ABSTRACT
Women are central to the governance of many armed groups, yet there is limited scholarship probing how women insurgent governors shape rebel rule. I theorise that women rebel governors increase rebel delivery of care services during civil war because pursuing goals that conform to gendered expectations aids the consolidation of their social standing and political power. I use cross-national, quantitative analysis to show that women’s leadership in armed groups is strongly correlated with rebel-provided care services. Drawing on in-depth interviews and other qualitative evidence about the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) rebellion, I find support for my proposed mechanisms.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. This is not true in all armed groups. In some armed groups, women are commonly constrained to more ‘feminine’ positions and prevented from demonstrating their ‘masculinity’ (see, for example, Jocelyn Viterna (Citation2013) on women in the FMLN).
2. See Meredith Loken (Citation2022) for a gendered typology of non-combat labour.
3. For work on the auxiliary work women perform for armed organisations, see, for example, the work of Carina Uchida.
4. Women’s agency in mobilising for armed groups and securing governing positions is important. However, armed group openness to women members is critical to determining whether women can mobilise for armed groups (Thomas and Wood Citation2018).
5. The empirical record on the relationship between women leaders and foreign policy is mixed, with numerous scholars finding women do prioritise social spending over military spending (Caroll Citation2001, Bolzendahl and Brooks Citation2007, Kittilson Citation2008, Swiss et al. Citation2012, Shair-Rosenfield and Wood Citation2017, Clayton and Zetterberg Citation2018) and still others finding women do not behave significantly differently from their male counterparts (Horowitz et al. Citation2015, Imamverdiyeva and Shea Citation2022).
6. The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Harvard Dataverse at http://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/O35OX4, at https://www.alexishenshaw.com/data, at https://www.prio.org/journals/jpr/replicationdata, at https://www.waarproject.com/dataset, and in the supplementary materials of Cunningham (Citation2009).
7. See the work of Apekshya Prasai, for example.
8. Rolpa was a stronghold of the rebellion and one of the districts where the insurgency began. The CPN-M wielded moderate influence over Bardiya and Dhading during the war and very little influence in Kathmandu.
9. This goal was not always possible, but I achieved it for six of the nine villages I visited. I never interviewed only one person from a given village.
10. Interview with author in Kathmandu (30 Mar 2022).
11. Referring to quotas for women’s participation in People’s Governments and Party Committees.
12. Interview with author in Kathmandu (28 Mar 2022).
13. Referring to quotas for women’s participation.
14. Interview with author in Kathmandu (17 Mar 2022).
15. Ibid.
16. Name has been changed.
17. Remote interview with author (12 Jan 2022).
18. Respondents often used slightly different language to refer to similar tasks, e.g., ‘awareness raising’ and ‘education’ or described tasks that were closely related like ‘building roads’ and ’constructing a gate’. Upon my first read of the interview data, I created groups of governing categories.
19. Name has been changed.
20. Interview with author (18 Apr 2022).
21. Interview with author (18 Apr 2022).
22. Interview with author (6 Apr 2022).
23. Interview with author (7 Apr 2022).
24. Interview with author (20 Apr 2022).
25. When respondents mentioned community resistance as a challenge they faced, I asked this question as a follow-up: ‘What strategies, if any, did you use to overcome that resistance?’ When a respondent did not mention community resistance as a challenge, I asked: ‘How did you work to build the community’s trust in you as a leader?’
26. Interview with author (6 Apr 2022).
27. Interview with author, (19 Apr 2022).
28. Interview with author, (19 Apr 2022).
29. Interview with author (19 Apr 2022).
30. Interview with author (20 Apr 2022).
31. Interview with author (8 Apr 2022).
32. Interview with author in Kathmandu (20 May 2022).
33. Interview with author in Kathmandu (11 Mar 2022).
34. Interview with author in Kathmandu (27 Mar 2022).
35. Interview with author in Kathmandu (27 Mar 2022).
36. ‘Associations’ refers to the civilian groups that Maoists formed in order to organise community labour and contributions.
37. Interview with author in Kathmandu (23 Mar 2022).
38. Interview with author in Kathmandu (17 Mar 2022).
39. To estimate the size of the jana sarkar in each village and the number of women who held positions on it, I asked each respondent in a given village: ’Around how many people were on the People’s Government of this village?’ and ’How many of those members were women?’ I took the average of the answers I received. Answers to both questions across respondents differed at most by two, giving me confidence in people’s recollections.
40. Interview with Author in Kathmandu (30 Mar 2022).
Additional information
Funding
The work was supported by the Duke University [Alona Evans Research Grant]; Duke University Center for International and Global Studies.
Notes on contributors
Emily Myers
Emily Myers is a Ph.D. Candidate at Duke University and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Her research focuses on gender, conflict and political participation.
Leave a Reply