Representing Women’s, Indigenous, and Afrodescendant Interests in Latin America

• In Event: Gender, Power, and Political Parties in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

While substantial research from the U.S. and Europe points to the importance of descriptive representation and left parties for the substantive representation of women’s, ethnic and racial minority interests (e.g. Bratton 2002; Espírito-Santo, Freire, and Serra-Silva 2018; Hodžić and Mraović 2015; Mazur 2002; Swain 1995; Saalfeld and Bischof 2013; Wallace 2014), there is growing research that suggests that in Latin America, left parties may not be equally supportive of the interests of these different historically marginalized groups (e.g. Blofield, Ewig, and Piscopo 2017; Friedman 2009; Kampwirth 2008; Lind and Keating 2013). In this paper, I develop a theoretical framework based upon the Latin American historical and political context for understanding why we should see different patterns of party support for women’s, compared to ethnic and racial interests in Latin America. Due to the significant overlap between race, ethnic, and redistributive interests in Latin America, we should expect left parties to be supportive of Indigenous and Afrodescendant interests. Only some women’s interests, by contrast, intersect with class-based interests, making women’s interests, on the whole, less likely to get strong support from any one ideological party grouping. Finally, Latin American parties are not always ideologically consistent on economic and social issues; they can be especially reticent to support policies such as reproductive rights, that may pose a challenge to the Catholic Church.

I test the theory with original data composed of all legislation proposed over a twenty-year period in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, coded for women’s, Indigenous, and Afrodescendant interests -- over 44,000 bills. The legislation is combined with original data on all congressional members over this time period, including the gender and race/ethnic identity of each legislator. I selected these three countries due to their significant Indigenous (Ecuador and Peru) or Afrodescendant (Colombia) populations coupled with the variation they represent in political party systems and numbers of women in political office.

The data show that in all three countries, descriptive representation is consistently important for the substantive representation of women, Indigenous peoples and Afrodescendants, but the role of left parties varies. Indigenous and Afrodescendant interests benefit to a greater degree from the support of members of left parties in introducing legislation, while for women’s issues, the effect of left party membership is much lower, and in Ecuador is actually inconsequential. I discuss the reasons for country-level differences, including the distinctions between the varieties of "lefts" present in these three countries over this time period. On the whole, however, the empirical analysis demonstrates that where identity interests and class cleavages are reinforcing, substantive representation by left parties is more likely. More detailed analysis of bill types shows that certain kinds of interests face greater challenges than others, depending on whether the topic relates to economic or social issues.

Author

• Christina Ewig, University of Minnesota