Herstory de la construcción de la democracia paritaria en México

Abstract

This article analyzes the historical construction of parity democracy in Mexico from a political science and feminist neo-institutionalist perspective. It argues that parity is neither a linear nor an exclusively legal outcome, but rather the contingent product of the interaction among strategic feminist action, democratic transition, and the transnationalization of gender and human rights norms. Through a long-term historical reconstruction, it examines the trajectory from suffrage to quotas, from strategic litigation to the constitutionalization of parity, and subsequently to the expansion of the principle of “Parity in Everything.” The argument distinguishes two dimensions of parity democracy: women’s descriptive representation and the institutional capacity to translate it into substantive representation, public policies, budgets, and accountability mechanisms oriented toward equality. The article shows that cross-party coordination, the autonomy of electoral institutions, and the incorporation of international law produced a cumulative trajectory of institutional change. Nevertheless, since 2018 a decoupling has become apparent between the continuity of numerical representation and the weakening of mechanisms for mainstreaming a gender perspective. For this reason, parity democracy should be assessed both in terms of women’s access to power and in terms of its capacity to transform gender relations, sustain an egalitarian institutional framework, and guarantee the effective exercise of women’s rights.