Sponsor
We thank all the funders of the Malawi Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI) survey. This project was made possible with the financial support of the Hicham Alaoui Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the World Bank, and Yale University, which funded the development of the LGPI, and the Swedish Research Council (grant number 439201438) and the Research Council of Norway (grant number 233803), which funded implementation in Malawi.
Published In
Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-8-2022
Subjects
Politics and government, Women -- Political activity
Abstract
Governments promote gender-sensitive policies, yet little is known about why reform campaigns evoke backlash. Drawing on social position theory, we test whether marginalized (women’s organizations) or intrusive (Western donors) messengers cause resistance across public rights (quotas) and private rights (land reform). Using a framing experiment implemented among 1,704 Malawians, we find that females’ attitudes are unaffected by campaigns, while backlash occurs among patrilineal and matrilineal males. Backlash among men is more common for sensitive private rights (land reform) than public rights (quotas) and Western donors than women’s organizations, suggesting complex effects generally more consistent with the intrusiveness hypothesis.
Rights
#The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com
Locate the Document
DOI
10.1093/sp/jxac037
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/38801
Citation Details
Benstead, L. J., Muriaas, R., & Wang, V. (2022). Explaining Backlash: Social Hierarchy and Men’s Rejection of Women’s Rights Reforms. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society.
Description
Includes: Attitudes toward Public and Private Rights among Malawians (LGPI)