Abstract

Do improved women’s descriptive representation in legislative branches and women’s participation in civil society decrease the intensity of civil conflicts? Do the impacts of women’s presence in legislative branches on the conflict intensity are magnified by women’s participation in civil society, and vice versa? Previous studies of gender and conflicts have largely focused on gender influence on the onset or duration of intrastate conflicts. Although some studies have discussed the association between the intensity of civil conflicts and women’s representation in politics, they have largely neglected the role of civil society on the intensity of civil wars. In this paper, we aim to expand the constructivist argument that equal gender roles in politics and civil society can bring about less intensive internal armed conflicts. We demonstrate that the increases in women’s descriptive representation in parliaments and women’s participation in civil society tend to decrease the predicted civil conflict intensity. For the empirical analysis, we employ time-series cross-national data on 151 countries from 1960 to 2016, and use the Major Episodes of Political Violence (MEPV) dataset to measure the intensity of civil conflicts. Our study finds that the negative associations between the two independent variables and the civil conflict intensity are not only statistically significant but also substantially meaningful. Also, we unveil that the deterrent effect of women’s descriptive representation is magnified by women’s participation in civil society. At the same time, the influence of women’s civil society participation on the conflict intensity is also amplified by women’s descriptive representation. Those findings remain consistent in alternative model specifications with additional women-related control variables such as the presence of legislative gender quotas and access to justice for women.