Legislative Coalitions across Inequality in Ecuador and Peru

• In Event: Executive Politics

Abstract

When do legislators from distinct, historically marginalized identity groups form coalitions? Coalition building across identities is a core characteristic of intersectional politics, one theorized and advocated for by women of color activists in the United States to cross race and gender lines (Combahee River Collective 1981; Crenshaw 1991; Taylor 2018) and by U.S. leftists to unite distinct races and ethnicities (Guinier and Torres 2002). Yet, the necessary conditions for such coalitions to flourish are poorly understood. When do such coalitions form, and when do they not? In the context of legislatures, I propose that coalitions across identity groups are rooted in historical and collective understandings of shared experiences of discrimination and dispossession. As these vary, so too will be the possibilities for coalition building. I theorize that when shared understandings across groups emerge, they are rooted in histories of struggle through which shared experiences of marginalization are identified and surfaced. Historical alliances forged through shared struggle, I argue, ultimately shape legislator agendas, and inform patterns of coalitions across contexts, even when legislators themselves may not be activists.

To test this theory, I leverage a novel dataset of 20 years of legislative activity in Ecuador and Peru coupled with comparative historical analysis of social movement struggle in each country. Often considered “most similar” countries due to their shared colonial history, Andean location, and large indigenous populations, Ecuador and Peru also differ in key respects. Ecuador has a very strong indigenous movement, while Peru does not (Thorp and Paredes 2010). Moreover, part of what has made Ecuador’s Indigenous movement so successful, according to some scholars, is the alliances it has forged with “lo popular” or the poor and working-class movements in the country (Madrid 2008; 2012). Peru’s Indigenous population, by contrast, is historically not well-organized, nor has it created alliances with other groups (Yashar 1996). Both countries have women’s movements that have deep histories of aligning urban feminist and urban poor women, but which have been less adept at incorporating rural, Indigenous women (Ewig 2006). These different histories of movement struggle should, in turn, inform legislative coalitions across identity groups. I identify these coalitions through analysis of nearly 50,000 bills across the two countries, coded for the identity of the bill author and its content.

I find legislative coalitions between Indigenous and working-class legislators in Ecuador, yet these same alliances are absent in Peru, despite similar socioeconomic and demographic contexts. Moreover, there is a lack of coalitions between women legislators as a group and Indigenous legislators in both countries, except for Indigenous women legislators who advocate for legislation for both women and Indigenous peoples. Coalitions between women legislators and working-class legislators are also absent in both countries. However, both mestiza (mixed white and Indigenous) and Indigenous women legislators are more likely than other groups to propose legislation that advances the redistributive concerns of women.

Author

• Christina Ewig, University of Minnesota