Who Supports Gender Quotas in Autocracies?

media release: 3331 Sterling Hall (in the CRGW)

What are the drivers of citizens’ support for electoral gender quotas in transition- ing and authoritarian states? Despite extensive research examining public support for women in politics in democracies, we know little about how the public perceives them in less democratic settings. The talk will focus on the determinants of citizens’ attitudes toward gender quotas in authoritarian Morocco and transitioning Tunisia – two Arab countries hailed for their progressive gender policies.

Marwa Shalaby is an assistant professor in the departments of Gender and Women’s Studies and Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to joining the University of Wisconsin, Shalaby was the Fellow for the Middle East, Director of the Women’s Rights in the Middle East Program at Rice University, and a Visiting Scholar at the Governance and Local Development Institute (GLD), the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Shalaby’s research areas are gender politics, authoritarianism, and legislative politics. Her work focuses primarily on the intersection of legislative politics, authoritarianism, and women in politics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. She currently serves on the editorial boards of Politics and Gender and the Review of Economics and Political Science. Shalaby is also a steering committee member of the GLD Institute. Shalaby’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Politics and Gender, Comparative Politics, PS: Political Science & Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Parliamentary Affairs, and the Middle East Journal, among others.