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The Global Diffusion of the #MeToo Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2020

Myunghee Lee  and
Amanda Murdie Open the ORCID record for Amanda Murdie [Opens in a new window]
Myunghee Lee
Affiliation:
University of Missouri
Amanda Murdie
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
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Abstract

Why is the #MeToo movement very active in some countries but not in others? What factors encourage the transnational diffusion of digital feminist activism? Although transnational forces are important, we argue that domestic political opportunity structures play a more significant role than transnational influences in the country-level diffusion of #MeToo. We collected 35,211 global tweets and used Bayesian statistical modeling to test the implications of our theory. Our findings support the idea that as a country better protects its citizens’ political and civil rights and civil liberties, individuals in that country are more likely to engage in the #MeToo movement.

Keywords

#MeToodigital feminist activismprotestdiffusionpolitical opportunity structures
Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 827 - 855
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association

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Footnotes

The authors would like to thank Ryan Bakker, Johannes Karreth, participants at the American Political Science Association 2019 Annual Conference, the anonymous reviewers, and editors. Amanda Murdie would like to acknowledge that her work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2013S1A3A2055081).

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