¡Últimos artículos de nuestro grupo! De los enfoques ideacionales a la implementación de políticas, a las políticas penitenciarias y las políticas de género en la universidad

¡Consulta las últimas publicaciones de 2023 de nuestro grupo de investigación! Los dos primeros versan sobre políticas penitenciarias y género, el tercero es una sección temática sobre enfoques ideacionales de la implementación de políticas públicas de igualdad y el cuarto artículo trata sobre la construcción discursiva de la legislación de igualdad de género en la universidad y cómo los actores feministas la interpretan y la utilizan en su implementación. esfuerzos ¡Disfruta de las lecturas!

Ballesteros-Pena, A., Bustelo, M. & Mazur, A.G. (2023) Theorizing the Penal State: The Darkside of Gender Regimes in the Case of Spain. Women’s Studies International Forum 99 (2023) 102743. open access 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2023.102743

The article contributes to gender regimes theory by proposing a new sub domain within the institutional domain of violence that brings in the penal state – any part of formal politico-administrative structures that arrests and incarcerates women. Based on interdisciplinary research on gender, crime and punishment that shows the importance of understanding the penal state for women’s rights and gender equality, the operational definition of the penality sub domain is proposed and developed in a case study of prison reform and gender equality policy in Spain. The concept development case study not only helps to define and empirically identify the seven dimensions of the new sub domain. It also provides the opportunity to make a larger theoretical reflection of what penality issues mean for the application of gender regimes theory more broadly speaking and future comparative studies of gender equality, prisons and gender regimes.

Ballesteros-Pena, Ana & Bustelo, María (2023) Gender equality in prison reform in Spain: how a gender-biased, closed policy system prevents real change, European Journal of Politics and Gender 6(1): 23-39 https://doi.org/10.1332/251510821X16490897406533

This article aims to understand what happens when gender equality policies cross prison walls – a challenging domain that has traditionally been invisibilised and ignored in the scholarship on gender and politics. By analysing the formulation and post-adoption phases in Spain, four main conclusions are drawn: first, the formulation phase has been highly impacted by the absence of the feminist movement and gender experts, resulting in the adoption of traditional views about the nature and needs of women; second, the lack of knowledge about, or disagreement with, the goals of the public policies activates forms of resistance that block attempts to advance; third, the ideas included in policy documents can be ‘fixed’ in the implementation phase and can eventually shape future courses of action; and, finally, the persistent absence of the feminist movement in the post-adoption phase results in the lack of opportunities to change the course of action towards a more transformative path.

Bustelo, María & Mazur, Amy (2023) The practice of ideas in gender equality policy: comparative lessons from the field, Journal of Politics and Gender 6(1): 3-22 Open access https://doi.org/10.1332/251510821X16696345290590

This thematic section seeks to contribute to emerging research on gender and policy that combines post-adoption and ideational approaches to address how and why ideas matter in gender equality policy implementation. In this article, the two research streams are first discussed. Next, the potential ingredients for gender transformation from current research are presented and then examined in the cases of post-adoption in Spain, the UK, the Netherlands, France and the Council of Europe in the four contributions to the thematic section. The concluding comparative assessment confirms what research has already found: the interplay between actors, ideas and institutions is crucial. Who comes forward and the ideas and political meanings those actors advance are what ultimately matter, dictated in certain policy sectors by the institutional micro-foundations of that domain. The article ends with the lessons learned from, and next steps that come out of, this thematic section.

Tildesley, Rebecca, MariaCaterina La Barbera, & Emanuela Lombardo (2023) ““What Use is the Legislation to Me?” Contestations Around the Meanings of Gender Equality in Legislation and Its Strategic Use to Drive Structural Change in University Organizations.” Gender, Work & Organization: 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13039.

Multiple meanings of gender equality in the implementation process provide feminist actors in institutions with opportunities to contest these meanings to address resistance against gender equality policy implementation and drive structural change in organizations. Taking legislation as a key discursive resource and Spanish universities as a case study, this article analyzes how the meaning of gender equality is constructed in the relevant legislation and how feminist actors interpret and use it in their implementation efforts. Despite a women approach predominating in the legislation, feminist actors contest and reinterpret these meanings to push for a more transformative gender approach in their institutions. They strategically use the legislation, molding it to their preferred approach, to negotiate the meaning of gender equality and to drive structural gender equality actions and demand institutional compliance.