Backlash after Quotas: Moral Panic as a Soft Repression Tactic against Women Politicians

IF 3.1 2区社会学 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Politics & Gender Pub Date : 2024-02-12 DOI:10.1017/s1743923x24000011

Myriam Shiran

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Abstract

Advocates of gender quotas emphasize their transformative potential for women’s political participation. Yet evidence on the symbolic effects of quotas remains inconclusive, with some studies uncovering significant backlash after implementation. Although elite resistance to quotas has been posited as an explanation, the underlying mechanisms generating negative effects remain underexplored. This study proposes the utilization of “moral panic” by elites as a mechanism of resistance. By leveraging their media influence and employing conservative moral rhetoric, elites engineer moral panic, framing women’s political engagement as detrimental to social order and gender hierarchies. Such panic aims to incite public opposition and rationalize elite resistance to progressive changes. Notably, this tactic is more prevalent in countries with reserved-seat quotas, where elites possess limited control over electoral outcomes. Using an original dataset encompassing politician names and genders, I analyze over 150,000 news articles from 2000 to 2021 across 10 sub-Saharan African countries. The findings indicate that quota-induced gains in women’s representation are followed by significant increases in conservative ethical language in news coverage of women politicians, particularly in countries with reserved-seat quotas. These findings bear important implications for gender equality in politics and shed light on the dynamics of backlash after quota implementation.

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配额之后的反弹：道德恐慌是针对女政治家的软压制策略

性别配额的倡导者强调其对妇女参政的变革潜力。然而，有关配额的象征性效果的证据仍不确定，一些研究发现，配额实施后会出现严重的反弹。虽然精英阶层对配额制的抵制被认为是一种解释，但产生负面影响的潜在机制仍未得到充分探讨。本研究提出精英利用 "道德恐慌 "作为一种抵制机制。精英们利用其媒体影响力，运用保守的道德修辞，制造道德恐慌，将女性参与政治视为对社会秩序和性别等级制度的破坏。这种恐慌旨在煽动公众反对，并使精英对进步变革的抵制合理化。值得注意的是，这种策略在有保留席位配额的国家更为普遍，因为这些国家的精英对选举结果的控制有限。我利用包含政治家姓名和性别的原始数据集，分析了 10 个撒哈拉以南非洲国家从 2000 年到 2021 年的 15 万多篇新闻报道。研究结果表明，配额制导致女性代表人数增加，随之而来的是新闻报道中有关女性政治家的保守伦理语言显著增加，尤其是在实行保留席位配额制的国家。这些发现对政治中的性别平等具有重要影响，并揭示了配额实施后的反弹动态。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Politics & Gender Multiple-

CiteScore

6.00

自引率

5.90%

发文量

期刊介绍： Politics & Gender is an agenda-setting journal that publishes the highest quality scholarship on gender and politics and on women and politics. It aims to represent the full range of questions, issues, and approaches on gender and women across the major subfields of political science, including comparative politics, international relations, political theory, and U.S. politics. The Editor welcomes studies that address fundamental questions in politics and political science from the perspective of gender difference, as well as those that interrogate and challenge standard analytical categories and conventional methodologies.Members of the Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association receive the journal as a benefit of membership.