Public Policies Toward LGBT People and Rights in Latin America

In the last 20 years, several countries in Latin America have sought uneven and disparate legal transformations affecting the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals and collectives. These new legal measures have taken place simultaneously, with deepening structures of social, gender, and sexual injustice challenging their view as indicators of progressive change. In this contradictory context, LGBT social policies have emerged as a specialized field of state action because of two parallel trends: the macro political politics affecting the region, and the accumulated experience of gender and sexual social mobilizations in their interactions with the state. There are many variations of this emerging field of social policies because it is shaped by the meaning provided by local actors such as interest groups, activists, and policy makers, and their translation into policy lobbying, policymaking, and policy negotiation. As result of these innovations, gender identity and sexual orientation have nowadays entered into the language of policymaking and policy implementation. These legal measures have opened spaces for social and political participation that were not there before. Nevertheless, LGBT policies are new regimes of governmentality that control the inclusion of gender and sexual social mobilizations into citizenship and democracy.

Triangular Cooperation: Enabling Policy Spaces

In the past decade, a number of studies, reports, and data have been produced on triangular cooperation (TrC). The focus of these publications is mainly on (i) the project level and/or (ii) political relations between stakeholders. I argue that, beyond being an effective modality for the implementation of development projects, TrC is an enabler of policy negotiation spaces. Through TrC, the clashes of traditional principles and practices with a new narrative of Southern providers are loosened, enabling spaces that do not directly confront contested political positions jeopardising the dialogue. The chapter identifies that TrC serves as a bridge for coordination between stakeholders. Findings suggest that it has been used for sharing costs and solutions as well as for the development of joint guidelines and processes.

Narratives of Donor Accountability in Support to Peace Processes: The Case of the Joint Peace Fund in Myanmar

There is a growing scholarly focus on the accountability of Northern donors in their work in recipient countries. Yet scholarly work on donor accountability has given limited attention to the complex challenges of accountability when donors are engaged in supporting peace processes. Further, literature on donor accountability often focuses on examination of accountability mechanisms and relationships, whilst the way accountability is understood amongst practitioners has received less attention. Using the example of donor support to peace processes in Myanmar, this article examines the way that accountability is narrated within donor agencies and amongst international and local networks of peace activists and analysts. When attached to simplified stories, accountability takes a variety of meanings and serves to position donors in different ways. Examination of these narratives, and their divergence, reveals that policy negotiation about accountability mechanisms is influenced by political assumptions about the legitimacy of donor agency engagement in peace processes.

Engaging Hearts and Minds: How and Why Legal Organizations Use Public Education

While scholars recognize that cause lawyers use public education as a reform tactic, they rarely place this tactic at the center of their analysis, leaving a gap in our understanding of how cause lawyers use extrajudicial tactics to navigate the limits of litigation. In this article, I examine the role of public education in the work of cause lawyers, through a study of lawyers from eight legal organizations representing the rights of LGBTQ people. Through interviews, archival work, and analysis of publications, I find that lawyers and organizations use education for four functions: (1) to prime a pathway to successful litigation; (2) to control for backlash; (3) to leverage pressure during litigation or policy negotiation; and (4) to generate community and public awareness. This article shows that public education is not simply an ancillary tool to these groups—it is vital to their missions and their everyday work.

Creative Coercion in Post-Katrina New Orleans: a Neighborhood Strategy to Address Conflict in Networks

The study of relationships within networks has traditionally focused on concepts such as cooperation, collaboration and other forms of partnership (Brown & Keast 2003). The assumption has been that actors in a network have shared vision and are working together. This study tests that idea by using mixed methods and ethnography to examine 15 neighborhood associations in post-Katrina New Orleans, and 71 of their relationships within policy networks. Contrary to our typical understanding of networks, neighborhood associations engage not just in partnership, but also in power struggles. When excluded from policy networks, neighborhood associations use creative coercion to ensure their voice is heard. Facing a power deficit, these associations look for informal levers to assert themselves into policy negotiation. The result is creative and coercive measures, such as co-opting elections, bribery, blackmail and what one neighborhood activist calls ‘guerrilla warfare.’ These conflicts force a reconsideration of networks. Networks are not solely homes of collaborative action; they are also the location of sharp power struggles over priorities.