Why autocratic leaders have adopted gender-equality reforms as a way to legitimize their rule

Authoritarian governments are often seen as attacking gender equality. Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have made well-publicized critiques of feminism. But, as Elin Bjarnegård and Pär Zetterberg show in this book, autocratic regimes are also actively adopting gender-equality reforms, surpassing some democracies in their embrace of such policies. Why have leaders of countries known for violating human rights become unlikely champions of gender equality? Bjarnegård and Zetterberg argue that gender serves as a versatile tool for autocrats seeking to legitimize their rule, deflecting attention from authoritarian practices by promoting policies that seem liberal and even democratic. They call this strategy of political misdirection autocratic genderwashing.

Drawing on data from authoritarian governments in countries including Rwanda, Nicaragua, Singapore, and Uganda, Bjarnegård and Zetterberg show how gender equality policies interact with noncoercive authoritarian strategies to claim legitimacy for autocratic rule. They describe autocratic genderwashing as political theater, shining a spotlight on specific reforms and accomplishments—domestic violence legislation, increased numbers of women in parliament, the creation of women’s policy agencies—while leaving authoritarian practices in the dark. Considering the question of whether autocratic genderwashing is successful as a legitimation strategy, Bjarnegård and Zetterberg find that it is more convincing to international audiences than to domestic ones.