Are Co ali tions Equally Important for Redistribution in Latin America? The Intervening Role of Welfare Regimes

Abstract

Does social policy help improve income distribution at all in Latin America? Th is question is crucial in the most unequal region of the world, as discussed in the introduction of this book. Th is chapter establishes the nature and magnitude of redistribution across welfare regimes in Latin America and discusses the role of distributional co ali tions, that is, of actors actively engaged in increasing the role of a public and collective allocation of resources. For the purposes of this chapter, we defi ne social policy as the constellation of key policies involved in social ser vices and transfers, primarily related to education, health care, and transfers such as social insurance and social assistance. Th e power- resource approach contends that to counterbalance elites and their powerful resources, progressive parties should create distributional coali tions with an extensive array of actors. Large, broad societal co ali tions are more likely to emerge under the presence of universal rather than targeted social policy because they create incentives to get the middle class involved (Korpi and Palme 1998). In addition, Esping- Andersen (1990) shows for Eu rope an and North American countries that such co ali tions diff er considerably across welfare regimes: redistribution refl ects class alliances, leading to the central role of left - wing, social Christian, and liberal parties in social democracies, conservative welfare regimes, and liberal welfare regimes, respectively.