or World Values Survey. Yet, some scholars express the view that the Arab survey context is more challenging than that of other regions or t…
Islam in a Changing Middle East: Local Politics and Islamist Movements
Why Quotas Are Needed to Improve Women's Access to Services in Clientelistic Regimes
Using data from a survey of 200 Moroccan and Algerian parliamentarians, this article assesses the relationship between parliamentarian gender, quotas, and constituency service provision to females. The findings suggest that while electing women increases service provision to females, quotas are needed to create mandates in clientelistic, patriarchal settings, where serving women is a less effective electoral strategy than serving men. Deputies el…
Coke, Pepsi or Mecca Cola? Why product characteristics affect the likelihood of collective action problems and boycott success
Under what conditions do individuals who profess to boycott products align actual and intended consumption habits? Inconsistency between self-reported participation and practice can help explain why few boycott campaigns harm targets despite high political consumption rates reported in surveys of Americans and Europeans. Arab boycotts are fertile yet unexplored settings in which to assess this proposition. Using data from 820 Algerian students su…
Is It Gender, Religiosity or Both? A Role Congruity Theory of Candidate Electability in Transitional Tunisia
Do voters regard male and female candidates equally? Does apparent religiosity of candidates help or hurt their electoral chances? Where biases exist, what explains them? We present a novel explanation of political bias, drawing from role congruity theory. It posits that political contexts shape citizens' perceptions of qualities that make a “capable leader,” which subsequently drives their willingness to vote for candidates. Evidence from a surv…
Why do some Arab citizens see democracy as unsuitable for their country
Why do some Arab citizens regard democracy favourably but see it as unsuitable for their country? Modernization theory contends that economic development creates modern citizens who demand democracy. Cultural theories see Islam and democracy as incompatible. Government performance theories argue that citizens who perceive the current authoritarian government as acting in a transparent manner will demand greater democracy. I argue that attitudes t…
Does Interviewer Religious Dress Affect Survey Responses? Evidence from Morocco
Few studies examine religiosity-of-interviewer effects, despite recent expansion of surveying in the Muslim world. Using data from a nationally-representative survey of 800 Moroccans conducted in 2007, this study investigates whether and why interviewer religiosity and gender affect responses to religiously-sensitive questions. Interviewer dress affects responses to four of six items, but effects are larger and more consistent for religious respo…
Polarization or Pluralism? Language, Identity, and Attitudes toward American Culture among Algeria’s Youth
Muslim and Arab identities have long been instrumentalized to forge unifying national and regional identities. The impact of Algeria’s post-colonial Arabization policies that educated people in Standard Arabic (to the exclusion of dialectal Arabic, Berber, or French) on economic cleavages and attitudes has been underexplored. Algeria has been described as polarized, with cultural and religious cleavages between Arabs and Berbers and traditionalis…
Is It Gender, Religiosity or Both? A Role Congruity Theory of Candidate Electability in Transitional Tunisia
Do voters regard male and female candidates equally? Does apparent religiosity of candidates help or hurt their electoral chances? Where biases exist, what explains them? We present a novel explanation of political bias, drawing from role congruity theory. It posits that political contexts shape citizens' perceptions of qualities that make a “capable leader,” which subsequently drives their willingness to vote for candidates. Evidence from a surv…
Effects of Interviewer–Respondent Gender Interaction on Attitudes toward Women and Politics: Findings from Morocco
Journal Article Effects of Interviewer–Respondent Gender Interaction on Attitudes toward Women and Politics: Findings from Morocco Get access Lindsay J. Benstead Lindsay J. Benstead Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, Division of Political Science, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA Lindsay J. Benstead is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University. She has con…
Why Quotas Are Needed to Improve Women's Access to Services in Clientelistic Regimes
Using data from a survey of 200 Moroccan and Algerian parliamentarians, this article assesses the relationship between parliamentarian gender, quotas, and constituency service provision to females. The findings suggest that while electing women increases service provision to females, quotas are needed to create mandates in clientelistic, patriarchal settings, where serving women is a less effective electoral strategy than serving men. Deputies el…
Why do some Arab citizens see democracy as unsuitable for their country
