Public Opinion and the Backlash against Women’s Rights

• In Event: Gender and Democratic Backsliding in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

Abstract

Many authoritarian leaders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have historically promoted women’s rights through their nominally democratic institutions – such as elections, parties, and legislatures. These developments have been widely explained by the leaders’ incentives to garner international legitimacy, in line with Western promotion of democratic values and gender equality. However, more recently, there have been trends of democratic backsliding across the Americas, Europe, and beyond, posing threats to advancements in both democracy and women’s rights in the MENA. Using original data from a survey experiment in the United Arab Emirates and interviews from Jordan – countries often hailed for their recent women’s rights reforms, I show that Western democratic backsliding has decreased the public’s support for women’s rights regardless of their perceptions of the West. My findings have important implications of democratic backsliding in the West on women’s empowerment everywhere.

Authors

• Yuree Noh, University of Utah

• Karl C. Kaltenthaler, University of Akron