Can conservatism make women more vulnerable to violence?

Araújo, V. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5392-5646 and Gatto, M. A.C. (2022) Can conservatism make women more vulnerable to violence? Comparative Political Studies, 55 (1). pp. 122-153. ISSN 1552-3829 doi: 10.1177/00104140211024313

Abstract/Summary

Violence against women (VAW) affects at least 35% of women worldwide. The need to combat VAW is seemingly noncontroversial: As existing work shows, ideology does not explain governments’ propensity to adopt anti-VAW legislation. Yet, effectively implementing anti-VAW legislation requires complex policy frameworks at odds with conservative values. Voters’ preferences can meaningfully influence policy outputs, so can electoral conservatism make women more vulnerable to violence? Employing data from 5570 Brazilian municipalities, we find that conservatism in the electorate is associated with the adoption of fewer anti-VAW policies. With data from a nationally representative survey of Brazilian respondents (N= 2086), we then show that conservative voters are less likely to prioritize the need for tackling VAW. That is, the adoption of fewer anti-VAW policies in conservative municipalities reflects conservative voters’ policy preferences. Critically, our results suggest that in contexts where the electorate holds conservative preferences, policy responsiveness may incur costs to women’s lives.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/114813
Identification Number/DOI	10.1177/00104140211024313
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	No Reading authors. Back catalogue items Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Politics, Economics and International Relations > Politics and International Relations
Publisher	Sage
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