Why Gender and LGBT Views Split European Parties Over Support for Putin

📊 Votes on Russia in PACE (2007–2021)

This study analyzes 1,140 resolutions and amendments explicitly targeting Russia in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) from 2007 to 2021. It investigates how cultural politics—especially debates over LGBT rights and traditional family values promoted by Putin—shape divisions over support for Russia across and within European parties.

🔎 Argument and What Was Tested

The core argument is that Putin’s portrayal of Russia as a defender of traditional family values against liberal egalitarianism, particularly on LGBT rights, contributes to both between-party and within-party divisions over Russia. The analysis tests whether gender and expressed support for LGBT rights predict an MP’s likelihood of supporting Russia relative to other members of the same national party.

📈 What the Data Show

Key findings include:

• Women and MPs who express support for LGBT rights are less likely to vote in favor of Russia compared with other members of their national parties.
• This divergence is concentrated among female MPs in culturally liberal parties and becomes apparent only after Putin’s culturally conservative turn.
• Parties with higher shares of women in leadership are less likely to support Russia.

🛠️ How the Effects Were Identified

Identification strategies include:

• Using national party fixed effects to compare MPs within the same party context
• Matching on observables to account for selection on measured covariates

⚖️ Why It Matters

These findings connect cultural cleavages—gender and attitudes toward LGBT rights—to foreign-policy voting in legislatures, offering a new lens on why European parties differ in responses to Russian aggression and domestic illiberalism. The results speak to broader literatures on gender, foreign policy, and legislative behavior.