Political Power And Womens Representation In Latin America

Download or read book Political Power and Women's Representation in Latin America written by Leslie A. Schwindt-Bayer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The number of women elected to Latin American legislatures has grown significantly over the past thirty years. This increase in the number of women elected to national office is due, in large part, to gender-friendly electoral rules such as gender quotas and proportional electoral systems, and it has, in turn, fostered constituent support for representative democracy. Still, this book argues that women are gaining political voice and bringing women's issues to state agendas, but they are not gaining political power. Women are marginalized by the male majority in office and relegated to the least powerful committees and leadership posts, hindering progress toward real political equality. In Political Power and Women's Representation in Latin America, Leslie Schwindt-Bayer examines the causes and consequences of women's representation in Latin America. She does so by asking a series of politically relevant and theoretically challenging questions, including why the numbers of women in office have increased in some countries but vary across others; what the presence of women in office means for the way representatives legislate; and what consequences the election of women bears for representative democracy more generally. Schwindt-Bayer articulates a comprehensive theory of women's representation that analyzes and connects trends in relation to four facets of political representation: formal, descriptive, substantive and symbolic. She then tests this theory empirically using aggregate data from all eighteen Latin American democracies and original fieldwork in Argentina, Colombia and Costa Rica. Ultimately, this book communicates the complex and often incomplete nature of women's political representation in Latin America.

Download or read book Gender and Representation in Latin America written by Leslie A. Schwindt-Bayer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-04 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the past thirty years, women's representation and gender equality has developed unevenly in Latin America. Some countries have experienced large increases in gender equality in political offices, whereas others have not, and even within countries, some political arenas have become more gender equal whereas others continue to exude intense gender inequality. These patterns are inconsistent with explanations of social and cultural improvements in gender equality leading to improved gender equality in political office. Gender and Representation in Latin America argues instead that gender inequality in political representation in Latin America is rooted in institutions and the democratic challenges and political crises facing Latin American countries and that these challenges matter for the number of women and men elected to office, what they do once there, how much power they gain access to, and how their presence and actions influence democracy and society more broadly. The book draws upon the expertise of top scholars of women, gender, and political institutions in Latin America to analyze the institutional and contextual causes and consequences of women's representation in Latin America. It does this in part 1 with chapters that analyze gender and political representation regionwide in each of five different "arenas of representation"-the presidency, cabinets, national legislatures, political parties, and subnational governments. In part 2, it provides chapters that analyze gender and representation in each of seven different countries-Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. The authors bring novel insights and impressive new data to their analyses, helping to make this one of the most comprehensive books on gender and political representation in Latin America today.

Download or read book Gender and the Politics of Rights and Democracy in Latin America written by Maxine Molyneux and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-01-28 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume assesses one of the most important developments in contemporary Latin American women's movements: the engagement with rights-based discourses. Organised women have played a central role in the continued struggle for democracy in the region and with it gender justice. The foregrounding of human rights, and within them the recognition of women's rights, has offered women a strategic advantage in pursuing their goals of an inclusive citizenship. The country-based chapters analyse specific bodies of rights: rights and representation, domestic violence, labour rights, reproductive rights, legal advocacy, socio-economic rights, rights and ethnicity, and rights, the state and autonomy.

Download or read book Women, Politics, and Democracy in Latin America written by Tomáš Došek and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-01-04 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the current tendencies in women’s representation and their role in politics in Latin American countries from three different perspectives. Firstly, the authors examine cultural, political-partisan and organizational obstacles that women face in and outside institutions. Secondly, the book explores barriers in political reality, such as gender legislation implementation, public administration and international cooperation, and proposes solutions, supported by successful experiences, emphasising the nonlinearity of the implementation process. Thirdly, the authors highlight the role of women in politics at the subnational level. The book combines academic expertise in various disciplines with contributions from practitioners within national and international institutions to broaden the reader’s understanding of women in Latin American politics.

Download or read book Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America written by Jane S. Jaquette and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-10 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Latin American women’s movements played important roles in the democratic transitions in South America during the 1980s and in Central America during the 1990s. However, very little has been written on what has become of these movements and their agendas since the return to democracy. This timely collection examines how women’s movements have responded to the dramatic political, economic, and social changes of the last twenty years. In these essays, leading scholar-activists focus on the various strategies women’s movements have adopted and assess their successes and failures. The book is organized around three broad topics. The first, women’s access to political power at the national level, is addressed by essays on the election of Michelle Bachelet in Chile, gender quotas in Argentina and Brazil, and the responses of the women’s movement to the “Bolivarian revolution” in Venezuela. The second topic, the use of legal strategies, is taken up in essays on women’s rights across the board in Argentina, violence against women in Brazil, and gender in the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Peru. Finally, the international impact of Latin American feminists is explored through an account of their participation in the World Social Forum, an assessment of a Chilean-led project carried out by women’s organizations in several countries to hold governments to the promises they made at international conferences in Cairo and Beijing, and an account of cross-border organizing to address femicides and domestic abuse in the Juárez-El Paso border region. Jane S. Jaquette provides the historical and political context of women’s movement activism in her introduction, and concludes the volume by engaging contemporary debates about feminism, civil society, and democracy. Contributors. Jutta Borner, Mariana Caminotti, Alina Donoso, Gioconda Espina, Jane S. Jaquette, Beatriz Kohen, Julissa Mantilla Falcón, Jutta Marx, Gabriela L. Montoya, Flávia Piovesan, Marcela Ríos Tobar, Kathleen Staudt, Teresa Valdés, Virginia Vargas

Download or read book Women, Politics, and Power written by Pamela Paxton and published by SAGE Publications, Incorporated. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women, Politics, and Power provides a clear and detailed introduction to women's political participation and representation across a wide range of countries and regions. Using broad statistical overviews and detailed case-study accounts, authors Pamela Paxton and Melanie Hughes document both historical trends and the contemporary state of women's political strength across diverse countries. In addition to describing worldwide themes, the book acknowledges differences among women through attention to intersectionality and heterogeneity among women. Dedicated chapters on six geographic regions highlight the distinct paths women may take to political power in different parts of the world. There is simply no other book that offers such a thorough and multidisciplinary synthesis of research on women's political power around the world.

Download or read book Seeking Rights from the Left written by Elisabeth Jay Friedman and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-31 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeking Rights from the Left offers a unique comparative assessment of left-leaning Latin American governments by examining their engagement with feminist, women's, and LGBT movements and issues. Focusing on the “Pink Tide” in eight national cases—Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Venezuela—the contributors evaluate how the Left addressed gender- and sexuality-based rights through the state. Most of these governments improved the basic conditions of poor women and their families. Many significantly advanced women's representation in national legislatures. Some legalized same-sex relationships and enabled their citizens to claim their own gender identity. They also opened opportunities for feminist and LGBT movements to press forward their demands. But at the same time, these governments have largely relied on heteropatriarchal relations of power, ignoring or rejecting the more challenging elements of a social agenda and engaging in strategic trade-offs among gender and sexual rights. Moreover, the comparative examination of such rights arenas reveals that the Left's more general political and economic projects have been profoundly, if at times unintentionally, informed by traditional understandings of gender and sexuality. Contributors: Sonia E. Alvarez, María Constanza Diaz, Rachel Elfenbein, Elisabeth Jay Friedman, Niki Johnson, Victoria Keller, Edurne Larracoechea Bohigas, Amy Lind, Marlise Matos, Shawnna Mullenax, Ana Laura Rodríguez Gustá, Diego Sempol, Constanza Tabbush, Gwynn Thomas, Catalina Trebisacce, Annie Wilkinson