Politics Close to Home: The Impact of Meso-level Institutions on Women in Politics Candice D. Ortbals*, Meg Rinckery, and Celeste Montoyaz *Pepperdine University;
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[email protected] Scholars recognize a worldwide increase in decentralization as well as the prevalence of multilevel governance in Europe. This article examines the advantages and disadvantages that meso-level http://publius.oxfordjournals.org/ institutions present for women’s political representation in three European Union member-states that are decentralized, unitary states. Using the framework of the triangle of women’s empower- ment, we ask whether women are represented in meso-level legislatures, women’s policy agencies, and women’s movements in Italy, Spain, and Poland. We find that gains in meso-level legislatures are slow, but meso-level women’s policy agencies and movements provide important access for women to politics. Like scholars studying women and federalism, we conclude that decentralized institutions in unitary states offer both opportunities for and impediments to fem- inist policy and activism. at University of Colorado on March 13, 2012 Current discourses about decentralization promise political participation, repre- sentation, and policy for women citizens. For example, in Spain, a sub-state government institute charged with improving gender equality lauded itself as an institution ‘‘with a new philosophy ...where women as individual subjects and as a collective achieve full participation’’ (Delegacio´n de la Mujer 2003, 19). Nevertheless, evidence from other countries suggests that subnational governments are not providing women greater political participation and rights.