Competing Frames and Policymakers' Preferences for LGBT+ Protection

• In Event: The Political Dynamics of Progress and Backlash on Women’s and LGBT+ Rights

Abstract

When are politicians willing to extend formal social protections to LGBT+ minorities? While the protection of civil liberties and rights for LGBT+ communities continues to feature prominently in political debates around the world, there is limited understanding of the factors that shape the views of politicians who enact the laws that govern these protections. This study examines the effectiveness of two competing frames---that cast the protection of LGBT+ individuals either as a public health crisis or a human rights crisis---that advocacy organizations frequently employ to persuade policymakers to liberalize their position on LGBT+ minority protection. Drawing on a survey and experiment conducted among more than 600 political candidates who contested for national and local office in Zambia, we show that politicians are significantly more likely to respond to the human rights frame than the public health frame. These effects are primarily driven by male candidates and exist only when the crisis is explicitly framed in terms of its impact on the general public rather than the LGBT+ communities themselves. An analysis of open-ended responses provides suggestive evidence regarding the mechanism underlying these effects; the human rights frame appears to have reduced politicians' tendency to dehumanize members of the LGBT+ community.

Authors

• Leonardo R. Arriola, University of California, Berkeley

• Lise Rakner, University of Bergen

• Donghyun Danny Choi, Brown University

• Justine Davis, University of Michigan

• Melanie Lauren Phillips, University of California, Berkeley