Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Mapping Welfare State Development in (post) Neoliberal Latin America

  • Original Research
  • Published:
Social Indicators Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

A Correction to this article was published on 27 May 2021

This article has been updated

Abstract

Why have some countries in Latin America and the Caribbean developed more comprehensive welfare systems than others? Do political and economic factors help us signal the (un) favourable paths taken by countries with different degrees of welfare state development in the XXI century? This paper addresses limitations of previous comparative research to continue (re) searching the conditions of welfare state development. A composite multidimensional welfare state development index (WeSDI) is constructed for 18 countries between 2000–2015. The four dimensions are the magnitude of social expenditure, the scope of coverage of welfare programmes, quality of the coverage of welfare programmes and outcomes of welfare institutions. The WeSDI uses goalposts (i.e. natural zeros and aspirational targets) to normalise individual indices and avoid the “relativity problems” of results. We use crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to test how necessary and/or sufficient eight political and economic conditions are (alone or in combination) to foster multidimensional welfare state development in the region. The causal conditions are openness to external shocks, debt obligations, revenue-collection capabilities, labour movement strength, strength of the left, policy legacies of welfare institutions, size of the outsider population and quality of democracy. The paper confirms the relevance of democratic strength, and revenue-collection capabilities as sufficient conditions of the highest levels of welfare state development in the (post) neoliberal era. In addition to labour movement strength, these same economic and political factors are relevant to understand the conditions behind very low levels of welfare state development.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Change history

Notes

  1. Following Ruckert et al. (2017) the concept is useful “if we understand it as a tendency to break with neoliberal policy prescriptions leading to a variety of distinct post-neoliberalisms”.

  2. See Barrientos (2004) for a common regional welfare regime for Latin America. See Barba Solano (2005), Filgueira (1999), Marcel and Rivera (2008), Martínez Franzoni (2008), Pribble (2011) for intra-regional welfare regimes in the region. See Cruz-Martinez (2020) for intra-national welfare regimes in the region.

  3. For the case of Argentina, we adopted the alternatives measures proposed by Huber and Stephens. Rather than considering the Kirchners executive governments as ‘other’—like Coppedge (1997) does—the Kirchners’ governments are considered Secular centre-left. The seat share in the lower house is also modified to show the Peronist parties aligned with the Kirchners.

  4. “The electoral principle of democracy seeks to embody the core value of making rulers responsive to citizens, achieved through electoral competition for the electorate’s approval under circumstances when suffrage is extensive; political and civil society organizations can operate freely; elections are clean and not marred by fraud or systematic irregularities; and elections affect the composition of the chief executive of the country” (Coppedge et al. 2018a, p. 40).

  5. “The liberal principle of democracy emphasizes the importance of protecting individual and minority rights against the tyranny of the state and the tyranny of the majority” (Coppedge et al. 2018a, p. 40).

  6. “The deliberative principle of democracy focuses on the process by which decisions are reached in a polity” (Coppedge et al. 2018a, p. 41).

  7. “The participatory principle of democracy emphasizes active participation by citizens in all political processes, electoral and non-electoral” (Coppedge et al. 2018a, p. 41).

  8. “The egalitarian principle of democracy holds that material and immaterial inequalities inhibit the exercise of formal rights and liberties, and diminish the ability of citizens from all social groups to participate” (Coppedge et al. 2018a, p. 42).

  9. It would be a quite difficult task to be able to justify an objective or theoretically sound threshold, not only because of the nature of these conditions but also because most of them are composite indicators. How to justify that 30, 40, 50, 60, or 70% is a reasonable cut-off point for economic openness? For example, Segura-Ubiergo (2007) used 30% as a threshold in his QCA analysis. However, I found this even more subjective than using “mechanical cut-off points”. This is the reason for using the mean – and the 0.5 of the normalised index operationalising the causal conditions in the robustness check – as a cut-off point for obtaining relative results.

  10. Following Ragin (2008), a necessary condition contains the outcome of interest while a sufficient condition must be present for the outcome to take place.

  11. Schneider and Wagemann (2012) recommends using 0.90 as the threshold for a condition to be considered a necessary condition, which indicates that 90% or more of the cases exhibiting the outcome also exhibit the condition.

References

  • Amable, B., Gatti, D., & Schumacher, J. (2006). Welfare-state retrenchment: The partisan effect revisited. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 22(3), 426–444. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/grj025.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barba Solano, C. (2005). Paradigmas y regímenes de bienestar. Costa Rica: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barba Solano, C. (2009). Los regímenes de bienestar latinoamericanos y la reforma social. In C. Barba Solano, G. Ordoñez Barba, & E. Valencia Lomelí (Eds.), Más allá de la pobreza: Regímenes de bienestar en Europa, Asia y América (pp. 327–370). Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barreix, A., Corrales, L. F., Díaz, S., & Garcimartín, C. (2017). Actualización de la presión fiscal equivalente en América Latina y el Caribe. Documento para discusión Nº IDB-DP-548: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo.

