A Political Opportunity: The Build-Up of the Colombian Campaign against ‘Gender Ideology’ in the 2016 Peace Plebiscite

Authors

Abstract

After the 2012-2016 peace process between the Colombian government and the FARC rebels, influential right-wing leaders and anti-gender activists disputed the inclusion of gender equality in the peace agreement. These actors reactivated a national network that portrayed gender as a ‘threat’ to societal morals, and their ideas mobilized people to protest before the plebiscite elections. This article examines how the right-wing network built the campaign against ‘gender ideology’ to contest the peace agreement. Methods include archival creation with materials from anti-gender activists and a Senator, and 24 semi-structured interviews with participants of the peace negotiations and the plebiscite campaigning. Findings revealed that the right-wing network articulated three events as a political opportunity to build the campaign against ‘gender ideology.’

Keywords:

Gender ideology, campaign, peace, political opportunity, Colombia

Author Biography

Angela Maria Bohorquez Oviedo, University of Delaware

Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Delaware in the United States. She holds MAs in Social Sciences from Universidad de Caldas (Colombia) and Université Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne (France). Her bachelor’s degree is in Communication and Journalism Studies from Universidad de Manizales (Colombia). Bohórquez Oviedo’s multicultural, interdisciplinary, and bilingual research and teaching focus on Latin American politics, women and gender issues, and the reorganization of transnational movements and networks that rely on traditional and social media to reach their political ends.