Why do some Arab citizens regard democracy favourably but see it as unsuitable for their country? Modernization theory contends that economic development creates modern citizens who demand democracy. Cultural theories see Islam and democracy as incompatible. Government performance theories argue that citizens who perceive the current authoritarian government as acting in a transparent manner will demand greater democracy. I argue that attitudes t…
Does Interviewer Religious Dress Affect Survey Responses? Evidence from Morocco
Few studies examine religiosity-of-interviewer effects, despite recent expansion of surveying in the Muslim world. Using data from a nationally-representative survey of 800 Moroccans conducted in 2007, this study investigates whether and why interviewer religiosity and gender affect responses to religiously-sensitive questions. Interviewer dress affects responses to four of six items, but effects are larger and more consistent for religious respo…
Female Electability in the Arab World: The Advantages of Intersectionality
Many studies of women's electability in the developing world focus on single traits such as gender, ethnicity, or religion. Employing an original survey experiment in Jordan, we examine the impacts of multiple, intersecting candidate identities on voter preferences. We show empirically that existing theories of electoral behavior alone cannot account for women's electability. An intersectional lens that considers how power structures shape electa…
Why the Gender of Traditional Authorities Matters: Intersectionality and Women’s Rights Advocacy in Malawi
Traditional leadership often coexists with modern political institutions; yet, we know little about how traditional and state authority cues—or those from male or female sources—affect public opinion. Using an original survey experiment of 1,381 Malawians embedded in the 2016 Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI), we randomly assign respondents into one of four treatment groups or a control group to hear messages about a child marriage reform…
Poor people’s beliefs and the dynamics of clientelism
Why do some poor people engage in clientelism whereas others do not? Why does clientelism sometimes take traditional forms and sometimes more instrumental forms? We propose a formal model of clientelism that addresses these questions focusing primarily on the citizen’s perspective. Citizens choose between supporting broad-based redistribution or engaging in clientelism. Introducing insights from social psychology, we study the interactions betwee…
Survey Research in the Arab World: Challenges and Opportunities
Survey research has expanded in the Arab world since the 1980s. The Arab Spring marked a watershed when surveying became possible in Tunisia and Libya, and researchers added additional questions needed to answer theoretical and policy questions. Almost every Arab country now is included in the Arab Barometer or World Values Survey. Yet, some scholars express the view that the Arab survey context is more challenging than that of other regions or t…
Polarization or Pluralism? Language, Identity, and Attitudes toward American Culture among Algeria’s Youth
Muslim and Arab identities have long been instrumentalized to forge unifying national and regional identities. The impact of Algeria’s post-colonial Arabization policies that educated people in Standard Arabic (to the exclusion of dialectal Arabic, Berber, or French) on economic cleavages and attitudes has been underexplored. Algeria has been described as polarized, with cultural and religious cleavages between Arabs and Berbers and traditionalis…
Is the Future Female? Lessons from a Conjoint Experiment on Voter Preferences in Six Arab Countries
Despite growing evidence of pro-female bias in the electorate elsewhere, conventional wisdom holds that voters in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) prefer male candidates, presumably due to sexism. We test this conventional wisdom using a conjoint experiment administered to over 30,000 respondents in six MENA countries. We find both male and female respondents are more likely to express support for female candidates and see them as more cap…
Conceptualizing and measuring patriarchy: The importance of feminist theory
‘Patriarchy’ is increasingly part of the political science lexicon, particularly in work on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Yet I argue that political scientists often under-conceptualize patriarchy, failing to draw on existing feminist theory. This hinders explanation of the mechanisms sustaining gender inequality. By engaging with Kandiyoti’s ‘patriarchal bargain,’ which sees gender relations as the outcome of negotiation, and Sadiqi’s…
Differentiation and diffusion: Shifting public opinion attitudes toward foreign policy in North Africa
Drawing on Arab Barometer data, this article provides the backdrop for understanding continuity and change since the Arab Spring in national-level public opinion attitudes toward economic and political foreign policy issues in North Africa, inclusive of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. The article leverages the concepts of differentiation and diffusion to understand how international affairs shape public opinion in North Africa since …