  • Barrientos, A. (2004). Latin America: Towards a liberal-informal welfare regime. In I. Gough & G. Wood (Eds.), Insecurity and welfare regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America: social policy in development contexts (pp. 121–168). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barrientos, A. (2019). Social protection in Latin America: One region two systems. In G. Cruz Martinez (Ed.), Welfare and social protection in contemporary Latin America. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campello, D. (2015). The politics of market discipline in Latin America: Globalization and democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • CEPAL. (2018a). CEPALSTAT: United Nations: http://estadisticas.cepal.org/.

  • CEPAL. (2018b). Panorama Social de América Latina 2017. Santiago de Chile: United Nations. Retrieved from https://www.cepal.org/es/publicaciones/42716-panorama-social-america-latina-2017-documento-informativo.

  • Coppedge, M. (1997). A classification of Latin American Political Parties. Working Paper #244. Kellogg Institute. http://nd.edu/~kellogg/publications/workingpapers/WPS/244.pdf.

  • Coppedge, M., Gerring, J., Knutsen, C. H., Lindberg, S. I., Skaaning, S.-E. S., Teorell, J., Ziblatt, D. (2018). “V-Dem Codebook v8” Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project.

  • Coppedge, M., Gerring, J., Knutsen, C. H., Lindberg, S. I., Skaaning, S.-E., Teorell, J., Ziblatt, D. (2018). “V-Dem [Country-Year/Country-Date] Dataset v8”. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project.

  • Cruz-Martinez, G. (2014). Welfare state development in Latin America and the Caribbean (1970–2000s): Multidimensional welfare index, its methodology and results. Social Indicators Research, 119(3), 1295–1317. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0549-7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cruz-Martinez, G. (2017a). Is there a common path that could have conditioned the degree of welfare state development in Latin America and the Caribbean? Bulletin of Latin American Research, 36(4), 459–476. https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.12556.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cruz-Martinez, G. (2017b). Welfare state development, individual deprivations and income inequality: A Cross-Country Analysis in Latin America and the Caribbean. Social Indicators Research, 134(3), 955–979. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1465-4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cruz-Martinez, G. (2020). A Bottom-up picture of intra-national welfare regimes: The case of marginalised communities in Puerto Rico. Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, 36(2), 175–199. https://doi.org/10.1080/21699763.2018.1526696.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dion, M. (2006). Globalización, tipo de régimen político y gasto social en países de ingresos medios, 1980–1999. Política y gobierno, 13(1), 11–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorlach, T. (2020). The causes of welfare state expansion in democratic middle-income countries: A literature review. Social Policy and Administration. https://doi.org/10.1111/spol.12658.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dreher, A. (2006). Does globalization affect growth? Evidence from a new index of globalization. Applied Economics, 38(10), 1091–1110. https://doi.org/10.1080/00036840500392078.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ewig, C. (2016). Reform and electoral competition: Convergence toward equity in Latin American health sectors. Comparative Political Studies, 49(2), 184–218. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414015600467.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fairfield, T., & Garay, C. (2017). Redistribution under the right in Latin America: Electoral competition and organized actors in policymaking. Comparative Political Studies, 50(14), 1871–1906. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414017695331.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feenstra, R. C., Inklaar, R., & Timmer, M. P. (2015). The next generation of the penn world table. American Economic Review, 105(10), 3150–3182.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Filgueira, F. (1999). Tipos de welfare y reformas sociales en América Latina: Eficiencia, residualismo y ciudadanía estratificada. In M. Melo (Ed.), Reforma do Estado e Mudanca Institucional no Brasil. Fundacao Joaquim Nabuco: Recife.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garay, C. (2016). Social policy expansion in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Grassi, D. (2014). Democracy and social welfare in Uruguay and Paraguay. Latin American Politics and Society, 56, 120–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2014.00225.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Graziano, P., & Jessoula, M. (2018). Explaining welfare state developments: Towards a Comparative Research Agenda. Sciences Po LIEPP Working Paper (76), 1–25.

  • Grugel, J., & Riggirozzi, P. (2012). Post-neoliberalism in Latin America: Rebuilding and Reclaiming the State after Crisis. Development and Change, 43(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2011.01746.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gygli, S., Haelg, F., & Sturm, J.-E. (2018). The KOF globalisation index— Revisited. KOF Working Paper, 439.

