Are societal coalitions a prerequisite to promote redistribution in Latin America

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Are societal coalitions a prerequisite to promote
redistribution in Latin America?
Variations across welfare regimes Chile, Costa
Rica El Salvador Juliana Martínez Franzoni
Koen Voorend
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Question 1

• Is social policy contributing to redistribution?
• Under qualitatively different constellations of
  labor markets, social policy and families

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Three worlds of Latin American welfare
US2000
18
US 200
-3
US4000
US 900
30
40
US6000
US 900
-1
50
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Not so differently!
Primary Income Distribution
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Effects of Social Policy on Distribution
10, 9 and 36 infant mortality per 1000 children
born alive
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Question 2

• What has been the role of societal coalitions in
  promoting redistribution?

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Europe and North America

• To counterbalance elites, progressive parties
  created distributional coalitions with an
  extensive array of actors (Korpi and Palmer)
• Coalitions were contingent on welfare regimes,
  yet they all involved powerful social actors
  (Esping Andersen)
• Virtuous circle The more universal the policies,
  the stronger the coalitions and the more
  universal the policies

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What happens in Latin America?

• Two decades of privatization decentralization
  and targeting
• Retrenchment of social policies for the
  middle-class and growing social assistance to the
  poor
• They did reach the poor through basic services
• With a pro-poor and minimalist view of
  redistribution are there any chances for strong
  societal distributional coalitions?

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Variations across welfare regimes
Redistribution 1990-onwards?
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Societal distributional coalitions
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Looking back

• Redistribution has been driven by technocratic
  elites
• The nature and scope of redistribution has
  depended on their ideology (considering
  departing points)
• We need to fine-tune the role and nature of
  needed distributional coalitions

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Looking forward

• Further redistribution involves different
  challenges across countries / WR
• Chile Can societal coalitions tap into policy
  formation?
• Costa Rica Can elites and societal coalitions
  build alliances?
• El Salvador Can a progressive elite coalition
  work along societal coalitions?

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In short

• The problem is not, in and of itself,
  technocracy
• But technocracys ideology regarding
• Substantive matters (paradigm)
• Policy formation
• Thus, the alliances btw (progressive) gvts and
  collective actors
• Real challenge how to promote good
  technocracies?!!

14
Are societal coalitions a prerequisite to promote
redistribution in Latin America?
Variations across welfare regimes Chile, Costa
Rica El Salvador Juliana Martínez Franzoni
Koen Voorend