Governance Models of Gender Policy Machineries under Left and Right Governments in Latin America

Abstract

In Latin America, the last fifteen years of left-wing government provide an opportunity to examine whether government ideology matters for the institutional design of gender policy machineries. We conduct a cross-national comparison of gender policy machinery governance models, taking three well-established models—bureaucratic, participatory, and transformative—as empirical guidance. We find that no one clear model is associated with government ideology. By studying four cases in-depth—Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela—we provide a more nuanced interpretation of how governance models are influenced by an interaction between party type, broader state capacities, and participatory structures.