The Return of the State and the Pink Tide in Latin America: Implications for the Capacity and Democratic Quality of Gender Equality Agencies

Abstract

The “pink tide” or turn to the left that altered the Latin American political landscape brought promises to promote equality, social justice, and new forms of democratic participation on the one hand, and stronger and more centralized states, with greater capacity to intervene and regulate the economy and society on the other hand. This paper examines if and how these promises affected women’s policy machinery in four countries in the region. Now that the pink tide era is fading and the region is facing an increase in conservative and anti-gender movements, it is important to know if state society architectures changed in any substantial way to provide some level of protection or resilience against backsliding.