Finally Together: Democracy and Reduction in Inequality in Latin America

Review of the book: HUBER, Evelyne and STEPHENS, John D. Democracy and the Left: Social Policy and Inequality in Latin America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. The book focuses on the links and long-term effects between democracy, redistributive policies, poverty, and inequality in the region, with forces of the left acting as an intervening variable in this relation. Working with these principal variables, the authors develop an impressive work that is theoretically consistent, exhaustive in terms of data collected, and methodologically sophisticated, combining the solid use of statistical tools with a comparative historical analysis of selected cases. As far as I know, it is the most competent and complete work that manages to establish not only statistical but also causal links between the consolidation of democracy, redistributive policies (within the context of the construction of a welfare state), and the reduction in inequality and poverty in Latin America. It is an obligatory text for students of the region as well as for those who study these topics in different contexts — such as the extensive European literature about the construction (and reform) of welfare states. In addition, the book comments on the broader discussion about the potential of democracy in the 21st century and its impact on the everyday lives of people. The principal contribution of Huber and Stephens is, in my view, the proof they provide of the long-term connections between democracy and the reduction of poverty and inequality. With this, they confirm the findings of other authors who write about Latin America (SEGURA-UBIERGO, 2007) and about other regions (HAGGARD and KAUFMAN, 2008; McGUIRE, 2010). In the words of Hubert and Stephens (p.12), "Democracy does not guarantee uniform movement toward lower poverty and inequality, but it makes gradual movement in this direction possible". Whether due to permitting the ascension of parties concerned with social justice, or to the repeated functioning, during decades, of the Schumpeterian mechanisms of the electoral selection of elites minimally concerned with the well-being of the population, democracy makes a difference. For those who are dissatisfied with it (and they are not few), this is quite a discovery.

Within this context, it once again became fashionable to discuss populism, a topic that had been little discussed in recent years. For some, this is a typically Latin American phenomenon that seems to foster a type of folklore mindset about the region, while retaining parallels with the literary magical realism of the 1960's.
For others, it would be more precise to focus on something typically about Latin Americans, given that phenomena such as Berlusconi and Beppe Grillo in Italy, or the National Front of the Le Pen family in France, prove that demagogic appeals, direct links with the masses, and disdain for institutions are not outcomes native and exclusive to the region.
In any case, this boom in comparative studies of Latin American left has its high points that have contributed to a deeper understanding of the politics in the region. The books organized by Mainwaring and Scully (2009) an edited volume, which means that it does not suffer from the problems of imbalance and heterogeneity in terms of analytical quality and empirical effort that often impede building a general panorama and comparing among countries studied by different authors (even when the editors try to maintain uniform theoretical focuses, strategies, and frameworks). However, in spite of the "Left" in the title, one should not reduce the study to just another of many contributions about the red wave in Latin America. In fact, the book focuses on the links and long-term effects between democracy, redistributive policies, poverty, and inequality in the region, with forces of the left acting as an intervening variable in this relation. Working with these principal variables, the authors develop an impressive work that is theoretically consistent, exhaustive in terms of data collected, and methodologically sophisticated, combining the solid use of statistical tools with a comparative historical analysis of selected cases. As far as I know, it is the most competent and complete work that manages to establish not only statistical but also causal links between the consolidation of democracy, This study primarily aims to identify the principal variables that explain the differences in terms of redistributive social policies and economic inequality, comparing both Latin American countries as well as those in same country over time. On the theoretical plane, the authors address this challenge by applying the power constellations theory model, which was previously used (HUBER and STEPHENS, 2001). The model delimits three clusters of power as fundamental variables to explain the regime of social policies: 1) The correlation of power within the country between social classes and political parties. In this cluster, they emphasize the different social structure and the late advance of working class organizations (unionism and leftist parties) when compared to the European historical process. This is the central explanatory factor (at times, the only) in much of the literature about the European welfare state, such as the power resources theory, that underlines the importance of social democracy and the union movement for the advance of social policies. Contrary to (2015) 9 (1) 150 -158 the economic policy literature founded on the framework of rational choice by Meltzer and Richard (1981), the power resources theory associates high rates of economic inequality with the concentration of power resources, which would impede the construction of redistributive policies and tax systems. One of the central challenges of the authors thus becomes finding a way to explain the manner in which some of the most unequal countries on the planet were able to develop redistributive policies, and thus to decrease socio-economic inequality.
2) The structure of the state and society-state relations. While studies of wealthy countries focused on the multiplication of veto points able to block reforms in social policies (whether in terms of their enlargement or reduction), in the Latin American reality the autonomy of the State vis-à-vis society and its ability to collect taxes and to implement policies become relevant variables.
3 In transposing theoretical-analytic models to be used in reference to Latin America, perhaps the most important adaptation adopted by the authors (above all for the first two clusters) has been in regard to democracy, which changes from a constant, in the analyses of advanced capitalist countries in the post-WWII period, to an independent variable in the research design. In this manner, it is able to influence the comparison between countries and within the same country. The Schumpeterian mechanism in operation, social spending increases, which leads to a reduction in poverty and inequality rates. Therefore, although the transitions have not necessarily led to "quality" regimes (whatever that means), even democracies under consolidation or ones that are unstable are able to generate positive results for their population. regions (HAGGARD and KAUFMAN, 2008;McGUIRE, 2010). Nevertheless, the debate is still far from arriving at a consensus. In a recent book, Przeworski (2010) notes that one should not demand from democracy anything that it does not promise to deliver. Comparing data from around the world, the author concludes that democracies do not make a difference in terms of the reduction in inequality, when compared to authoritarian regimes-a conclusion similar to that of Ross (2006). The post-communist countries, for example, show that the transition to democracy can bring more poverty and inequality, rather than less. In fact, the transition to democracy, beginning from an authoritarian/egalitarian context (Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union) will lead to different relative trajectories in indicators of inequality when compared to redemocratization processes that have dictatorships with extreme social inequality as points of departure (Latin America). In the words of Hubert and Stephens (p.12), "Democracy does not guarantee uniform movement toward lower poverty and inequality, but it makes gradual movement in this direction possible". Whether due to permitting the ascension of parties concerned with social justice, or to the repeated functioning, during decades, of the Schumpeterian mechanisms of the electoral selection of elites minimally concerned with the well-being of the population, democracy makes a difference. For those who are dissatisfied with it (and they are not few), this is quite a discovery.
Translated by Cabo Verde