Explaining Backlash: Social Hierarchy and Men’s Rejection of Women’s Rights Reforms
Governments promote gender-sensitive policies, yet little is known about why reform campaigns evoke backlash. Drawing on social position theory, we test whether marginalized (women’s organizations) or intrusive (Western donors) messengers cause resistance across public rights (quotas) and private rights (land reform). Using a framing experiment implemented among 1,704 Malawians, we find that females’ attitudes are unaffected by campaigns, while b…
Do women face a different standard? The interplay of gender and corruption in the 2014 presidential elections in Malawi
Coke, Pepsi or Mecca Cola? Why product characteristics affect the likelihood of collective action problems and boycott success
Under what conditions do individuals who profess to boycott products align actual and intended consumption habits? Inconsistency between self-reported participation and practice can help explain why few boycott campaigns harm targets despite high political consumption rates reported in surveys of Americans and Europeans. Arab boycotts are fertile yet unexplored settings in which to assess this proposition. Using data from 820 Algerian students su…
Do Female Local Councilors Improve Women’s Representation
Tunisia’s 2018 municipal elections, in which a legislated quota was implemented and women won 47 percent of seats, raises questions about whether electing female councilors improves women’s representation in clientelistic settings. Using data from the Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI), an original survey of 3,600 Tunisians conducted in 2015 by the Program on Governance and Local Development (GLD), this article investigates the relationshi…
Does it matter what observers say? The impact of international election monitoring on legitimacy
Scholars and democracy promoters often suggest that electoral observers’ (EOs’) assessments impact public opinion in a straightforward manner, yet, research on communication cautions against these sanguine assumptions. We test the impact of EO statements on public opinion in two very different contexts using survey experiments conducted among 3,361 Jordanians and Tunisians. Our results demonstrate the need for democracy promoters to consider nega…
What Explains Voter Preferences in Transitional Tunisia? The Role of Particularistic Benefits
What explains electoral support for Islamist parties? Existing literature assesses the role of programmatic appeals, in the form of religious ideology and economic programs, but lacks the data needed to test the role of particularistic benefits in shaping voter choice. Drawing on an original survey of 1,202 Tunisians conducted in 2012, I test the role of programmatic and particularistic benefits in explaining voter choice in Tunisia's 2011 Consti…
Civil society, insecurity and Arab support for normalization with Israel: Contextualizing the Abraham Accords
Extant literature suggests that public support for peace accords plays a role in their durability. Yet while the Abraham Accords represent significant rapprochement between governments, the region is marked by the conditions of violence and insecurity that harm social trust and reduce the likelihood of conciliatory views among citizens. Using Arab Barometer data from twelve countries (2012–2014), I explore the factors that lead Arab citizens to b…
The international dimension of the failed Algerian transition: Democracy betrayed? Perspectives on democratization
The international dimension of the failed Algerian transition: democracy betrayed? Perspectives on democratization, by Cavatorta, Francesco, Manchester, UK, Manchester University Press, 2009, xii
Polarization or Pluralism? Language, Identity, and Attitudes toward American Culture among Algeria’s Youth
Muslim and Arab identities have long been instrumentalized to forge unifying national and regional identities. The impact of Algeria’s post-colonial Arabization policies that educated people in Standard Arabic (to the exclusion of dialectal Arabic, Berber, or French) on economic cleavages and attitudes has been underexplored. Algeria has been described as polarized, with cultural and religious cleavages between Arabs and Berbers and traditionalis…
Effects of Interviewer–Respondent Gender Interaction on Attitudes toward Women and Politics: Findings from Morocco
Journal Article Effects of Interviewer–Respondent Gender Interaction on Attitudes toward Women and Politics: Findings from Morocco Get access Lindsay J. Benstead Lindsay J. Benstead Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, Division of Political Science, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA Lindsay J. Benstead is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University. She has con…
Does Interviewer Religious Dress Affect Survey Responses? Evidence from Morocco
Few studies examine religiosity-of-interviewer effects, despite recent expansion of surveying in the Muslim world. Using data from a nationally-representative survey of 800 Moroccans conducted in 2007, this study investigates whether and why interviewer religiosity and gender affect responses to religiously-sensitive questions. Interviewer dress affects responses to four of six items, but effects are larger and more consistent for religious respo…
