Social Protection and the Market in Latin America: The Transformation of Social Security Institutions

by Sarah M. Brooks

Overview

Social security institutions have been among the most stable post-war social programs around the world. Increasingly, however, these institutions have undergone profound transformation from public risk-pooling systems to individual market-based designs. Why has this ‘privatization’ occurred? Why, moreover, do some governments enact more radical pension privatizations than others? This book provides a theoretical and empirical account of when and to what degree governments privatize national old-age pension systems. Quantitative cross-national analysis simulates the degree of pension privatization around the world and tests competing hypotheses to explain reform outcomes. In addition, comparative analysis of pension reforms in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay evaluate a causal theory of institutional change. The central argument is that pension privatization emerges from political conflict, rather than from exogenous pressures. The argument is developed around three dimensions: the double bind of globalization, contingent path-dependent processes, and the legislative politics of loss imposition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521701495
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/03/2008
Pages:	390
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Sarah M. Brooks is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Ohio State University. She has also been a post-doctoral Fellow at the Kellogg Institute at Notre Dame and a consultant for the World Bank. She has published articles in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, World Politics, International Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, and Latin American Politics and Society and written chapters in several edited volumes, including Learning from Foreign Models in Latin American Policy Reform (2004), New Ideas about Old Age Security (2001) and Pension Reform: Issues and Prospects for Non-Financial Defined Contribution (NDC) Schemes (2006).

Table of Contents

Part I: 1. Introduction: transforming the welfare state: from social protection to the market; 2. Explaining structural pension reform: theoretical debate and empirical evidence; Part II: 3. Explaining the institutional transformation of social security; Part III: 4. Pension reform in Latin America: overview and scope of institutional transformation; 5. Pension reform in an open economy: negotiating globalization's double bind; 6. Contesting institutional change in society: where political strategies meet institutional legacies; 7. legislative conflict and institutional change: building majorities behind loss-imposing reform; Part IV: 8. Conclusions and implications: toward a new social contract?

Editorial Reviews

Social Protection and the Market seeks to explain why pension privatization in Latin America took the form that it did. In doing so Sarah Brooks provides us with three critical insights; Globalization didn’t make them do it; ideas do indeed matter in promoting institutional change, and the legislative politics of reform is never straightforward. Richly substantiated with multiple methods and informed by a theoretically innovative framework, [Brooks’ study] gives us a better understanding of the forces of endogenous institutional change that extend well beyond the cases in question.”
-Mark Blyth, Johns Hopkins University

“Sarah Brooks has written a compelling account of the recent privatization of policies of old-age insurance, which combines quantitative research with an analysis of policy developments in four Latin American countries. This book highlights the complex interplay of international financial pressures, legislative competition and the importance of pre-existing policy legacies in shaping the depth of pension reforms. Her explanation accounts for both ‘path-dependent’ and ‘path-departing’ policy change and represents an important contribution to theories of institutional change.”
-Isabela Mares, Columbia University

“Sarah Brooks’ theoretically sophisticated and well-researched book successfully challenges the conventional wisdom on the power of globalization pressures and the constraints arising from institutional path dependency and perceptively highlights the role of contingency and political leadership in institutional transformation. The book is highly recommended to all students of institutional persistence and change.”
-Kurt Weyland, University of Texas at Austin

From the Publisher