Carolyn Barnett

Interests

Research

Gender and politics, public opinion and social change, politics of the Middle East and North Africa, women's political and economic participation and representation, authoritarian politics, survey methodology, qualitative methodology

Teaching

Middle East politics, the politics of development, gender and politics, human rights, democracy and authoritarianism

Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Journals/Publications

• Barnett, C. L. (2023). Women’s Rights and Misperceived Gender Norms Under Authoritarianism. Comparative Political Studies, 1-32. doi:10.1177/00104140231193010
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  Evidence from democracies shows that making laws more egalitarian can increase individuals’ perceptions that others hold egalitarian views. How do citizens in authoritarian regimes that promote women’s rights perceive public opinion on gender issues? While regime actions and narratives could increase perceptions that egalitarian attitudes are widespread, the disconnect between policy and public preferences could inhibit the expressive power of law to alter perceived norms. Drawing on original surveys and qualitative evidence from Morocco, an important case of de jure advances in women’s rights, I find that Moroccans tend to overestimate others’ embrace of patriarchal attitudes on gender issues. The tendency to misperceive conservatism spans demographic categories and is especially pronounced among men. I argue that citizens’ awareness that policy processes are divorced from electoral accountability and the raised salience of conservative opposition during reform processes can reinforce perceived conservatism, even as women’s rights advance.
• Barnett, C. L., & Shalaby, M. (2023). All Politics is Local: Studying Women's Representation in Local Politics Under Authoritarian Regimes. Politics & Gender, 1-6. doi:10.1017/S1743923X22000502
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  The past decade has witnessed a significant increase in women’s presence in local politics. According to the newly published United Nations (UN) Women in Local Government data set, women constitute 36% of local deliberative bodies worldwide compared to merely 25% in national parliaments.1 Much of this increase is the result of gender quotas: the Gender Quotas Database (International IDEA 2022) shows that as of 2021, 75 countries had some form of gender quota on the local level, 24 of which were authoritarian regimes. Yet, extant work on gender politics in authoritarian regimes tends to focus on the national level, given the highly centralized decision-making processes in such contexts. We contend that the study of women’s engagement and representation in local politics can help scholars better understand not only gender and politics, but also authoritarian politics more generally.
• Barnett, C., FitzGerald, M., Krumbholz, K., & Lamba, M. (2022). Gender Research in Political Science Journals: A Dataset. PS: Political Science & Politics, 55(3), 511--518.
• Barnett, C. L., Jamal, A., & Monroe, S. L. (2021). Women's Employment and Empowerment: Experimental Evidence from Jordan. American Journal of Political Science, 65(4), 954--970.
• Barnett, C. L. (2009). The Socialization of Female Islamists: Paternal and Educational Influence. Hawwa: Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World, 7(1), 57--87.