Más allá del recinto legislativo - Estrategias colectivas para una agenda de género en América Latina y el Caribe

Abstract

Under the 'thick' conception of women's substantive representation and a relational approach towards organizations, this article examines how (mostly) female legislators articulate collective strategies to debate gender issues. With an original dataset about the national legislative institutions in 18 countries of the region and the content of debates within regional parliaments between 2007 and 2013, this article analyzed two collective strategies of action: the creation of national legislative gender institutions and the emergence of supranational networks. Applied to Latin America and the Caribbean, a sociological perspective on women's substantive representation shows that female legislators conduct dense networking with diverse national and global actors and, when constructing ties with the United Nations System, they introduce the language of women's human rights in the agenda. Also, this research identified a high number of regional meetings on gender issues, promoted by female legislators, which suggests a policy network with results that have symbolic value but, in some instances, put normative pressures on the States. Therefore, the legislative gender agenda should not be examined, solely, considering endogenous parliamentary dynamics.