Gender politics in Brazil and Chile: The role of political parties in local and national policy-making.

Abstract

How have party systems and individual parties in Latin America responded to, and filtered, women's movement demands for political voice representation and state gender policies. Does this vary between national and local levels of government? This study compares two Latin American cases. The first analyses the National Women's Ministry (SERNAM) in Chile, a country with a history of ideological conflict, strong parties and centralized government. The second examines the local administrations of the left-wing Brazilian Workers' Party in Brazil, in a political environment shaped by clientelism, weak parties and decentralization. This is the first study to focus exclusively on parties as gendered and gendering organizations, analysing them not just in terms of ideology, but also of their individual party histories and cultures, expressed as a gendered political habitus and sociability. This book also highlights the spatiality of party and gender politics by examining local as well as national government.

' ...a most welcome contribution to the analysis of Latin American politics, and to the field of gender studies. Exhaustively researched, it reveals the intricate relationships between gender politics, public institutions and policy outcomes. No one reading this book will be left in doubt as to the importance of political parties for advancing equality agendas, nor about the obstacles that party systems place in the way of female representation.' - Maxine Molyneux, Professor of Sociology, Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London, UK

List of Tables Glossary List of Brazilian States Acknowledgements Introduction Gendered and Gendering Parties PART 1: BRAZIL Porous Parties, Permeable State The Workers' Party, Gender and Feminism O Modo Petista: Local Level Gender Policy PART 2: CHILE In Their Place: The Political Uses of Women Between Ideologies: The National Women's Ministry Decentralization Deficits: Delivering Policy at the Local Level Comparisons and Conclusions Notes and References Index

FIONA MACAULAY is Lecturer in Development Studies in the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK. Her research interests, on which she has published widely, cover gender and politics, decentralization and social policies, human rights and the criminal justice system in Brazil and Latin America.