Legitimacy on Trial: Transnational Governance, Local Politics, and the Battle over Gender Violence Law in Nicaragua

• In Event: 188 - Regular Session. Transnational Processes

Abstract

Why would a government approve a path-breaking new law against gender-based violence and then subsequently dismantle it? To address this question, this paper examines the process by which Nicaragua came to pass its most recent comprehensive law concerning violence against women (Law 779) in 2012, and the contentious politics that led to its unraveling over the next two years. Drawing on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork and archival research, this paper adopts a transnational feminist theoretical lens in order to analyze why the Nicaraguan state embraced a women's right to a life free of violence in one moment, but then later intentionally undermined its own previous actions. To explain why Law 779 was initially passed and later weakened, I make a twofold argument. First, I suggest that Law 779 was passed in order to keep pace with regional legal trends in Latin America concerning violence against women. Second, I contend that the subsequent derailment of Law 779 is due to (1) the Ortega regime's alliance with conservative religious groups, and (2) the state's interest in preserving Nicaragua's reputation as the so-called “safest country in Central America.” As a result, patriarchal interests and ideologies remain firmly entrenched in Nicaragua's political institutions. These findings have implications for our understandings of state legitimacy, global governance, and transnational feminist advocacy.

Author

• Pamela Jane Neumann, Tulane University