Gender mainstreaming—the incorporation of a gender equality perspective into the design, implementation, and evaluation of all aid projects—has become a signature policy tool among Western donors. However, advancing gender equality can be politically contentious and lead to backlash, particularly in autocratic regimes where women’s socioeconomic status is low. We argue that donors’ desire for recipient government buy-in creates incentives for them to pay attention to domestic policy cues, whose salience varies across regime types. Employing detailed data from the OECD’s Gender Equality Policy Marker, we show that donors engage differently with democracies and autocracies. Among democratic recipients, those with higher legal status for women have less gender mainstreaming aid, suggesting a “needs-based” logic. Conversely, in autocracies, donors respond positively to policy cues indicating the (domestic) political acceptability of gender equality. Our findings underscore the importance of treating gender mainstreaming as a distinct category of assistance whose application is attuned to domestic implementation problems. Beyond the study of foreign aid, we offer insights into how international audiences may interpret policy cues differently depending on regime type.

中文翻译：

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对外援助中性别主流化的政治


性别主流化——将性别平等视角纳入所有援助项目的设计、实施和评估——已成为西方捐助者的标志性政策工具。然而，推进性别平等可能在政治上引起争议并导致反弹，尤其是在女性社会经济地位较低的专制政权中。我们认为，捐助者希望得到受援国政府的支持，这为他们关注国内政策线索创造了动力，这些线索的显著性因政权类型而异。利用来自经合组织性别平等政策标记（Gender Equality Policy Marker）的详细数据，我们表明捐助者与民主国家和专制国家的互动不同。在民主接受者中，那些对女性具有较高法律地位的人获得的性别主流化援助较少，这表明了“基于需求”的逻辑。相反，在专制国家，捐助者对表明性别平等的（国内）政治可接受性的政策线索做出积极反应。我们的研究结果强调了将性别主流化视为一类独特援助的重要性，其应用与国内实施问题相适应。除了对外援助的研究之外，我们还提供了关于国际受众如何根据政权类型不同解读政策线索的见解。