Enhancing Evaluations of Female Politicians’ Suitability for the Foreign Affairs Portfolio

Abstract

In this paper I show that two popularly cited sources of bias against female politicians contending for high-status foreign policy roles in government, the gendered costs of filling “hard” policy domains such as foreign affairs, and quota penalties, are not immutable. First, in a candidate-choice experiment fielded on real-world Pakistani legislators, I show that biases against female politicians' candidacy to foreign policy legislative committees can be significantly offset by emphasizing candidate qualification. Second, in an experiment on Pakistani social media users, increasingly considered a captive base for the misogynist takedowns of female politicians, I show how hawkishness by female Foreign Ministers helps attenuate some of the credibility challenges associated with being on a reserved seat. These findings shed light on the kinds of information that may facilitate the elevation and success of female politicians vying for foreign policy roles.