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Democracy, Oil, or Religion? Expanding Women's Rights in the Muslim World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2013

Neilan S. Chaturvedi  and
Orlando Montoya
Neilan S. Chaturvedi*
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
Orlando Montoya*
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Neilan S. Chaturvedi, University of California, Irvine. E-mail: nchaturv@uci.edu
Orlando Montoya, University of California, Irvine. E-mail: montoyao@uci.edu
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Abstract

Of the 45 Muslim majority countries in the world, 42 have signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. While this does indeed signal a motive to improve women's rights, there is wide disparity in terms of which countries expand rights and which do not. Social science literature suggests that in addition to economic factors like wealth and oil resources, or political factors like the quality of democracy in the country, Islamic culture may be at odds with the Western conception of women's rights. We posit that Muslim countries are unique in this regard due to religious pressures that often conflict with conventional measures of human rights. Using data from the Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights Dataset and the Religion and State Project, we find that Muslim countries that restrict the influence of fundamentalist religion in the government and population improve women's economic and social rights.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 596 - 617
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2013 

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