Women's Policy Agencies and Government Ideology. Argentina and Brazil Divergent Paths 2003-2019

ANA LAURA RODRÍGUEZ GUSTÁ

México D.F.

Workshop; Programa Conferencia Policéntrica IFJP-FLACSO Feminismos y Conservadurismos; 2019

FLACSO México e International Feminist Journal of Politics

This paper examines the institutional shape of women?s policy agencies (WAP) under left and right-wing governments. By taking the cases of Argentina and Brazil, I analyze what happens to WPA?s structure and dynamics when significant ideological shifts at the Executive level occur. In Argentina, the Women?s National Council (CNM) had a convoluted trajectory under the center-left governments and was largely inconsequential (2003 to 2015). What factors produced this outcome given that the government placed social justice at the core of its political platform and advanced significant gender-sensitive legislation and policy measures? By contrast, under the center-right alliance of Cambiemos, the government improved the status of the CNM and created the National Women?s Institute. What factors led to this outcome, given Cambiemos?s market-oriented reforms and lack of interest in social policies? In Brazil, during the center-left governments of Partido dos Trabalhadores, the Presidential Women?s Secretariat (SPM) resembled State feminism. With Jair Bolsonaro, a conservative far right-wing President elected in 2018, the SPM became a machinery against women?s rights. What processes allowed the PT to develop a transformative SPM and what factors made an outright reversion possible under Bolsonaro?s conservative government?