Women’s Political Participation in the Aftermath of Civil War

Featuring

Omar García-Ponce
Postdoctoral Fellow , Center for Global Development 

Host

Justin Sandefur
Research Fellow, Center for Global Development 

How does civil war violence affect female political participation? Qualitative evidence suggests that new opportunities for women as political actors may arise during wartime. But these claims have not been systematically evaluated. In this paper, Omar García-Ponce uses rich micro-level data to investigate the legacies of Peru’s Shining Path insurgency on women’s engagement in local politics. He finds that electoral gender quotas have been more successful in conflict-affected areas. However, the positive effects of violence on female political participation are reversed in specific areas that experienced sexual violence. He also provides evidence that these effects persist across generations.