The Impacts of Anti-Feminist Backlash in SNSs on Legislators' Bill Sponsorship Concerning Violence Against Women: Empirical Evidence from South Korea

• Published in: Journal of Global Politics Vol. 16; no. 2; pp. 55 - 85
• Main Author: Woo, Byung-Deuk
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 글로벌정치연구소 31.12.2023
• Subjects: 정치외교학
• ISSN: 2005-1352; 2671-8499
• DOI: 10.35773/JGP.2023.16.2.55

How does expressed anti-feminist backlash in Social Networking Sites (SNSs; also called Social Networking Service) affect lawmakers’ legislative behaviors such as bill sponsorship? In contemporary South Korea, the anti-feminist backlash largely expressed and proliferated in SNSs is the most salient wedge issue in the political sphere. This article empirically examines whether and how the expressed anti-feminist backlash in SNSs affects legislators’ bill sponsorship concerning Violence Against Women (VAW). Relying on the data about bills which have been proposed in the KNA (Korean National Assembly) from 2011 (the mid of the 18th Congress) to 2021 (the mid of the 21st Congress) and the data about Tweets, this article estimates logistic regression models. The empirical results demonstrate that, when there are more Tweets including anti-feminist terms, legislators are less likely to sponsor VAW bills. More interestingly, this article shows that female legislators are more likely to be influenced by the backlash than their male counterparts. The empirical results from this article not only contribute to the previous literature on women in politics and legislative behaviors of decision-makers, but also emphasize the importance of incorporating big data analytics into the analysis of political phenomena. KCI Citation Count: 0