How Recognizing Diversity Increases Social Equality

As we have presented Diversity, Violence, and Recognition, with an optimistic take on the promise of recognizing ethnic groups on peace and prosperity, audiences have asked about the prospects for gender-based recognition -- a topic we do not cover in our study. But, we knew just where to turn. Rachel Brulé, Assistant Professor of Global Development Policy at Boston University, recently published an exciting new book, at the top of our reading lists, addressing related questions: Women, Power, and Property: The Paradox of Gender Equality Laws in India. She graciously agreed to share her thoughts. Thank you, and welcome to our blog, Rachel!

How Recognizing Diversity Increases Social Equality

Guest post by Rachel Brulé

How do we assess the prospects for social equality, especially on gender and race? In the US, on January 20, 2021, the first woman of color to become Vice President was sworn in by the first woman of color to gain a Supreme Court seat. Yet this occured in the immediate wake of an attempted coup by supporters of white supremacism and militarized masculinity. As the  coronavirus increases grievances and spurs extremist movements globally, can policy move us closer to the substantive equality required for democratic states and societies to flourish?

The Promise of Recognition

Elisabeth King and Cyrus Samii’s book Diversity, Violence, and Recognition (Oxford University Press, 2020) provides an answer. State decisions to formally recognize – as opposed to ignore – divisive identities are at the heart of their investigation. They study one form of social identity in a particularly difficult context: ethnic identity following conflicts fought along ethnic lines, which magnify the political salience of ethnic identity.

To study the impact of formal, legal recognition, King and Samii map 86 “constitutional moments” (when relevant legislation can be adopted) across 57 conflict-affected countries between 1990-2012. While recognition can occur in a variety of ways, the most concrete form is via quotas mandating the allocation of positions by ethnic identity. States which mandate ethnic recognition as a core principle of distributive justice – rather than limiting or criminalizing distribution of power by ethnic identity – are associated with more inclusive politics, greater peace, and economic vitality. This is a “paradox of recognition”: by mandating inclusion on ethnic lines, states open avenues for meaningful inter-ethnic cooperation that subsequently diminish the salience of ethnic identity.

Does recognition have an equally powerful impact in other domains? My book, Women, Power, and Property: The Paradox of Gender Equality Laws in India (Cambridge University Press, 2020) provides evidence it does. In it, I leverage the as-if random rollout of gender quotas in India, the world’s largest democracy. I find that mandating female political representation at the helm of local government has transformative effects on the state’s reach and capacity. Analyzing data on over 100,000 individuals across 17 major Indian states, I show female leaders lift women’s confidence that the state will advance their fundamental rights. What’s more, their presence also makes the state more effective at protecting those rights.

 This is clearest in rights to one of the oldest forms of wealth, autonomy, and political voice: property. Today, globally, women own at least 50% less wealth than men, a gap exacerbated by COVID-19. Here, we see another paradox of recognition: acknowledging gender inequality in politics can reduce the salience of gender for property distribution.

Consider this: In India, access to a female rather than a male head of local government makes a woman 6 percentage points more likely to inherit land. In absolute numbers, this increase would mean 23.6 million more women in India inheriting land if all women could access female elected leaders. This is a larger number than the combined population of Burundi and Rwanda, or of either the US state of Florida or New York.

Recognition’s Peril

Yet recognition does not benefit all populations equally. For ethnic recognition, King and Samii show that ethnic power configurations matter. Recognition is most likely to succeed where leaders represent an ethnic plurality, as was the case in post-conflict Burundi. Here, political incentives encouraged leaders to adopt and implement ethnic recognition. Quotas, for example, limit opposition ethnic group members’ mistrust (by guaranteeing seats for ethnic minorities) and facilitate mobilization of leaders’ co-ethnics (to realize the political advantage that quotas ensure for ethnic plurality groups). Yet where leaders represent minority ethnic groups, political incentives discourage full recognition. This creates partial solutions prone to collapse, as in Ethiopia.

In India, the impact of gender recognition also depends on the power configuration. But in this case, it is intra-family negotiating power that matters. I show quotas benefit women who are able to compensate families for giving them inheritance, namely those who are still unmarried. These women can strike integrative bargains that benefit everyone, by trading monetary dowry (the traditional “share” of inheritance, given to in-laws) for property inheritance in their own name. Women who are likely unmarried (younger than age twenty) at the time of inheritance reform are 9 percentage points more likely to inherit land in the presence of female politicians, compared to women who lack rights and female representation. Women without such bargaining power—those who are already married—instead experience backlash: their brothers are more willing to violently coerce them to renounce rights and their parents are more likely to sever ties, leading to lower inheritance and narrower, more fragile social networks. Backlash extends across generations, as brothers renounce care of elder parents, which they traditionally provided in exchange for exclusive inheritance rights. Fearing exactly this abandonment in old age, married women eligible for gender-equal inheritance more frequently abort their own daughters.

Reassessing Recognition

These findings have important policy implications. While the threat of backlash to legal recognition of diversity is real, recognition can catalyze social transformation that is crucial for resilience in times of crisis.

 Recognition’s impact depends on a country’s institutional infrastructure. Does it enable diverse groups to engage the broader ecosystem of political power on equal terms? Success requires reforms that span institutions – be they governance sectors (judicial, executive, legislative, security, and education) alongside the civil service (King and Samii), or informal (social) and formal (political and economic) institutions (Brulé). If so, cooperation may grow in quantum and impact over time. Absent such an infrastructure, recognition can be disastrous – narrowing group voice and leading to violent backlash.

 Comprehensive reforms of political institutions are costly but suggests a path to improve collective welfare, moving us closer to stronger, more egalitarian democratic states.