El artículo analiza los principales aportes de la literatura académica acerca de los regímenes de políticas sociales que se configuraron en los países latinoamericanos desde inicios del siglo XX hasta la actualidad. Se concentra en la variación en los regímenes de políticas sociales a nivel intrarregional, a lo largo del tiempo, así como en los factores políticos que explican esos resultados. Tras la identificación de tres etapas en el desarrollo de las políticas sociales, el estudio destaca los desafíos que hoy en día se plantean en materia de protección social, los principales aportes y vacíos en la literatura, así como asuntos a profundizar en una futura agenda de investigación.
This article focuses on an analysis of social insurance models and reforms in Chile, Uruguay and Brazil. Noting that these three countries are following different reform trajectories, the article explores trends in the restructuring of each of these insurance systems across the course of successive reforms. In the systems, different trends are supporting a closer link between contributions and benefits, according growing importance to private individual accounts and favouring the expansion of the role played by social assistance. These trends all suggest a move towards various forms of multipillared social insurance, but with uncertain results in terms of redistribution and the dynamics of the fundamental objectives of social insurance.i ssr_1384 53..72
The use of veto points to block policy change has received significant attention in Latin America, but the different institutional venues have not been analyzed in a unified framework. Uruguay is exceptional in that political actors use both referendums and judicial review as effective ways to oppose public policies. While the activation of direct democracy mechanisms in Uruguay has been widely studied, the surge in the use of the judicial venue remains underexplored. This article argues that veto point use responds to the ideological content of policies adopted by different coalitions and the type of interest organization affected. It shows that policy opponents predominantly activate referendums when center-right coalitions rule and judicial review when center-left coalitions govern. It illustrates the causal argument by tracing the politics of court and referendum activation. This approach helps to bridge the gap between research on direct democracy and judicial politics, providing a unified framework.
The redistributive reforms carried out by center-left governments in Chile and Uruguay in the 2000s affected the core interests of economic elites. Efforts to increase taxes on high-income sectors and reform the institutions that regulate the capital-labor relationship produced different results in the two countries. While Uruguay adopted significant reforms, reforms in Chile were marginal in 2000–2010 and moderate in 2014–2016. Their different trajectories are related to different configurations of the distribution of power resources between the elites and the social organizations that represent the interests of low-income sectors. Las reformas redistributivas llevadas a cabo por los gobiernos de centro-izquierda en Chile y Uruguay en la década de 2000 afectaron los intereses centrales de las élites económicas. Los esfuerzos para aumentar los impuestos a los sectores de altos ingresos y reformar las instituciones que regulan la relación capital-trabajo produjeron resultados diferentes en los dos países. Mientras que Uruguay adoptó reformas significativas, las reformas en Chile fueron marginales en 2000–2010 y moderadas en 2014–2016. Sus diferentes trayectorias están relacionadas con diferentes configuraciones de la distribución de recursos de poder entre las élites y las organizaciones sociales que representan los intereses de los sectores de bajos ingresos.
The extent to which conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are aligned with the social investment paradigm is still a contested issue. In this chapter, the authors offer new evidence to understand the conditions under which CCTs should be considered social investment reforms. To do so, they analyze the heterogeneity of 24 CCTs in 12 Latin American countries. They find that not all CCTs are created equal but instead vary in the design and stringency of their conditionalities. The authors then turn to understanding this variation, arguing that the type of conditionality is driven by the political dynamics of reform. By analyzing the trajectory of four cases, they argue that ideological preferences are important to shape governments’ choices regarding conditionalities. When strong preferences are not present, though, there is room for conditionalities’ designs to be used by governments in an effort of coalition-building or to gain support from the opposition or specific constituencies.
Uruguay stands out as an exceptional case for having a vibrant party system, stable democracy, and frequent use of direct democracy mechanisms (MDDs). Previous research has explained the use of MDDs as a means of opposing centre-right governments, but it has failed to explain the subsequent use of these mechanisms during the period of alternation between the major ideological blocs in government after 2005. We make an empirical contribution by describing the practice of direct democracy actions and explaining their fate through a qualitative comparative analysis that assesses how well the theoretical expectations proposed by Altman are borne out in the Uruguayan case in the latest period. We conclude that the politics of direct democracy change when ideological blocs alternate in government and that direct democracy initiatives fail due to the lack of lobbying power, high government approval rates, or non-concurrency of the vote with the presidential election in the context of a positive economic environment.
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