Party institutionalization, authoritarian regime types and women’s political equality

ABSTRACT This article examines the association between women’s political inclusion and incumbent party strength in authoritarian regimes. It argues that the degree of party institutionalisation is the main determinant of women’s political inclusion under authoritarian rule. Institutionalised party rule determines the incentive and capacity for authoritarian parties to introduce more gender equal political processes and political outputs. Using different measurements of women’s political inclusion and data on 108 countries between 1946 and 2010, this article estimates within- and between-country effects of party institutionalisation, regime types and political inclusion of women. Although previous research stressed the link between authoritarian regime types and gender equality, this study finds regime types to explain little gender equality variation. In contrast, regimes with higher levels of party institutionalisation provide more gender equal politics and policies than regimes in which authoritarian parties are less institutionalised.