Armed Conflict, International Linkages, and Women's Parliamentary Representation in Developing Nations

In this article, Melanie Hughes explains that existing measures of female parliamentary representation across developing countries fails to account for differences across a sample of 63 low-income countries. She then investigates whether two new measures—international linkages and international armed conflict—could better predict this variation of female parliamentary representation across developing countries. Her investigation reveals the following: while international linkages do not strongly affect female parliamentary representation, there is strong qualitative and quantitative evidence that international armed conflict may improve women’s legislative outcomes.