IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bwp/bwppap/18213.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Politicising poverty in Latin America in the light of Rawls’ ‘strains of commitment’ argument for a social minimum

Author

Listed:
  • Armando Barrientos

Abstract

The paper discusses the rise of poverty and poverty reduction in the political and policy agenda in Latin America, reflected inter alia in the growth of social assistance. It identifies and discusses two main explanations offered in the literature: democratisation and left partisan power. It then introduces a third explanation based on Rawls’ theory of justice, in which a social minimum is essential for preventing the ‘strains of commitment’ from becoming excessive. Analysis of cross-country panel data for 18 Latin American countries for the period 1990-2008 assesses the plausibility of these explanations.

Suggested Citation

  • Armando Barrientos, 2013. "Politicising poverty in Latin America in the light of Rawls’ ‘strains of commitment’ argument for a social minimum," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 18213, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    • Handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:18213
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/gdi/publications/workingpapers/bwpi/bwpi-wp-18213.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barrientos, Armando, 2011. "On the Distributional Implications of Social Protection Reforms in Latin America," WIDER Working Paper Series 069, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Skoufias, Emmanuel & Lindert, Kathy & Shapiro, Joseph, 2010. "Globalization and the Role of Public Transfers in Redistributing Income in Latin America and the Caribbean," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 895-907, June.
    3. Nancy Birdsall & Nora Lustig & Darryl McLeod, 2011. "Declining Inequality in Latin America: Some Economics, Some Politics," Working Papers 1120, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    4. Baez, Javier E. & Camacho, Adriana & Conover, Emily & Zarate, Roman Andres, 2012. "Conditional Cash Transfers, Political Participation, and Voting Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 6870, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Sergei Soares & Rafael Guerreiro Osório & Fábio Veras Soares & Marcelo Medeiros & Eduardo Zepeda, 2009. "Conditional cash transfers in Brazil, Chile and Mexico: impacts upon inequality," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 0(Special i), pages 207-224.
    6. Armando Barrientos, 2010. "Should poverty researchers worry about inequality?," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 11810, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    7. Nancy Birdsall, Nora Lustig, and Darryl McLeod, 2011. "Declining Inequality in Latin America: Some Economics, Some Politics - Working Paper 251," Working Papers 251, Center for Global Development.
    8. Juan Luis Londoño & Miguel Székely, 2000. "Persistent Poverty and Excess Inequality: Latin America, 1970-1995," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 3, pages 93-134, May.
    9. Armando Barrientos, 2011. "On the Distributional Implications of Social Protection Reforms in Latin America," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2011-069, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Giovanni Andrea Cornia, 2010. "Income Distribution under Latin America's New Left Regimes," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 85-114.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tony Addison & Rachel Gisselquist & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa & Saurabh Singhal, 2015. "Needs vs Expediency - Poverty Reduction and Social Development in Post-Conflict Countries," Working Papers id:7371, eSocialSciences.
    2. Tony Addison & Rachel M. Gisselquist & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa & Saurabh Singhal, 2015. "Needs versus Expediency: Poverty Reduction and Social Development in Post-conflict Countries," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-063, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Armando Barrientos & Juan Miguel Villa, 2014. "Economic and political inclusion of human development conditional transfer programmes in Latin America?," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 20014, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    4. Tony Addison & Rachel Gisselquist & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa & Saurabh Singhal, 2015. "Needs vs Expediency - Poverty Reduction and Social Development in Post-Conflict Countries," Working Papers id:7371, eSocialSciences.
    5. Armando Barrientos, 2013. "Human Development Income Transfers in the Longer Term," Working Papers 116, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barrientos, Armando, 2011. "On the Distributional Implications of Social Protection Reforms in Latin America," WIDER Working Paper Series 069, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Seguino, Stephanie & Braunstein, Elissa, 2012. "The impact of economic policy and structural change on gender employment inequality in Latin America, 1990-2010," MPRA Paper 43261, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Andy Sumner, 2012. "The Buoyant Billions: How “Middle Class” Are the New Middle Classes in Developing Countries? (And Why Does It Matter?)," Working Papers 309, Center for Global Development.
    4. Bird, Richard M. & Zolt, Eric M., 2015. "Fiscal Contracting in Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 323-335.
    5. Armando Barrientos, 2011. "On the Distributional Implications of Social Protection Reforms in Latin America," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2011-069, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Javier Rodríguez Weber, 2018. "Alta desigualdad en América Latina: desde cuándo y por qué," Documentos de trabajo 51, Programa de Historia Económica, FCS, Udelar.
    7. Giovanni Andrea Cornia, 2012. "Inequality Trends and their Determinants: Latin America over 1990-2010," Working Papers - Economics wp2012_02.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    8. Nadia von Jacobi, 2014. "Can the Context Mediate Macro-Policy Outcomes?: Contextual Differences in the Returns to Bolsa Familia in Brazil," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-049, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Andy Sumner, 2012. "The Buoyant Billions: How “Middle Class†Are the New Middle Classes in Developing Countries? (And Why Does It Matter?)," Working Papers id:5169, eSocialSciences.
    10. Armando Barrientos & Juan Miguel Villa, 2014. "Economic and political inclusion of human development conditional transfer programmes in Latin America?," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 20014, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    11. repec:unu:wpaper:wp2012-09 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Cornia, Giovanni Andrea, 2014. "Income inequality in Latin America. Recent decline and prospects for its further reduction," Macroeconomía del Desarrollo 36852, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    13. Richard M. Bird & Eric M. Zolt, 2014. "Taxation and inequality in the Americas: Changing the fiscal contract?," Chapters, in: Richard M. Bird & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), Taxation and Development: The Weakest Link?, chapter 7, pages 193-237, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. von Jacobi, Nadia, 2014. "Can the context mediate macro-policy outcomes? Contextual differences in the returns to Bolsa Familia in Brazil," WIDER Working Paper Series 049, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Paul Mosley, 2012. "The politics of what works for the poor in public expenditure and taxation: a review," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-011-12, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    16. Fernández, Manuel & Messina, Julián, 2018. "Skill premium, labor supply, and changes in the structure of wages in Latin America," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 555-573.
    17. Santiago Poy, 2023. "In-work poverty dynamics: trigger events and short-term trajectories in Argentina," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 57(1), pages 1-16, December.
    18. Yang Wang, 2015. "Education Expansion and Decline in Tertiary Premium in Brazil: 1995-2013," Working Papers 1525, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    19. Facundo Alvaredo & Leonardo Gasparini, 2013. "Recent Trends in Inequality and Poverty in Developing Countries," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0151, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    20. Bronfman H., Javier, 2021. "Challenges for optimizing social protection programmes and reducing vulnerability in Latin America and the Caribbean," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), April.
    21. Nancy Birdsall, Nora Lustig, Christian Meyer, 2013. "The Strugglers: The New Poor in Latin America?-Working Paper 337," Working Papers 337, Center for Global Development.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:18213. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Rowena Harding (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wpmanuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.