  • Haggard, S., & Kaufman, R. (2004). Revising social contracts: social spending in Latin America, East Asia, and the Former socialist countries, 1980–2000. Revista de ciencia política (Santiago), 24, 3–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haggard, S., & Kaufman, R. R. (2009). Development, democracy, and welfare states: Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Huber, E., & Stephens, J. D. (2012). Democracy and the left. Social policy and inequality in Latin America. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Huber, E., & Stephens, J. (2016). Latin America and Caribbean Political Dataset, 1945–2012.

  • IADB, & CIAT. (2017). Latin America and the Caribbean fiscal burden database.

  • ILO. (2018). ILOSTAT. Social security inquiry database.

  • Inter-American Development Bank. (2018). Sociometro-BID: https://www.iadb.org/en/research-and-data/sociometro-bid%2C6981.html.

  • Jordan, E., Gross, M. E., Javernick-Will, A. N., & Garvin, M. J. (2011). Use and misuse of qualitative comparative analysis. Construction Management and Economics, 29(11), 1159–1173. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2011.640339.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, R. R., & Segura-Ubiergo, A. (2001). Globalization, domestic politics, and social spending in Latin America: A time-series cross-section analysis, 1973–97. World Politics, 53(4), 553–587.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keohane, R. O., & Nye, J. S. (2000). Introduction. In J. S. Nye & J. D. Donahue (Eds.), Governance in a globalizing world (pp. 1–44). Washington, D.C.: Brooking Institution Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Korpi, W. (1983). The democratic class struggle. Londres: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kurtz, M. J., & Brooks, S. M. (2008). Embedding neoliberal reform in Latin America. World Politics, 60(2), 231–280. https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.0.0015.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lamartina, S., & Zaghini, A. (2011). Increasing public expenditure: Wagner’s law in OECD countries. German Economic Review, 12(2), 149–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lora, E. (2009). La Vulnerabilidad Fiscal del Gasto Social: ¿Es Diferente America Latina? Revista de análisis económico, 24, 3–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lora, E., & Olivera, M. (2007). Public debt and social expenditure: Friends or foes? Emerging Markets Review, 8(4), 299–310. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ememar.2006.12.004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mainwaring, S., Brick, D., & Perez-Liñan, A. (2001). Classifying political regimes in Latin America, 1945–1999. Studies in International Comparative Development, 36(1), 37–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marcel, M., & Rivera, E. (2008). Regímenes de bienestar en América Latina. In E. Tironi (Ed.), Redes, Estado y Mercado. Soportes de la Cohesión Social Latinoamericana. Uqbar editores: Santiago de Chile.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martínez Franzoni, J. (2008). Welfare regimes in Latin America: Capturing constellations of markets, families, and policies. Latin American Politics and Society, 50(2), 67–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martín-Mayoral, F., & Sastre, J. F. (2017). Determinants of social spending in Latin America during and after the Washington consensus: A dynamic panel error-correction model analysis. Latin American Economic Review, 26(1), 10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40503-017-0053-6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mesa-Lago, C. (1978). Social security in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mesa-Lago, C. (1983). Social security and extreme poverty in Latin America. Journal of Developmental Economics, 12(1–2), 83–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mesa-Lago, C. (1994). Changing social security in Latin America. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Niedzwiecki, S. (2015). Social policy commitment in South America. The effect of organized labor on social spending from 1980 to 2010. Journal of Politics in Latin America, 7(2), 3–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Niedzwiecki, S., & Pribble, J. (2017). Social policies and center-right governments in Argentina and Chile. Latin American Politics and Society, 59(3), 72–97. https://doi.org/10.1111/laps.12027.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • OECD, IADB, & ECLAC. (2014). Revenue Statistics in Latin America 2014.

  • PAHO/WHO. (2017). Health Situation in the Americas: Core Indicators.

  • Pemstein, D., Marquardt, K. L., Tzelgov, E., Wang, Y.-t., Krusell, J., & Miri, F. (2018). “The V-Dem Measurement Model: Latent Variable Analysis for Cross-National and Cross-Temporal Expert-Coded Data”. University of Gothenburg, Varieties of Democracy Institute: Working Paper No. 21, 3rd edition.