Coke, Pepsi or Mecca Cola? Why product characteristics affect the likelihood of collective action problems and boycott success
Under what conditions do individuals who profess to boycott products align actual and intended consumption habits? Inconsistency between self-reported participation and practice can help explain why few boycott campaigns harm targets despite high political consumption rates reported in surveys of Americans and Europeans. Arab boycotts are fertile yet unexplored settings in which to assess this proposition. Using data from 820 Algerian students su…
Is It Gender, Religiosity or Both? A Role Congruity Theory of Candidate Electability in Transitional Tunisia
Do voters regard male and female candidates equally? Does apparent religiosity of candidates help or hurt their electoral chances? Where biases exist, what explains them? We present a novel explanation of political bias, drawing from role congruity theory. It posits that political contexts shape citizens' perceptions of qualities that make a “capable leader,” which subsequently drives their willingness to vote for candidates. Evidence from a surv…
Why do some Arab citizens see democracy as unsuitable for their country
Why do some Arab citizens regard democracy favourably but see it as unsuitable for their country? Modernization theory contends that economic development creates modern citizens who demand democracy. Cultural theories see Islam and democracy as incompatible. Government performance theories argue that citizens who perceive the current authoritarian government as acting in a transparent manner will demand greater democracy. I argue that attitudes t…
Why Quotas Are Needed to Improve Women's Access to Services in Clientelistic Regimes
Using data from a survey of 200 Moroccan and Algerian parliamentarians, this article assesses the relationship between parliamentarian gender, quotas, and constituency service provision to females. The findings suggest that while electing women increases service provision to females, quotas are needed to create mandates in clientelistic, patriarchal settings, where serving women is a less effective electoral strategy than serving men. Deputies el…
Islam in a Changing Middle East: Local Politics and Islamist Movements
Survey Research in the Arab World: Challenges and Opportunities
Survey research has expanded in the Arab world since the 1980s. The Arab Spring marked a watershed when surveying became possible in Tunisia and Libya, and researchers added additional questions needed to answer theoretical and policy questions. Almost every Arab country now is included in the Arab Barometer or World Values Survey. Yet, some scholars express the view that the Arab survey context is more challenging than that of other regions or t…
Do Female Local Councilors Improve Women’s Representation
Tunisia’s 2018 municipal elections, in which a legislated quota was implemented and women won 47 percent of seats, raises questions about whether electing female councilors improves women’s representation in clientelistic settings. Using data from the Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI), an original survey of 3,600 Tunisians conducted in 2015 by the Program on Governance and Local Development (GLD), this article investigates the relationshi…
Why the Gender of Traditional Authorities Matters: Intersectionality and Women’s Rights Advocacy in Malawi
Traditional leadership often coexists with modern political institutions; yet, we know little about how traditional and state authority cues—or those from male or female sources—affect public opinion. Using an original survey experiment of 1,381 Malawians embedded in the 2016 Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI), we randomly assign respondents into one of four treatment groups or a control group to hear messages about a child marriage reform…
Differentiation and diffusion: Shifting public opinion attitudes toward foreign policy in North Africa
Drawing on Arab Barometer data, this article provides the backdrop for understanding continuity and change since the Arab Spring in national-level public opinion attitudes toward economic and political foreign policy issues in North Africa, inclusive of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. The article leverages the concepts of differentiation and diffusion to understand how international affairs shape public opinion in North Africa since …
Does it matter what observers say? The impact of international election monitoring on legitimacy
Scholars and democracy promoters often suggest that electoral observers’ (EOs’) assessments impact public opinion in a straightforward manner, yet, research on communication cautions against these sanguine assumptions. We test the impact of EO statements on public opinion in two very different contexts using survey experiments conducted among 3,361 Jordanians and Tunisians. Our results demonstrate the need for democracy promoters to consider nega…
Conceptualizing and measuring patriarchy: The importance of feminist theory
