Topic: Sacred Ballots, Silent Voices: Gendered Aggression in Electoral Processes

Presenter: Shanze Fatima Rauf

Session Details: The study explores how pre-election violence by religious groups impacts women’s electoral participation. Pre-election violence by religious groups, particularly those promoting gender-regressive norms, tends to demobilize women more than men. These groups often emphasize a non-political role for women in society and threaten repercussions for women who engage in political activities. Exposure to violence from such groups signals their control and presence in the area, which can significantly reduce women’s political involvement. To test this hypothesis, the study uses the case of Pakistan, a young democracy with a history of Islamist militant group activity. By analyzing gender-disaggregated turnout data from the 2018 election, provided by the Election Commission of Pakistan, along with geo-located polling station data, the findings show that violence perpetrated by religious groups decreases voter turnout for both men and women by 1.24 percent and 1.855 percent, respectively.

This session will be a seminar and participants are not required to read a paper beforehand.

For more information, reach out to pdri-devlab@sas.upenn.edu