  • Pierson, P. (2000). Increasing returns, Path-dependence and the study of politics. The American Political Science Review, 94(2), 251–267.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pribble, J. (2011). Worlds apart: Social policy regimes in Latin America. Studies in Comparative International Development, 46(2), 191–216. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-010-9076-6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pribble, J. (2013). Welfare and party politics in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pribble, J., & Huber, E. (2013). Social policy and redistribution: Chile and Uruguay. In S. Levitsky & K. M. Roberts (Eds.), In the resurgence of the Latin American Left (pp. 117–138). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ragin, C. (1987). The comparative method: Moving beyond quantitative and qualitative strategies. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ragin, C. (2000). Fuzzy-set social science. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ragin, C. (2008). Redesigning social inquiry: Fuzzy sets and beyond. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ragin C. & Davey S (2016) Fuzzy-set/qualitative comparative analysis 3.0. Irvine, CA: Department of Sociology, University of California.

  • Rihoux, B., & De Meur, G. (2009). Crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA). In B. Rihoux & C. Ragin (Eds.), Configurational comparative methods: Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and related techniques (pp. 33–68). Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Rihoux, B., & Ragin, C. (Eds.). (2009). Configurational comparative methods: Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and related techniques. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, K. M. (2002). Social inequalities without class cleavages in Latin America’s neoliberal era. Studies in Comparative International Development, 36(4), 3–33. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686331.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rodrik, D. (1998). Why do more open economies have bigger governments? Journal of Political Economy, 106(5), 997–1032.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rudra, N. (2002). Globalization and the decline of the welfare state in less-developed countries. International Organization, 56(02), 411–445. https://doi.org/10.1162/002081802320005522.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruckert, A., Macdonald, L., & Prolux, K. R. (2017). Post-neoliberalism in Latin America: a conceptual review. Third World Quarterly, 38(7), 1583–1602. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2016.1259558.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sanchez de Dios, M. (2015). La reforma de los regímenes de bienestar en Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina Brasil y Uruguay. Política y Sociedad, 52(3), 661–690. https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_POSO.2015.v52.n3.45377.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schneider, C. Q., & Wagemann, C. (2010). Standards of good practice in qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and Fuzzy-Sets. Comparative Sociaology., 9(3), 397. https://doi.org/10.1163/156913210X12493538729793.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schneider, C. Q., & Wagemann, C. (2012). Set-theoretic methods for the social sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • SEDLAC (CEDLAS and The World Bank). (2018). Socio-economic database for Latin America and the Caribbean. Retrieved from http://sedlac.econo.unlp.edu.ar/eng/index.php

  • Segura-Ubiergo, A. (2007). The political economy of the welfare state in Latin America: Globalization, democracy and development. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Social Security Administration. (2018). Social security programs throughout the world: The Americas, 2017. https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/progdesc/ssptw/2016-2017/americas/index.html.

  • Sullivan, R. (2010). Labour market or labour movement? The union density bias as barrier to labour renewal. Work, Employment & Society, 24(1), 145–156. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017009353660.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tanzi, V. (2002). Globalization and the future of social protection. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 49(1), 116–127.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tanzi, V., & Zee, H. H. (2000). Tax policy for emerging markets: Developing countries. National Tax Journal, 53(2), 299–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • UNDP. (2018). Calculating the human development indices—graphical presentation. Technical notes, 2018 STATISTICAL UPDATE: http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr2018_technical_notes.pdf.

  • Wallerstein, M. (1989). Union organization in advanced industrial democracies. American Political Science Review, 83(2), 379–401.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilensky, H. L. (1975). The welfare state and equality: Structural and ideological roots of public expenditure. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • World Bank. (2018a). ASPIRE: The atlas of social protection indicators of resilience and equity.

  • World Bank. (2018b). World development indicators. Washington, D.C.: http://data.worldbank.org/products/wdi (version 28/08/2018).

  • Zarate Tenorio, B. (2014). Social spending responses to organized labor and mass protests in Latin America, 1970–2007. Comparative Political Studies, 47(14), 1945–1972. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414013519409.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank three anonymous reviewers, participants of the International Conference on Global Dynamics of Social Policy (University of Bremen), and colleagues from the Postgraduate program in Social Work at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) who provided much-appreciated comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. The author received financial support for the research of this article from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness (FJCI-2016-29871). Shortcomings, of course, remain my responsibility.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Public Goods and Policies, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Calle Albasanz 26-28, 28037, Madrid, Spain

    Gibrán Cruz-Martínez

  2. Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Gibrán Cruz-Martínez

Authors
  1. Gibrán Cruz-Martínez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gibrán Cruz-Martínez.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

The original online version of this article was revised due to the interpretation of one of the results derived from the csQCA is incorrect. Now the correct interpretation has been published.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Cruz-Martínez, G. Mapping Welfare State Development in (post) Neoliberal Latin America. Soc Indic Res 157, 175–201 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-020-02575-6

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-020-02575-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation