Gendered Justice, Institutional Trust, and Voting Participation after Violence

• In Event: Gender Dynamics and Rights Issues

Abstract

What are the effects of transitional justice processes on individual's attitudes toward government and voting participation? Extant literature on the legacies of violence during conflict shows that exposure to wartime violence influences both individual and community preferences and attitudes. However, little is known about how government responsiveness affects an individual's trust in government and political participation after violent conflict. We argue that gender-inclusive truth commissions signal institutional responsiveness to the needs and demands of women and women's groups mobilized domestically by mass perpetrations of human rights abuses. We use a novel geolocated dataset of truth commission hearings and Afrobarometer's survey data in Kenya, which has experienced three rounds of truth commissions since the early 2000s. Using a difference-in-differences design, we provide evidence suggesting that proximity to public hearings led to more trust in the president and produced gendered impacts on trust in parliament and participation in national elections.

Authors

• DeAnne Roark, Cornell University

• Sky Kunkel, Cornell University