The challenges of gender parity. normative tension and political violence in Bolivia and Ecuador

Abstract

Bolivia and Ecuador reformed their Constitutions in order to establish new plurinational and intercultural states through the creation of new institutions and territories, within a political framework based on the active participation of social organizations and indigenous peoples, constitutional dispositions include the design of electoral lists based on a parity principle. This transition, from quotas to parity, placed Bolivia and Ecuador among the countries with the most advanced political gender rules. However, different barriers such as the electoral system and some cultural practices like political gender violence, condition the effectiveness of political parity. This paper seeks to explore the complex political and social processes that take place in Bolivia and Ecuador, where the logic of representative democracy and the most advanced rules for women political participation coexist with the logic of community democracy and patriarchal cultural practices.