Electing women to new Arab assemblies: The roles of gender ideology, Islam, and tribalism in Oman
| Author | Ahlam Khalfan Al Subhi,Amy Erica Smith |
| Published date | 01 January 2019 |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0192512117700949 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512117700949
International Political Science Review
2019, Vol. 40(1) 90 –107
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512117700949
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Electing women to new Arab
assemblies: The roles of gender
ideology, Islam, and tribalism in
Oman
Ahlam Khalfan Al Subhi
Ministry of Higher Education, Oman
Amy Erica Smith
Iowa State University, USA
Abstract
As Arab monarchies increasingly adopt and empower consultative assemblies, women’s representation
varies markedly across countries. What leads citizens in these new electoral systems to vote for women?
This study investigates the determinants of support for women’s representation using the first electoral
survey ever conducted in Oman, prior to the October 2015 Majlis al Shura elections. It considers cross-
nationally recognized factors – gender ideology and religion – and tribalism, a factor heretofore largely
unexplored. Confirming prior studies, citizens with traditional gender ideology are much less supportive of
women’s representation. Developing a simultaneous equations model, we show that religiosity and tribalism
shape gender ideology. Unlike in Western countries, education is unassociated with attitudes, and there is
no generational shift towards equality; younger men are less supportive of women’s representation than
are older men. Increasing women’s representation requires not only increasing citizen demand for female
leaders, but also changing informal tribal and formal electoral institutions.
Keywords
Women’s representation, Arab politics, tribalism
Introduction
Women’s underrepresentation in politics is a global phenomenon, one substantially limiting wom-
en’s influence in politics and society more generally. In the Arab region, where elected assemblies
are relatively new and are gradually gaining in political power, the rates of women’s legislative
representation are second lowest in the world – 18% (IPU, 2016). Still, there is substantial variation
Corresponding author:
Amy Erica Smith, Iowa State University, 503 Ross Hall, Ames, IA 50010, USA.
Email: aesmith2@iastate.edu
700949IPS0010.1177/0192512117700949Al Subhi and Smith
research-article2017
Article
Al Subhi and Smith 91
in women’s legislative representation even within the Arab Peninsula: from 22.5% in the United
Arab Emirates (UAE) and 19.9% in Saudi Arabia, to 0.0% in Qatar (IPU, 2016).
In this article, we focus on Oman. This case presents something of a puzzle. On the one hand,
Oman’s Majlis al Shura currently has the Peninsula’s second lowest rate of women’s representa-
tion, at 1.2%; only ten women have been elected over the course of the eight legislative elections
in the country’s history (including incumbent reelections). On the other hand, Oman has been rela-
tively progressive on other women’s issues and women have high levels of education. In 2003,
Oman enacted universal suffrage for both men and women and granted women the right to com-
pete for office.1 It was ranked the second highest Arab country in women’s rights by the Thomson
Reuters Foundation (Kehoe, 2013), and has a Gender Inequality Index value of 0.348, ranking 64
out of 149 countries in 2013 (United Nations Development Programme, 2014). A major reason for
Oman’s dearth of female officeholders relative to its peninsular neighbors relates to electoral insti-
tutions – Saudi Arabia uses gender quotas, while the UAE’s council includes royal appointments.
Still, Oman’s very low level of women’s representation indicates that citizens largely fail to sup-
port women in elected office. This low demand is striking given women’s high levels of education
and prominence in other public roles.
What inhibits citizen support for female candidates? Relatively little work attempts to explain
support for women’s representation specifically in the Arab region (but see Benstead et al., 2015;
Bush and Jamal, 2015). Cross-national studies focus on the role of Islam (Inglehart and Norris,
2000; Norris and Inglehart, 2001). However, we argue that the informal institution of tribalism
constitutes another significant barrier to women’s representation in Oman. Case studies of some
Arabic countries report tribalism restricts women’s access to parliament (Al-Zyoud, 2009; Sabbagh,
2005). However, there are no individual-level studies testing the explanatory power of tribalism
along with gender ideology and religion. We theorize that gender ideology mediates the effects of
religion and tribalism on support for women in Majlis al Shura – see Figure 1.
The Omani Consultative Council (Majlis al Shura) is a body with 85 members constituting the
lower house of the Council of Oman. The Majlis was founded by Sultan Qaboos in 1990; elections
were first held in 1991, and since 2003 elections are based on universal suffrage for men and women
of age 21 and above. Provinces with a minimum population of 30,000 use a single non-transferable
Figure 1. Theoretical model.
Gender ideology Support for
female
candidates
Religiosity
Tribalism
Demographic
variables
Political information
variables:
Social influence,
Political interest,
and Political
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