What’s War Got to Do with It? Post-conflict Effects on Gender Equality in South and Southeast Asia, 1975–2006

Abstract

Does gender equality get better or worse following civil conflict? Given the plethora of research linking gender equality to less bellicosity, we aim to look at the relationship between post-conflict situations and gender equality. Specifically, we argue that circumstances surrounding how a conflict ends can better explain gender equality levels in a country in the post-conflict set up. We discuss whether outright victory for rebel groups will have the best impact for women due to the regime change and democratic process that typically follows. We conduct a Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 13 cases of intrastate conflicts in South and Southeast Asia for the years 1975–2006 along with an in-depth case study of Nepal. We find that rebel victory does have a positive impact on women in post-conflict situations when religious freedom was high, the conflict was centre seeking and wanted to establish a democratic regime.