Women Too: Explaining Gender Ideologies of Ethnopolitical Organizations

What explains the gender ideologies of ethnopolitical organizations? Recently, scholarship has cast attention to the determinants of violent organizations’ female recruitment patterns. Others have examined the effects of gender ideology on organizational tactics. There is a paucity of work on the determinants of gender ideologies. The article redresses this lacuna by exploring how organizational characteristics influence the gender platforms of ethnopolitical organizations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Focusing on 102 ethnic and ethnoreligious MENA for 25 years from 1980 to 2004, the study finds that broader gender ideologies shape gender platforms. In addition, organizations that provide social services are significantly more likely to advocate gender inclusivity. The context in which organizations operate also has significant effects in that state repression steers organizations to adopt gender inclusivity. The study thus contributes to an emerging literature on gender, shifting focus from the state to the organizational context.

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