‘Patriarchy’ is increasingly part of the political science lexicon, particularly in work on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Yet I argue that political scientists often under-conceptualize patriarchy, failing to draw on existing feminist theory. This hinders explanation of the mechanisms sustaining gender inequality. By engaging with Kandiyoti’s ‘patriarchal bargain,’ which sees gender relations as the outcome of negotiation, and Sadiqi’s…
Two Classes of “Marriage”: Race and Sexual Slavery in Al-Shabaab-Controlled Somalia
Some Somali majority clan girls and women receive economic and security benefits from marriage to Al-Shabaab fighters. Yet, the literature treats women’s experiences monolithically and misses the role that race plays in determining the circumstances of such unions. The authors argue that one should not refer to the unions of Somali Bantu girls and women with Al-Shabaab fighters as a “marriage” but rather as sexual and domestic slavery – a form of…
Civil society, insecurity and Arab support for normalization with Israel: Contextualizing the Abraham Accords
Extant literature suggests that public support for peace accords plays a role in their durability. Yet while the Abraham Accords represent significant rapprochement between governments, the region is marked by the conditions of violence and insecurity that harm social trust and reduce the likelihood of conciliatory views among citizens. Using Arab Barometer data from twelve countries (2012–2014), I explore the factors that lead Arab citizens to b…
Do women face a different standard? The interplay of gender and corruption in the 2014 presidential elections in Malawi
Poor people’s beliefs and the dynamics of clientelism
Why do some poor people engage in clientelism whereas others do not? Why does clientelism sometimes take traditional forms and sometimes more instrumental forms? We propose a formal model of clientelism that addresses these questions focusing primarily on the citizen’s perspective. Citizens choose between supporting broad-based redistribution or engaging in clientelism. Introducing insights from social psychology, we study the interactions betwee…
Female Electability in the Arab World: The Advantages of Intersectionality
Many studies of women's electability in the developing world focus on single traits such as gender, ethnicity, or religion. Employing an original survey experiment in Jordan, we examine the impacts of multiple, intersecting candidate identities on voter preferences. We show empirically that existing theories of electoral behavior alone cannot account for women's electability. An intersectional lens that considers how power structures shape electa…
Explaining Backlash: Social Hierarchy and Men’s Rejection of Women’s Rights Reforms
Governments promote gender-sensitive policies, yet little is known about why reform campaigns evoke backlash. Drawing on social position theory, we test whether marginalized (women’s organizations) or intrusive (Western donors) messengers cause resistance across public rights (quotas) and private rights (land reform). Using a framing experiment implemented among 1,704 Malawians, we find that females’ attitudes are unaffected by campaigns, while b…
Do Islamist parties help or hinder women? Party institutionalization, piety and responsiveness to female citizens
Does electing Islamist parties help or hurt women? Due to Ennahda winning a plurality in the 2011 elections and women from all parties winning 31% of seats, Tunisia offers an opportunity to test the impact of legislator gender and Islamist orientation on women's representation. Using original 2012 surveys of 40 Tunisian parliamentarians (MPs) and 1200 citizens, we find that electing female and Islamists MPs improves women's symbolic and service r…
What Explains Voter Preferences in Transitional Tunisia? The Role of Particularistic Benefits
What explains electoral support for Islamist parties? Existing literature assesses the role of programmatic appeals, in the form of religious ideology and economic programs, but lacks the data needed to test the role of particularistic benefits in shaping voter choice. Drawing on an original survey of 1,202 Tunisians conducted in 2012, I test the role of programmatic and particularistic benefits in explaining voter choice in Tunisia's 2011 Consti…
The US View of the Transforming Strategic Context in the Mena
Do Islamist Parties Reach More Women? Party Institutionalization and Constituency Service in Algeria
Why do Islamist parties succeed electorally? Some scholars posit that Islamists' success stems from their ability to institutionalize constituent relations and serve marginalized citizens. I test this hypothesis using an original survey of 782 Algerian citizens focusing on constituency service interactions with legislators. I argue and show empirically that Islamist parties' more institutionalized constituency service practices allow them to reac…
Political science (26 works) · Law (21 works) · Law (20 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Politics (18 works) · Economics (13 works) · Gender Politics and Representation (12 works) · Political economy (10 works) · Democracy (8 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (8 works)