The impact of ruling populist parties on women's rights and women's social and political participation: An empirical analysis

Far from being a new concept in political science, populism is undoubtedly one of the most important political phenomena of the 21st century. Today, in many countries, populist actors play important roles in power or opposition. The global rise of populism has led to an increasing interest in the concept. The main purpose of this study is to investigate how populist political governments affect women's rights globally. The theoretical background and main problematic of the study are the discussions on the relationship between populism and women's rights and gender. Most of these discussions point to the existence of a direct or indirect relationship between populism and women's rights and gender. This study claims that populist parties in power globally cause a decline in women's rights and empirically tests this argument on a global scale. The research questions of the study are as follows: "Is there any relationship between populist parties in power globally and women's rights and gender? If there is a relationship, what is the direction and extent of this relationship? What is the impact of populist parties in power globally on women's fundamental rights, women's political rights, and women's participation in civil society?" This study examines the relationship between populist governments and women's rights on a global scale. In this context, the study covers a wide time period of 35 years (1980-2014) and 26 countries. Kenny populism data set was used to determine the populist parties in power, which is the main independent variable of the study. The Women's Political Empowerment Index (WPEI) developed by V-Dem was used for the dependent variable of the study. The study covers the period between 1980-2014. Four models were created to test the main argument and research questions of the study. The results of the cross-sectional time series analysis used in the study show that the presence of populist parties in power globally has a statistically significant and negative effect on women's empowerment. This result supports the main argument of the study. Model 2, Model 3 and Model 4 answer the other research questions of the study. The findings obtained from these models reveal that populist governments have a negative and statistically significant effect on women's political rights, fundamental rights and participation in civil society globally. Keywords: Populism, Women's Right, Gender, Populist Goverments.