In her excellent book, Jennifer Pribble explains why some Latin American states have been more effective than others at reforming social protection in the direction of greater coverage and better quality of benefits for all citizens. In so doing, she takes evidence from four Latin American countries (Chile and Uruguay as primary cases; Argentina and Venezuela as secondary cases) and three policy areas: health care, non-contributory social assistance and education.

Pribble develops a novel definition for her dependent variable, universalism. The concept of universalism has been frequently used to analyze advanced European welfare systems that exhibit high quality social benefits as a right of citizenship. This is not the case in Latin American countries that have a larger informal labour market, social protection systems based on formal employment and a legacy of particularism associated to social provision. Pribble acknowledges these characteristics and defines universalism to refer to ‘social policies that guarantee coverage for a set of essential social services … and ensure a basic minimum income during the working years and after exiting the labour market –because of old age, sickness, or employment’ (pp. 7–8). She then identifies four dimensions: the universalisation of coverage, the character of policy implementation (whether it is transparent or discretionary), the quality of services and segmentation in benefit generosity and the existence of equitable and sustainable financing. Based on these dimensions, Pribble classifies social policy reforms as pure universalism, advanced universalism, moderate universalism, weak universalism and neutral, regressive or failed reform. In this way, she escapes reductionist and dichotomous conceptualisations of universalism.

The book is organised into eight chapters. The first two chapters identify the key concepts and the theoretical model used to examine social policy reform in Latin America. The following three chapters analyze the successful and failed attempts to reform health care, non-contributory social assistance and education in the primary cases of Chile and Uruguay. Chapter 6 examines the political party character of the constituency-coordinating Uruguayan left/centre-left and its opposition vis-à-vis the electoral–professional left/centre-left of Chile and the right/centre-right opposition. This detailed analysis shows that the character of political parties shapes social policy. Chapter 7 explains the slow progress towards universalism of Argentina and Venezuela. The final chapter summarises the main findings and implications of the book and suggests possible avenues for future research.

Throughout the book, the author offers a compelling theoretical argument to show that three equally important factors help to explain different degrees of universalism. First, policy legacies are important because they affect existing problems and produce a need for future reforms. They also influence power distribution within each policy area by empowering some organisations while weakening others. Second, the nature of electoral competition is a key factor. Parties facing intense competition have more incentives to gain the allegiance of broad sectors of society, so they tend to produce universalistic social policy as opposed to parties confronting a weak opposition. It is also important to locate the position of electoral competition on the ideological spectrum to predict whether reforms will be likely to produce moderate or radical results. Third, political party character, defined as the combination of ideology, organisational structure and predominant linkage mechanism, is crucial as parties have a fundamental role in shaping and transforming social policy. The author identifies four types of parties, namely: constituency-mobilising, electoral-professional, charismatic movement and non-programmatic-electoral. These parties may be located on different sides of the left–right ideological spectrum. The fact that the political party character is crucial to predict cross-national variation in social policy change is probably the most important finding of this book.

To evaluate the impact of these factors, the author relies on process tracing based on more than 130 interviews, extensive archival research and the study of press and legislative reports. This evidence convincingly shows that there are two main paths to universalism. Chile's centre-left Concertación's coalition represents one of these paths, which resulted in a top-down reform style associated to the presence of a technocratic elite insulated from societal forces. As the author asserts, ‘this path is made possible by the presence of a left/centre-left electoral professional party in government and is further facilitated by favourable policy legacies and intense electoral competition’ (pp. 173–174).

The second path, exemplified by Uruguay's first Frente Amplio government, is associated to the presence of a left/centre-left constituency-coordinating governing party that promotes a bottom-up reform process. In this case, ‘because constituency-coordinating parties exhibit strong ties with social movements, the organisations are more effective at overcoming opposition and mobilising support behind their initiatives’ (p. 174). Contrastingly, an analysis of the cases of Argentina and Venezuela shows that not all left/centre-left governments have been able to produce greater universalism. In fact, despite their commitment to equity, left/centre-left non-programmatic-electoral parties of Argentina and Venezuela, have weak ties to the base and rely on a system of patronage and/or group-based benefits and/or the presence of a charismatic leader. As a result, progress towards universalism in these two countries has been slow.

Overall, this book is an outstanding contribution to our knowledge of the patterns of social policy reform in Latin America. It demonstrates that policy legacies, electoral competition and party character are key variables to explain the contrasting ability of Latin American countries to promote universalism. The conceptualisation and assessment of political party character is probably the strongest contribution of this book. As the author herself emphasises, her findings on party character ‘helps resolve a long-standing theoretical debate over the relevance of political parties for the formation of social policy in contemporary Latin America and has practical consequences for the ability of Latin American's recent left turn to produce reductions in poverty and inequality’ (p. 177). Perhaps future research may be able to show how well Pribble theory travels across nations, historical periods and policy areas.