Gender change agents in universities: Mobilising networks for policy implementation?

Gender equality policy implementation is a complex, political process riddled with resistances. Yet research shows that gender change agents, despite lacking positional power, can seize opportunities, form strategic alliances, and create or utilize networks, alongside discursive strategies, to mobilize for gender equality and policy implementation. However, the capacity to do so and strategic choices for action depend on the change agent’s situatedness, relationality and practices of change agency in each context. Furthermore, gender knowledge transfer during implementation can be problematic; organizational actors may not share the change agent’s vision for gender equality, proving to be a source of unproductive tension rather than collaboration and solidarity. This article explores feminist agency and networks in the implementation of gender equality policy in universities. Feminist scholarship has engaged extensively with coalition-building and policy networks for feminist activism and in policy processes as well as networks - as enablers of women’s participation, and leadership in universities. However, the utility and mobilization of networks by feminist change agents in the implementation of gender equality policies in higher education remains relatively unexplored. Furthermore, whilst research has explored resistances to gender equality policy in universities, less attention has been paid to the change agency of the principal gender equality actors, despite longstanding debates around the dilemmas of feminist actors operating within and engaging with institutions. Taking a qualitative comparative case-study approach, this article asks: How and to what effects do gender change agents create, use, and sustain networks for the implementation of gender equality plans in universities? What factors impact the change agent’s capacity to mobilise intra and extra-organizational, formal, and informal networks for the implementation of the university gender equality plan? Two cases in Spain, Complutense University Madrid (UCM) and Pompeu Fabra University Barcelona (UPF), have been chosen due to their distinct implementation trajectories and use of networks for gender equality work. The analysis provides a thick description of the different contexts, opportunity structures, resources, and constraints on the change agency of equality actors to mobilise networks in their efforts to implement gender action plans. In the UPF, the gender change agent has mobilized informal intra-organizational and formal extra-organizational networks wielding a participatory implementation approach, high-level of engagement from stakeholders and greater institutionalization of gender equality. In the UCM, predominantly formal intra-organizational networks have been mobilized, and implementation of the gender equality plan has been slow, less collaborative, marked by setbacks and challenges. The data comes from document analysis (policy and legislative documents, university documents and communication), and interviews with key actors involved in the implementation of the gender equality plans in the two universities. The article applies a feminist institutionalist lens, drawing upon insights from organizational change, feminist agency and social movement theories. It aims to contribute to understandings of gender change agency in higher education as well as around the post-adoption phase of the gender equality policy process, identified in the literature as in need of further theoretical and empirical exploration.