BookEl género en las políticas públicas: redes, reglas y recursos
Author
Title
- El género en las políticas públicas: redes, reglas y recursos.
Published
- México: FLACSO México, 2013.
HLAS annotation
HLAS annotation
- A slim volume including numerous diagrams, tables, and text boxes (including questions for the reader), this is admittedly a teaching text, coming out of the author's experience teaching graduate public policy programs for aspiring civil servants and NGO workers, who often resisted or at least showed little initial enthusiasm for treating gender as a subject or analytical frame. The author's goal is fundamentally an applied one: not an overview of gender studies but an emphasis on how officials can apply a gender perspective in their own policy area (p. 9). As per the subtitle, focuses on "redes, reglas, y recursos" (RRR) - networks and stakeholders, rules and institutions, and resources. The introduction recognizes a steep uphill battle since even getting gender recognized as an issue is so readily dismissed. Rather than a targeted constituency, it affects everyone but thereby is seen as no one's problem; socially constructed binary notions of difference are converted into rigid and reinforced inequalities but ones taken for granted and not even perceived. Chapter 4 applies these to the Mexican civil service, arguing that even formal institutional rule changes and allocating financial resources do not fix inequalities unless the networks and stakeholders issue is addressed as well. Mexico has created more than a dozen gender offices in different agencies and at least 41 liason positions between different offices and Inmujeres (the Instituto Nacional de las Mujeres, created by law in 2001), but the author's anonymous interviews reveal frustration with the lack of resources, lack of political will, and stubborn culture, although there was some variation. The author's typology falls a bit short of theory and hypotheses, ultimately calling for "creative alchemy" in trying new combinations to navigate the RRR framework in particular cases (p. 116). These ideas would benefit from future comparative empirical work. However, this study represents a useful contribution to the comparative politics and public policy literature and in translation would be helpful for English-speaking students of public affairs, as the majority of cited secondary sources are in English.
More Information
Description
- 124 p.: bibl., tables.
HLAS subjects
LC subjects
Notes
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-124).
ISBN
- 6079275341
- 9786079275341
HLAS topic/discipline search
HLAS volume records
HLAS contributor
- Christopher Neil Darnton