At a general level of neoliberal repudiation or expansion of social policies, most post-neoliberal Latin American governments in the 2000s have exhibited similarities. However, coalitions with popular actors have displayed a lot of variation. In order to compare popular sector coalitions the article constructs a framework with two central dimensions: electoral and organizational/interest; in post–import substitution industrialization (ISI), Latin America the latter is composed of both unions and territorial social movements (TSMs). It contends that the region witnessed four types of popular coalitions: electoral (Ecuador and Chile), TSM-based (i.e. made of informal sector-based organizations, Venezuela and Bolivia), dual (i.e. composed of both unions and TSMs, Argentina and Brazil) and union/party-based (Uruguay). The study argues that government–union coalitions are largely accounted for by the relative size of the formal economy, and by the institutional legacies of labor-based parties. Coalitions with informal sector-based organizations were more contingent and rooted in the political activation of these TSMs during the anti-neoliberal struggles of the 1990s.

Historical change is often driven by demands for inclusion by previously marginalized groups. Latin America’s most recent inclusionary turn was characterized by an emphasis on constitutionalism, an explosion of popular participation, and a commitment to social policies that empowered and lifted millions of people out of poverty. Practices of citizenship were at the heart of these struggles for inclusion. Yet failure to ratchet-up citizenship rights leaves the region vulnerable to the undoing of inclusionary reforms, and thus a return to exclusion, repression, and democratic backsliding. To trace the evolution of inclusion in the region, and to better understand how cycles of inclusion and exclusion have often eroded state capacity, this chapter outlines political logics of inclusion, describes how these logics have changed over historical periods, analyzes the structural-historical conditions that shape whether inclusion threatens the interests of powerful actors, sketches alternative pathways to inclusion, and discusses inclusionary outcomes and the unfinished business of building a citizens’ democracy. It compares cases varying along two dimensions: changes in the types of inclusion over time and differences in pathways to inclusion across the region. The breadth of the comparison brings structural-historical factors back into focus, without denying the importance of political institutions.

Although Latin America’s inclusionary turn produced tangible benefits for lower-income citizens, these benefits remained partial and politically contingent. The new inclusion extended recognition, access, and resources to social sectors left behind or excluded from the historical process of labor incorporation, but it was noted more for its breadth than its depth, for pluralist as opposed to corporatist modes of interest representation, and for organizational diffuseness rather than density. These traits help explain why the new inclusionary turn was associated with an “easy stage” of redistributive politics in which politically innocuous, low-cost cash transfers could be made to large numbers of weakly or non-organized popular constituencies. They also help explain why the region struggled to advance toward a “higher stage” of redistributive politics requiring more expensive and politically contentious investments in public services and institutional reforms

Although the trajectory of Argentina’s tax burden has been more volatile than Brazil’s, today the countries share a similar level of taxation. This similarity reflects the fact that neither has experienced threats to private property profound enough to spur the rise of a powerful anti-statist bloc. The most significant redistributive reform wave in Argentine history occurred under Juan Perón (1946-1955), who mobilized workers and expanded the welfare state. However, like Getúlio Vargas, Perón spared private property and opposed socialism. As a result, he failed to provoke the formation of an anti-statist bloc capable of acting as an enduring constraint on public sector growth. Instead, he aggravated private sector divisions, strengthened labor and forged a broad populist electoral coalition. For decades, military intervention kept statists from wielding power in a sustained fashion. In addition, hyperinflation and the global ascendancy of neoliberalism pushed even a peronista president to adopt neoliberal reforms in the 1990s. Gradually, however, these constraints have fallen away, and the superiority of statist forces has come to be reflected in heavy taxation and social spending.