Featuring: Valerie Hudson
Professor and George H.W. Bush Chair
Director, Program on Women, Peace, and Security
Department of International Affairs
The Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University

The most comprehensive empirical investigation of the relationship between women’s empowerment and national security was, ironically, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. From 2014-2018, the Defense Department funded Valerie Hudson and her colleagues Donna Lee Bowen and Perpetua Lynne Nielsen in an unprecedented data collection and analysis effort to examine whether women’s disempowerment was linked to poorer national outcomes in governance, conflict, terrorism health, wealth, and environmental preservation.  Their findings are showcased in the recently published book, The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide (Columbia University Press, 2020), and will be discussed in this presentation.