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8 - The Devil Hides in the Details

Variations of Conditional Cash Transfers Programs in Latin America*

from Part III - Infrastructural Power: Reform Strategies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2023

By
Luciana de Souza Leão
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

This chapter takes the case of Conditional Cash Transfer programs (CCTs) as an invitation to examine a trade-off faced by many Latin American neoliberal states: Their promise of making states both more efficient and more inclusive. More specifically, I use the case of CCTs to explore variations in how the Brazilian and Mexican states understood and acted on the promise of increasing inclusivity in official safety nets by making poverty management more efficient. I argue that while Brazil and Mexico equally chose CCTs as their main strategy to reinvent social policy provision for low-income families in a neoliberal era, they did so for different reasons, which resulted in the implementation of programs that followed distinct operational logic. In Mexico, the state invested in a very precise regime to select and monitor low-income families, while Brazil adopted a looser strategy. These differences depended on the strategies of legitimation of each CCT and were influenced by the distinct approaches to neoliberalism adopted by each country. My findings are based on analyzing a rich set of qualitative data, including the study of official documents and 100 in-depth interviews with political and bureaucratic elites in the two countries.

Type
Chapter
Information
State and Nation Making in Latin America and Spain
The Neoliberal State and Beyond
 , pp. 269 - 288
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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