PhD Conferral Mrs. Ortrun Merkle, MA

“The Myth of Gender-Neutral Power: Corruption and Gender Norms”

The discussion of gender and corruption is one full of extremes- women as the new perfect anti-corruption force on the one hand, or as the defenseless victims of corruption on the other. This dissertation adds nuance to the discussion by focusing on the role of gender norms in corruption. The four essays specifically focus on the role of sextortion (sexual extortion), as a gendered form of corruption, especially in the context of irregular migration and investigate how sexism is used to exclude women from clientelistic networks, using interview data from Georgia.