4 - Policy Linkages and Organizational Strategy

Summary

In Chapter 4, the applicability of this practice is considered by answering the question: to what extent does participation in intersectional advocacy vary depending on the level of government or political context where the advocacy takes place? Drawing from a qualitative analysis of 43 interviews with organizational leaders, this chapter presents how intersectional advocacy was applied at the municipal, state, and federal levels. This analysis shows that organizational leaders strategically established policy connections between gendered violence and unaffordable housing, inaccessible healthcare, and mass incarceration. The chapter then describes how issue and policy linkages vary across these problem areas and the level of government advocates are situated within. The types of institutional boundaries they encountered as they intervened in these policymaking processes are also described here. Ultimately, the chapter illustrates how the practice of intersectional advocacy transcended these three different levels of government, and that groups deployed different strategies depending on these varying contexts.