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British Colonialism and the Criminalization of Homosexuality

Han, Enze; O'Mahoney, Joseph

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Authors

Enze Han

Joseph O'Mahoney



Abstract

What explains the global variation in laws criminalizing homosexual conduct? Recent research has claimed that British colonialism is largely responsible for the criminalization of homosexuality around the world. This article utilizes a newly constructed dataset that includes up-to-date data on 185 countries to assess this claim. We find that British colonies are much more likely to have criminalization of homosexual conduct laws than other colonies or other states in general. This result holds after controlling for other variables that might be expected to influence the likelihood of repressive lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights legislation. However, we also find that the evidence in favour of the claim that British imperialism ‘poisoned’ societies against homosexuality is weak. British colonies do not systematically take longer to decriminalize homosexual conduct than other European colonies.

Citation

Han, E., & O'Mahoney, J. British Colonialism and the Criminalization of Homosexuality. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 27(2), 268-288. https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2013.867298

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date May 2, 2014
Deposit Date Aug 28, 2013
Publicly Available Date Jun 6, 2019
Journal Cambridge Review of International Affairs
Print ISSN 0955-7571
Electronic ISSN 1474-449X
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 27
Issue 2
Pages 268-288
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2013.867298

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Copyright Statement
© 2014 Centre of International Studies. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Cambridge Review of International Affairs on 02 May 2014, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09557571.2013.867298





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