The welfare state and social policy analysis, either because of their impact on people’s living conditions or their centrality in the social and political debate, have seduced numerous researchers from different disciplines, such as political science, economics, law, history, and sociology. However, this research—both theoretically and empirically—has limited the geographical scope of its analysis to Western industrialized countries (see Esping-Andersen 1990). Only in the last decade has interest in other regions of the world grown (see Gough and Wood 2004; Haggard and Kaufman 2008).
In this sense, this collective work is part of the scientific literature that has paid attention to the development of social protection systems in the Latin American region (see, among others, Martínez Franzoni 2008). This new book, edited by Natália Satyro, professor of political science at the Federal University of Minas Gerais; Eloísa del Pino, a researcher at the Spanish National Research Council; and Carmen Midaglia, professor of political science at the University of the Republic, with the participation of a large team of prestigious researchers, analyzes the scope of reforms and changes in social protection systems in Latin America from the 2000s to 2015. This was a period of expansion, characterized by a shift toward more inclusive social policies—“postneoliberal” welfare policies—with conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs and health and old age protection reforms, as well as increased investment in education.
The work’s main contribution derives from the review and updating of scientific research in this field of study, and in this geographical area in particular, bringing the findings and the intense debate that underlies them into the first decades of the twenty-first century. This effort to order, systematize, and dialogue with existing works and contributions in the literature offers us an interesting holistic view of, on the one hand, the variety and internal consistency of the different welfare regimes, and on the other hand, the reforms in the architecture of the main areas of social policy, such as social security, health, family policy, and antipoverty policies, and their results for citizens’ welfare. In this way, this collective book stands as a turning point for future research, both theoretical and empirical, by broadening the case studies and the choice and novel use of specific indicators and explanatory variables of these transformations in the particular case of the Latin American context.
In terms of structure, the book is organized in 3 parts with 11 chapters. The first part analyzes the welfare regimes present in Latin America. After an introductory chapter by the editors, Gala Díaz Langou examines and updates in chapter 2 the reforms carried out in the countries that are part of stratified universalistic regimes (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Costa Rica). After a historical review of protection schemes, the author notes that since the early 2000s, social protection systems in these countries have responded to political, economic, and sociodemographic changes with a process of recalibration (49—52). Despite increased social spending in these states’ budgets and extensive efforts to reduce the informal economy by strengthening the overall coverage of the system (55), problems and challenges remain in certain social policy sectors, and a significant part of the population remains in poverty.
The purpose of the reforms in the five countries belonging to dual welfare regimes (Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela) and the effect on the promotion or restriction of social citizenship are analyzed in chapter 3 by Enrique Valencia and Carlos Barba. The authors point out that the changes in health policies, pensions, and CCT programs have been neoliberal in inspiration, market-centered (clearly in Mexico and, to a lesser extent, in Colombia) and universalist, or state-centered (as evidenced in the cases of Brazil and Venezuela), depending on the political ideology of the governments that implemented them (61—62). In this group of countries, despite being part of the same welfare regime, the extent of reforms has been uneven. In the case of health reforms (concentrated between 1984 and 2005), countries with a left-wing government have developed a welfare approach, while in countries with center-right governments, the residual, market, or mixed approach has prevailed (79—81).
Analía Minteguiaga and Gemma Ubasart-González identify in chapter 4 the processes of change and continuity in the exclusion regimes present in three Andean countries: Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, which have historically shared similar trends in the provision of social welfare (101). The period of prosperity and high economic growth experienced in the early 2000s and the crucial mobilizations of indigenous peoples, miners, youth, and left-wing groups, among others, led to greater access to social benefits such as citizens’ rights and a general improvement in social policies. However, the government’s political orientation seems to determine the continuity of the neoliberal paradigm in the Peruvian case and the impulse toward a more social approach (reducing inequalities in access to education and the labor market) in the cases of Ecuador and Bolivia (128—29).
Chapter 5, by Armando Barrientos and Martin Powell, examines how effectively the spread of old age pensions and social assistance programs is moving Latin American countries toward a liberal welfare regime (present, for example, in the United States and the United Kingdom), with a clear preference for market solutions to address social problems (135—36). The authors conclude that it is difficult to define the “ideal contours” of the liberal welfare regime and that institutional diversity does not allow for a consensus on which countries fit this model. For example, the financial crisis that began in 2007 has reinforced the role of public pensions and the institutionalization of social assistance in the region, further restricting the role of the market in welfare provision (155).
