Description:

Please join the Political Science Department's Graduate Commune as they host Elizabeth Good, PhD Candidate in Political Science at Northwestern University, for a practice job talk.

The Women, Peace and Security sector assumes increasing the number of women involved in peace negotiations drives better outcomes for local women. My dissertation tests this assumption and asks how power alters the relationship between women’s involvement in peace negotiations and the inclusion of women-specific provisions in peace agreements. Using an original dataset, I find women’s involvement in peace negotiations is positively correlated to comprehensive agreements containing provisions for women. However, this correlation is dependent on women holding positions of power – simply having women in the room is insufficient. I go on to explore women’s willingness to advocate for women in group settings using randomized controlled trials, surveys, and focus group methodology. I find that while women are more likely to privately prioritize women’s issues relative to men, women do not advocate for women’s issues to the same extent publicly, regardless of the gender composition of the group. My research offers novel methodological approaches to Women, Peace and Security research, provides nuance to theories linking descriptive and substantive representation, and casts doubt on the longstanding assumption that increasing women’s involvement inherently enhances gender equality.

Elizabeth Good is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Northwestern University, an International Security Program Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, a SSHRC Doctoral Fellow, and a former Graduate Research Fellow at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard University. She studies international and comparative politics, with a focus on Women, Peace and Security. Her dissertation explores women’s representation in peace processes, questioning how gendered power dynamics influence peace negotiation outcomes for local women. Her multi-method research employs text analysis, formal modelling, randomized controlled trial experiments, and case study research. She earned an M.A. in Political Science and a B.A. in Geography and International Relations from the University of British Columbia. She has worked as a Gender Specialist with the United Nations Development Programme in Kosovo and as a Gender Consultant for the United States Agency for International Development in Ghana. She strives to advance Women, Peace and Security policy through research.