Date of Award

Spring 6-12-2026

Document Type

Thesis (Undergraduate)

Department

Quantitative Social Science

First Advisor

Yusaku Horiuchi

Second Advisor

Michael C. Herron

Abstract

Do gender quotas in autocracies increase international public support for providing foreign aid to those regimes, and are such rewards conditioned by identity? A recent study by Bush et al. (2024) finds that quotas increase public support for foreign aid to autocracies among the U.S. public. I replicate their study beyond the U.S. to test the generalizability of their findings. I also extend their study by examining how religious and racial identities condition the reputational benefits associated with quotas, as recent studies show that identity shapes foreign aid preferences and support for democracy. I fielded a harmonized conjoint experiment in three major donor publics with varying domestic gender equality contexts and experiences with quotas: the United States, Sweden, and Japan. I find that quotas increase support for aid across all three countries, but that this quota “bonus” is strongly conditioned by religion, though not by race. For instance, quotas adopted by Muslim-majority countries receive systematically less credit. The results suggest that the reputational returns to gender quotas in autocracies are discernible but not uniform: the rewards depend on who adopts them.

Comments

Awarded High Honors by the Program in Quantitative Social Science

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