Female Legislators' Collective Strategies for Representing Women's Human Rights in Latin America

RODRÍGUEZ GUSTÁ, ANA LAURA; MADERA, NANCY

Congreso; VIII Congreso de la Ásociación Latinoamericana de Ciencia Política; 2015

ALACIP (Asociación Latinoamericana de Ciencia Política)

Under the thick conception of women's substantive representation and a relational approach towards organizations, this article examines how female legislators -- for the most part -- articulate collective strategies to advance legislation on gender equality. With an original dataset about the dynamics within national legislative institutions in 18 countries of the region and the content of debates of 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 whose results have symbolic value but, in some instances, also put normative pressures on the States. Therefore, the legislative gender agenda should not be examined, solely, considering endogenous parliamentary dynamics but should take into account supranational networks.