This research work – and its researcher – is positioned from a feminist perspective that dialogues with sociology and political science, to explain and interpret the role and position of the State in the face of gender inequalities. From the theoretical review, the nodes, and conditions of the process of institutionalization of gender in the State of Chile are identified as a topic of interest and central question of this research, within the framework of the presidential alternations that occurred between 2006 and 2016. Indeed, the process of institutionalization of gender, within the framework of these presidential alternations, constitutes a phenomenon of central study to understand the development of gender policy in Chile. Consequently, the institutionalization of gender emerges as a central analytical concept that, in this research, has been approached progressively, that is, in a logic of coupling between general theoretical guidelines and specific theoretical discussions, in connection with the data. empirical. In theoretical terms, the problem is approached from two approaches. First, a more structural look, in such a way as to explain the relationship between the State, the notion of gender regimes and the processes in which gender inequalities are produced, reproduced, and transformed. At a level closer to the phenomenon of study, the theoretical perspectives are exposed from which this research has proposed to analyze the process of institutionalization of gender in the State. It is understood, therefore, that the State constitutes a central actor in the process, since not only does it exercise it action on a reality configured by gender relations, but also within the framework of certain practices of production of well-being and allocation of resources, which are channeled institutionally. The applied methodological design corresponds to a qualitative research, focused on discourse analysis, to study how discursive frameworks, political strategies and modes of interaction, as social practices, condition the institutionalization process of gender in Chile. The data collection work was developed in successive phases through two methods: the use of documents and the thematic individual interview. The research represents a contribution since it relates the modes of interaction of the actors and political strategies with institutional political discourses and with government agendas on gender equality and equity. Closely related, another of the empirical departments of the thesis is the analysis of the institutionalization of gender in the State under the prism of neo-institutional approaches, approached as both a political-institutional process and as a social practice, adding the notion of institutional change and power conflict as unavoidable aspects of the process.
Author: MarÃa Soledad Ascencio Cortés
Supervisor: Pilar Carrasquer Oto & Sara Moreno Colom
Date of thesis defense: 05/02/2021