The second part of the book, which deals with changes and reforms in the most representative public policy sectors, begins with chapter 6, by Gibrán Cruz-Martínez, Luis Vargas Faulbaum, and Ricardo Velázquez-Leyer, dedicated to pension programs. Despite successive reforms since the 2000s, with at least 6 types of pension systems implemented in 28 countries in the region, the results have not always been as desired. A series of limitations and challenges relates to the quality of the programs, the existence of irregular labor trajectories, and the persistence of gender inequalities, which must be overcome if Latin American protection systems are to be considered true welfare states (187—88; see also Cruz-Martínez 2019).
Guillermo Fuentes, Fabricio Carneiro, and Martín Freigedo answer the question, what are the effects of waves of reform on the structures of Latin American health systems? in chapter 7. In terms of results, all the countries studied in this chapter (Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, and Argentina) have made progress in both coverage and health spending, albeit each with a different scope and intensity (214—20). However, according to the authors, institutional and public policy legacies explain the persistence of severe segmentation problems in coverage in some parts of the region. This is despite the existence of common challenges in health systems or the penetration of ideas from international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) or the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) (221).
Simone Cecchini looks in chapter 8 at the emergence and development of CCT programs in Latin America and the Caribbean since their first introduction in Brazil in 1995 (226). In 2019, 20 countries in the region were implementing 28 programs, the purpose of which has been to reduce monetary poverty and promote skills through the conditionality attached to them that children attend medical checkups and school. According to Cecchini, factors such as government partisanship, the particular characteristics of local institutions, internal political dynamics, and the economic growth experienced in the region would explain the expansion and trajectories of these programs (223—47). The author draws attention to whether uncertainty linked to the worsening economic situation or gaps in coverage may endanger the continuity of these programs (248-49).
Merike Blofield, Fernando Filgueira, Cecilia Giambruno, and Juliana Martínez Franzoni capture and explain in chapter 9 the structural trends concerning changing household needs and how these interact with markets and state transformations. Gender, age, and family “arrangements” create different family regimes, with relevant implications for the extent and type of protection that families themselves provide to different family members (256). According to the authors, the transformation of families must be seen as a truly silent revolution, with a significant expansion of women’s education and income-generating capacity (281). However, this process has not succeeded in reversing women’s lack of empowerment in general or developing an egalitarian gender contract—beyond the traditional sexual division of labor— except for upper- and upper-middle-class families (concerning income level).
Along the same thematic line, Carmen Midaglia and Natália Sátyro analyze in chapter 10 the main types of family policies promoted in the region. The conclusion they reach is that although various programs have been developed in this area in Latin America, they were subsidiary to other social policies, such as social assistance linked to situations of poverty and vulnerability (288). Moreover, most of the reforms and policies implemented in this area, such as maternity and paternity programs, have extended families’ responsibility—rather than the state’s—to protect their members, reinforcing the dominant and incomplete model of regional protection (310).
The third section of the book reflects on the possible end of an era in social development in the region with the return of right-wing administrations in several countries after more progressive experiences. To explore the importance of political factors in welfare cuts, Natalia Sátyro analyzes in chapter 11 the case of Brazil, starting with the creation of the New Fiscal Regime (NFR) under the conservative Temer government. The author demonstrates that this reform was, in essence, a policy of dismantling, which led to a systemic reduction in social protection, capping the federal budget and restricting social spending for the next 20 years; decoupling, for example, health spending from economic growth (336). This chapter provides further empirical evidence of the importance of factors such as the type of political system, institutional architecture, or party ideology in explaining the scope and intensity of social policy reform.
In sum, the book is a valuable and necessary contribution to the comparative study of social protection systems in Latin America. Perhaps missing from this book is the inclusion of more case studies from the Caribbean subregion, such as the Dominican Republic, Cuba, or Haiti. On the other hand, if we are to examine the existence (or not) of a new era in the development of social protection systems in the region, it would be good to complement the case of Temer’s government in Brazil with other current governments, such as Piñera’s in Chile or Maduro’s in Venezuela. This would allow us to see from a comparative point of view how some of the political determinants have behaved in change and reform processes in recent times. Finally, the consistency and validity of the analyses and results presented in this compilation are bound to be qualified by the crossroads situation in which the region finds itself today (spring 2021), in the midst of a social, health, and economic crisis caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic.
