Oeindrila Dube †

A large scholarship claims that states led by women are less conflictual than states led by men. However, it is theoretically unclear why female leaders would favor more conciliatory war policies. And, it is empirically challenging to identify the effect of female rule, since women may gain power disproportionately during periods of peace. We surmount this challenge by exploiting features of hereditary succession in European polities over the 15th-20th centuries. In this context, women were more likely to acquire power if the previous monarch lacked a male first-born child, or had a sister who could follow as successor. Using these factors as instruments for female rule, we find that queenly reigns participated more in inter-state conflicts, without experiencing more internal conflict. Moreover, the tendency of queens to participate as conflict aggressors varied based on marital status. Among married monarchs, queens were more likely to participate as attackers than kings. Among unmarried monarchs, queens were more likely to be attacked than kings. These results are consistent with an account in which queens relied on their spouses to manage state affairs, enabling them to pursue more aggressive war policies. Kings, on the other hand, were less inclined to utilize a similar division of labor. This asymmetry in how queens relied on male spouses and kings relied on female spouses strengthened the relative capacity of queenly reigns, facilitating their greater participation in warfare. ∗First draft: April 1, 2015. We are grateful to Sendhil Mullainathan for many discussions and suggestions. We would also like to thank Guido Alfani, Katherine Casey, Latika Chaudhury, Manuel Eisner, James Fearon, Andrej Kokkonen, Stelios Michaelopoulos, Aprajit Mahajan, Rohini Pande, Debraj Ray, Frances Rosenbluth, Jake Shapiro, Alastair Smith and Joachim Voth, as well as seminar participants at the SITE-Economic History and Economic Development Workshop, Stanford Junior Faculty Workshop, Stanford GSB visiting faculty lunch and Bocconi Conflict Workshop for very helpful comments. Michael Xu provided excellent research assistance. †Assistant Professor of Politics and Economics, New York University. [email protected]. ‡PhD Candidate, New York University. [email protected].