Over the last two decades, Latin American countries have seen a dramatic increase in the presence of women in national legislatures. In 1997 the regional average was just over 10% compared to today’s average of 30.6%, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The region has also seen the largest number of women elected as presidents. Six countries have elected women as presidentas, and 18 have had viable women presidential candidates since 1990.
It is thus unsurprising that gender and politics scholars have looked at Latin America to answer questions about the causes and consequences of women’s inclusion, the role of political parties and electoral institutions, and the obstacles women face once formal barriers are lifted and their participation is actively promoted. The wide adoption of gender quotas has been regarded as the most obvious explanation for women’s political presence in the region. However, as Gender and Representation in Latin America shows, there is great variation in women’s presence across the region, even when countries have gender quotas.
The increase in women’s presence, which undoubtedly strengthens democracy, occurred concurrently with the rise in populist, antidemocracy leaders in various countries. The “left turn” put an end to democracy in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, and party systems broke down or collapsed in several other countries. Political scientists have studied these phenomena at length, but seldom have they paid sufficient attention to the role of gender in these institutional transformations or to the effect these changes have on women. Schwindt-Bayer’s edited volume masterfully fills this gap. The book presents some of the most relevant findings on women and representation in Latin America shows, arguing that women’s presence cannot be disconnected from the context of democratic challenges and political crises marring the region in the last 20 years (p. 4).
To explore the links between the current political climate and women’s presence in politics, the volume analyzes representation in five arenas: the presidency, legislatures, political parties, presidential cabinets, and subnational governments. In the book’s first part, each arena has a dedicated chapter analyzing the topic cross-nationally. The second part of the book takes a closer look at these arenas in seven countries.
Looking simultaneously at all of these areas emphasizes the effect of political institutions on women’s representation, whereas analysis of how each arena functions in specific countries shows how particular institutional settings interact with sociocultural structures to hinder or increase women’s presence at different levels of government. Catherine Reyes-Householder and Gwynn Thomas, for example, show that the rise in left-wing parties opened opportunities for women to become viable presidential candidates. However, they claim that successful bids for the presidency were the result not of more progressive politics in those left-wing parties, but rather of these parties’ desire to hold onto power (p. 31). This desire, however, has not been enough to facilitate the election of women to other branches of government. Brazil and Chile, two countries where women have been elected and reelected for the presidency in the context of the left turn, have fewer women in their legislative bodies than the regional average (12% and 23%, respectively). The country-specific chapters by Susan Franceschet (Chile) and Clara Araújo, Anna Calasanti, and Mala Htun (Brazil) explain this contradiction as the result of the party systems, as well as of candidate-centered and adverse electoral systems.
More broadly, the book demonstrates how institutional reforms created to improve democracy, such as decentralization and reforms to the party system, affect women’s representation in unintended ways. Maria C. Escobar-Lemmon and Kendall Funk show that the institutions that increase women’s presence at the national level do not always have the same effect at subnational levels. Decentralization changes power dynamics that affect women’s access to executive offices at the local level. Political parties, Jana Morgan and Magda Hinojosa show, act as gatekeepers by not recruiting women actively or not including women’s interests in their platforms and policy priorities. The result is that women are less likely to identify as members of political parties and “do not find substantive representation within the existing set of political options” (p. 95). This contributes to the instability of the party system in the region.
Gender and Representation in Latin America shows that, when analyzing democratic backsliding and political institutions, ignoring women and gender more broadly results in an incomplete picture of the situation. Although both men and women in the region have similarly low levels of confidence in political institutions, the reasons behind those sentiments and the consequences of democratic breakdown affect them differently. Party fragmentation, for example, decreases opportunities for women to be elected (Schwindt-Bayer and Santiago Alles).
The country chapters demonstrate that different institutional settings create variations in women’s representation in the region. Several chapters examine two countries that have received the most attention: Mexico and Argentina. Despite overcoming the mythical “critical mass” at which women should be able to transform politics, barriers persist. In both countries, men still hold most leadership positions in political parties and Congress. This undermines women’s opportunities for advancing bills or influencing the implementation of public policy (Tiffany D. Barnes and Mark P. Jones). Similarly, cabinet positions and committee assignments are highly segregated by gender, with men having control over more powerful posts as heads of finance, budget, or defense committees and ministries, affecting women’s potential to transform policy making in these areas (Pär Zetterberg; Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson, and Meredith Gleitz). This explains why women have not been as effective in advancing women’s issues (Schwindt-Bayer and Alles).
Other chapters analyze countries often overlooked by the literature on women’s representation or democratic institutions in Latin America, such as Costa Rica (Jennifer M. Piscopo), Uruguay (Niki Johnson), and Colombia (Mónica Pachón and Santiago E. Lacouture). Costa Rica and Uruguay have divergent levels of women’s representation, even though both countries are stable democratic governments. In Uruguay, the electoral system has negatively affected women’s representation, which has been worsened by the male-dominated party leadership that controls access to candidate lists and appointed positions. Costa Rica is the opposite. The leadership has virtually reached gender parity and has elected a woman as president, but informal practices and discrimination constrain women’s participation under equal conditions as men.
Missing from the book are countries in Central America, the Caribbean, and the Andes, as well as an intersectional perspective. This leaves the reader with questions about the inclusion and representation of indigenous and Afro-descendant women and about how democratic breakdown affects or interacts with the inclusion of women in legislative and executive bodies. These limitations, which are recognized by the editor, are understandable given the little research done in these countries and the lack of quality data about indigenous and Afro-descendant women’s presence in politics. They signal necessary areas for future research.
Gender and Representation in Latin America presents a broad and deep analysis of women’s representation in the region. It successfully synthesizes an expansive and rich body of research while providing a comprehensive and contextualized analysis of the political and institutional causes and consequences of women’s inclusion. As such, it is a mandatory reference for those working on democratization, party systems, presidentialism, legislative politics, and electoral systems in Latin America and beyond.
