Embedded exclusions: exploring gender equality in Peru’s participatory democratic framework

ABSTRACT

Do participatory institutions facilitate gender empowerment? As these institutions spread around the world, we still know very little about the gendered nature of participatory democratic spaces. Through the case study of state-mandated participatory budgeting in Peru, this article employs original data on participation to explore gender and inclusion. The study suggests that participatory institutions are not promoting gender equality. Instead, state actors have created new political spaces that exclude women and women’s organizations and reify traditional gender norms. Like representative democratic institutions, gender inequities are embedded in these very spaces that are meant to empower all citizens.

KEYWORDS:

• Participatory governance
• participatory budget
• gender
• law
• Peru
• democracy
• governance

View responses to this article:

Process is insufficient: a reply to Cote Hampson and McNulty

Policymaking for gender equality: a reply to Cramer, Cote Hampson, and McNulty

Law’s promises and its limits: a reply to Cramer and McNulty

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Kabir Hossain for his assistance with reviewing the literature for this project and Amy Largacha Cedeno for her assistance with data collection in Lima. I am also grateful to the participants of Drake University’s Gender, Sexuality, and the Law Workshop, especially Renee Cramer, Sarah Hampson, and Mollie Clark, for their comments on an earlier draft. Finally, I am grateful to Franklin and Marshall College for providing funding for this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. There is an enormous literature on PB around the world. For a sample see Sintomer, Röcke, and Herzberg (2016); Su (2017a); Wampler and Hartz-Karp (2012). Also visit https://www.participatorybudgeting.org/. According to the Latinno database, at least 15 countries in Latin America have experimented with or continue to use PB as a tool for engaging citizens in decision making. For more on PB in Latin America, see Wampler, McNulty, and Touchton (2018) and Sintomer, Hershberg, and Allegretti (2013).

2. For example the Global Barometer of Gay Rights gives Peru an ‘F’ when measured using 29 indices that examine constitutional protections of sexual minorities, the level of gay rights advocacy, socio-economic rights, and societal persecution of sexual minorities. See Dicklitch-Nelson, Thompson, and Yost (2016).

3. There are many feminist organizations and reformers who are advocating for a more nuanced analysis of gender in all aspects of public policies. However, to date these efforts have not been translated to the formal legal framework.

4. Statistics about political representation and education are from: http://www.inei.gob.pe/estadisticas/indice-tematico/brechas-de-genero-7913/.

5. For more on Peru’s decentralization reform, (see Controlaría General de la República (2014); McNulty (2011); Prodescentralización (2016); Zas Friz Burga (2004)). For more on participatory institutions in Peru, (see McNulty (2011); Remy (2016, 2011); López Ricci (2014)).

6. In this paper I use the terms local and district interchangeably.

7. Adapted from Prodescentralización (2010).

8. See Chapter IV of Law 28411 (Ley General del Sistema Nacional de Presupuesto).

9. http://ppto-participativo.mef.gob.pe/entrada.php.

10. The process takes place one year before the next fiscal year. In other words, participants vote on the 2018 participatory budget in 2017.

11. To gather this data I adapted an observation tool used by Frank Bryan (2004) when observing town hall meetings over a period of 30 years in Vermont. I am grateful to him for sharing his tools. To see the tool visit: https://stephaniemcnulty.net/data-and-methods/.

12. For more information on gender and participation in the regional PB process, see McNulty (2015).

13. Determining the extent to which investment spending attacks gender inequalities is problematic. One way that is often used in Peru is to look at social spending, i.e. projects that work to improve health and education, as opposed to ‘grey’ infrastructure projects. The assumption here is that women and children will naturally benefit more from social investments, therefore they are ‘gendered’ projects. This distinction is not perfect, in that it falls pretty to reinforcing traditional gender norms, however, this is the standard currently used in Peru.

14. The number of minutes do not total 827 because not all kinds of interventions (which also include group work, responses, and some moments of disagreement expressed in general outbursts) are included here.