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10 - The End Game of Social Policy in a Context of Enduring Inequalities

Assessing “Post-neoliberalism” in Latin America

from Part III - Infrastructural Power: Reform Strategies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2023

By
Pía Riggirozzi  and
Jean Grugel
Edited by
Miguel A. Centeno  and
Agustin E. Ferraro
Miguel A. Centeno
Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey
Agustin E. Ferraro
Affiliation:
Universidad de Salamanca, Spain
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Summary

Post-neoliberalism opened up new possibilities for understanding the end game of social policy in Latin America. As a political-economic project, it promised to uphold the dignity of all citizens in the face of markets and a transformation in the values that underpin the management of national assets and new, socially responsible economies. As a social project, it linked social policy to improvements in citizen inclusion, both distributive and political. Inevitably, the extent to which post-neoliberalism has delivered has fallen short. In this chapter, we identify the challenges to the project of welfare provision as transformation, inclusion, and citizenship under new left regimes in the early twenty-first century. We argue that, despite changes to labor markets and some innovative social programs, social policies were grafted onto existing political economies and social relations. The new approach failed to generate commitment from across society to a new “end game” for the social policy or a political economy of long-term transformation based on equitable growth, job creation, and market regulation, and, as such, it did not provide a sustainable response to the structural determinants of poverty and persistent inequalities in Latin America.

Type
Chapter
Information
State and Nation Making in Latin America and Spain
The Neoliberal State and Beyond
 , pp. 317 - 340
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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