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Democracy and new ideas in Latin American social policy: the origins of conditional cash transfers in Brazil and Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2020

Ricardo Velázquez Leyer
Ricardo Velázquez Leyer*
Affiliation:
Department of Social and Political Sciences, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Mexico
*
CONTACT Ricardo Velázquez Leyer [email protected]
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Abstract

Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) have become the main instrument to combat poverty in Latin America, they have been exported around the globe and are one of the most popular social policies of the twenty-first century. CCTs deliver cash transfers to poor families with conditionalities like attendance to school and health appointments. This article aims to explain the creation of CCTs. The research applies arguments from theories of social policy development to explain the formulation of the first two CCTs introduced in Brazil at the sub-national level and in Mexico at the national level during the mid-1990s. Findings show that the original formulation of CCTs can be explained by the emergence of a new policy paradigm based on a conceptualisation of the nature of poverty as lack of human capital among poor population, enabled by critical junctures created by the transitions to democratic regimes.

Keywords

Social policyLatin Americaconditional cash transfersinstitutional analysisBrazilMexico
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , July 2020 , pp. 125 - 141
Copyright
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

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