Electing Women to New Arab Assemblies: The Roles of Gender Ideology, Islam, and Tribalism in Oman

Abstract

As Arab monarchies increasingly adopt and empower consultative assemblies, women’s representation varies markedly from country to country. What leads citizens in these new electoral systems to vote for women? This study investigates the determinants of voting for female candidates using the first electoral survey ever conducted in Oman, prior to the October 2015 elections for Majlis al Shura. It considers cross-nationally recognized factors — gender ideology and religion — and tribalism, a factor heretofore largely unexplored. Confirming prior cross-national work, we find that citizens holding traditional gender ideology are much less supportive of women’s legislative representation. Developing a simultaneous equations model, we show that gender traditionalism is in turn strongly associated with religiosity, and more weakly with tribal cultural engagement. Gendered networks matter for men. Unlike in Western countries, education is unassociated with gender attitudes, and there is no generational shift towards equality; younger men are less supportive of women’s representation.