International socialization, international politics, and the spread of state bureaucracies for women’s advancement

Abstract

Since 1975, almost every country in the world has formed a bureaucracy on gender equality. By 2018, more than 160 states had established offices for women’s advancement either at low (office within a ministry) or high (e.g., ministry) levels of government. Such institutional proliferation is puzzling because many of these offices are in states where women have low social, economic, and political status. Using cross-national data on developing states from 1971 to 2012, we examine major theoretical explanations of institutional diffusion and international incentives. Our results confirm existing research on socialization and norm diffusion. Our analysis demonstrates that international influences work in conjunction with domestic supportive structures to provide the most powerful explanation of when developing states adopt women’s bureaucracies for the advancement of women. Our findings have important implications for understanding international pressures and the role of donor intent in the process of global advancement of women’s rights.