Doctoral Dissertation Research: Disconnected and Uninformed: Dissecting and Dismantling India's Political Gender Gap

博士论文研究：脱节和无知：剖析和消除印度的政治性别差距

• 批准号: 1560668
• 负责人: Torben Iversen
• 金额: $ 1.87万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-06-15 至 2017-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1560668&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Disconnected; Uninformed

General SummaryDespite the growing focus on female empowerment in the developing world, many women remain largely excluded from the political process and a substantial gender gap in political participation persists today. Across the globe, women accounted for only 17% of members of parliament in 2009, up from 10% in 1995. Evidence suggests that when women are actively engaged in politics, public goods are allocated differently and development outcomes improve. This project seeks to understand better why women in developing countries are disengaged from politics and to identify the mechanisms through which the prevailing political gender gap is reduced. Contrary to seminal work in the U.S., the PI argues that low levels of women's political participation are not due to women's lack of economic resources. Instead this project evaluates two alternative explanations for women's lack of political participation: limited access to social networks outside of the household and a lack of exposure to the political system. To empirically fill this gap in our knowledge and test these hypotheses, the PI collects and uses both survey and experimental data from India, in coordination with the NGO Pradan, to identify the determinants of political engagement for rural women and evaluate whether access to social networks and political information increase women's political participation.Technical SummaryThis project evaluates two mechanisms aimed at increasing women's political participation. In doing so, the proposed research will address two principal questions: 1) Can providing political information and exposure through gender and politics trainings increase women's political participation? and 2) Can this political training activate social networks to further increase women's political participation and combat prevailing social norms limiting women's role in politics? These questions will be answered through a series of experiments: a natural experiment using a geographic regression discontinuity (GRD) design to identify the impact of social networks and a randomized control trial (RCT) to identify the effect of political exposure and its interactive effect with social networks. Random assignment of networks will be approximated using a GRD design, which leverages an arbitrary boundary to identify villages in which Pradan has operated and mobilized women into small groups. This allows for an estimation of the average impact of networks on women's political participation. For the RCT, a randomized gender and politics training intervention with the NGO Pradan, will provide women with information about the political system and their rights and entitlements within this system and will be directly exposed to existing political institutions, with the aim of reducing informational barriers to political participation. By providing this training on both sides of the GRD boundary, the RCT further tests the necessity of social networks for women's political participation and the ability for the gender and politics training to activate existing social networks and further generate political engagement.

总结一般摘要，尽管人们越来越关注发展中国家的女性赋权，但许多妇女仍然在很大程度上被排除在政治进程之外，而今天的政治参与方面存在很大的性别差距。在全球范围内，妇女在2009年仅占议会议员的17％，高于1995年的10％。证据表明，当妇女积极从事政治参与政治时，公共物品的分配方式有所不同，发展结果就会有所改善。 该项目旨在更好地理解为什么发展中国家的妇女与政治脱节，并确定降低了普遍的政治性别差距的机制。与美国的开创性工作相反，PI认为，低水平的妇女政治参与并不是由于妇女缺乏经济资源。取而代之的是，该项目评估了妇女缺乏政治参与的两个替代解释：在家庭之外获得社交网络的机会有限，并且缺乏对政治体系的接触。为了在我们的知识中填补这一空白并检验这些假设，PI收集并使用来自印度的调查和实验数据与非政府组织Pradan进行协调，以确定农村妇女的政治参与的决定因素，并评估获得社交网络和政治信息的访问和政治信息的政治参与是否增加了妇女的政治参与。在这样做的过程中，拟议的研究将解决两个主要问题：1）可以通过性别和政治培训提供政治信息和曝光率增加妇女的政治参与吗？ 2）这种政治培训是否可以激活社交网络，以进一步增加妇女的政治参与并打击普遍的社会规范，从而限制妇女在政治中的作用？这些问题将通过一系列实验来回答：使用地理回归不连续性（GRD）设计的自然实验，以确定社交网络和随机控制试验（RCT）的影响，以确定政治暴露及其与社交网络的互动效果的影响。将使用GRD设计来近似网络的随机分配，该设计利用任意边界来识别Pradan已将其操作并动员妇女分为小组的村庄。这允许估计网络对妇女政治参与的平均影响。对于RCT而言，与非政府组织Pradan进行的随机性别和政治培训干预将为妇女提供有关该系统内政治制度及其权利和权利的信息，并将直接接触现有的政治机构，以减少政治参与的信息障碍。通过在GRD边界的两面提供这种培训，RCT进一步测试了社交网络的政治参与的必要性以及性别和政治培训激活现有社交网络并进一步产生政治参与的能力。