The Consequences of Organized Labor and Mass Protest for Social Spending in Latin America

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-116
Author(s):  
Bárbara A. Zárate-Tenorio
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Research Note ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Education Spending ◽  
Labor Strikes ◽  
Political Studies ◽  
Mass Protest

I am very pleased to participate in this dialogue on the effect of collective protest on social spending in Latin America, which initiated when the editors of LAPS invited me to review the research note titled “Organized Labor Strikes and Social Spending in Latin America: The Synchronizing Effect of Mass Protest.” Dongkyu Kim, Mi-son Kim, and Cesar Villegas engage with my paper, published in Comparative Political Studies (Zarate-Tenorio 2014), which analyzes the effects of organized labor strikes and mass protests on social security and welfare, health and education spending in Latin America, 1970–2007.

Organized Labor Strikes and Social Spending in Latin America: The Synchronizing Effect of Mass Protest

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-109
Author(s):  
Dongkyu Kim ◽  
Mi-son Kim ◽  
Cesar Villegas
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Welfare Spending ◽  
Labor Strikes ◽  
Capital Spending ◽  
Alternative Measures ◽  
Mass Protest

ABSTRACTThe theories and evidence about relationships between democracy and social spending in Latin America are highly contested. A recent study shows that collective protest by organized labor effectively increases social security and welfare spending, whereas mass protest does not have comparable effects on human capital spending in Latin American democracies. This article reexamines the analysis and demonstrates that organized labor alone cannot sway democratic governments. Labor strikes require the synchronizing effect of mass protest to obtain government concessions. Only through concurrent episodes of mass protest can organized labor overcome the numerical disadvantage of pressing democratic government for social welfare spending. In understanding the relationship between labor protests and social welfare spending through the lens of insider-outsider dichotomy, it is critical to consider the synchronizing effect of mass protests. The findings remain robust with alternative measures of democracy and various model specifications.

scholarly journals Globalization, Domestic Politics, and Social Spending in Latin America: A Time-Series Cross-Section Analysis, 1973–97

2001 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert R. Kaufman ◽  
Alex Segura-Ubiergo
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Trade Integration ◽  
Education Spending ◽  
Negative Effect

This study examines the effects of globalization, democratization, and partisanship on social spending in fourteen Latin American countries from 1973 to 1997, using a pooled time-series error-correction model. The authors examine three sets of issues. First, following debates in the literature on OECD countries, they want to know whether social spending has been encouraged or constrained by integration into global markets. Within this context, they examine the extent to which such outcomes might be influenced by two additional sets of domestic political and institutional factors discussed in work on developed countries: the electoral pressures of democratic institutions and whether or not popularly based governments are in power.The authors show that trade integration has a consistently negative effect on aggregate social spending and that this is compounded by openness to capital markets. This is the strongest and most robust finding in the study. Neither democratic nor popularly based governments consistently affect overall social spending. The authors then disaggregate spending into social security transfers and expenditures on health and education. They find that popularly based governments tend to protect social security transfers, which tend toflowdisproportionately to their unionized constituencies; but they have a negative impact on health and education spending. Conversely, a shift to democracy leads to increases in health and education spending, which reaches a larger segment of the population. The authors conclude by emphasizing the contrasting political log-ics of the different types of social spending.

The Political Origins of Social Security in Mexico during the Cáárdenas and ÁÁvila Camacho Administrations

2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Dion
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
The Political ◽  
Adoption And Implementation ◽  
Presidential Succession ◽  
The Welfare State ◽  
Political Origins

This study compares efforts to adopt social insurance legislation in the administrations of Láázaro Cáárdenas and Manuel ÁÁvila Camacho in Mexico to explain the political origins of the welfare state in Latin America. The author argues that the adoption and implementation of social insurance in Mexico was the outcome of an implicit bargain between organized labor and the state following the 1940 presidential election. This bargain signifies the rebuilding by the ÁÁvila Camacho administration of the cross-class coalition originally designed by President Cáárdenas and jeopardized by the nationalization of petroleum and presidential succession struggles of the late 1930s. Este trabajo compara esfuerzos a implantar legislacióón del seguro social en las administraciones de Láázaro Cáárdenas y de Manuel ÁÁvila Camacho en Mééxico para explicar los oríígenes polííticos del Estado de bienestar en Améérica Latina. La autora discute que la adopcióón y la implantacióón del seguro social en Mééxico fueron resultados de un negocio implíícito entre la clase trabajadora organizada y el Estado que seguíía la eleccióón presidencial de 1940. Este negocio significa la reconstruccióón por la administracióón de ÁÁvila Camacho de la coalicióón de clases diseññada por presidente Cáárdenas y comprometida originalmente por la nacionalizacióón del petróóleo y de las luchas de la sucesióón presidencial de los finales de los 30s.

Latin America and China’s Transnationalizing Oil Industry: A Political Economy Assessment of New Relations

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 626-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Hogenboom
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Oil Companies ◽  
National Differences ◽  
Regional Trends ◽  
Rapid Pace ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Changing Attitudes

Chinese oil companies have recently started to set up operations in Latin America, and they are doing this at a rapid pace. This article aims to provide an overview of the increasing flows of oil and capital (fdiand credit) between Latin America and China, and to clarify how they interact with the broader Sino-Latin American relations as well as Latin America’s changing political landscape. In addition to regional trends, the cases of Venezuela, Brazil and Ecuador are discussed. The article combines an assessment of factual data with an analysis of the broader political economy context in which these new oil relations operate. Next to national differences, three general tendencies stand out: first, the type of arrangements and coordinated activities that Chinese companies, banks and government agencies deploy differ from those of other large oil-seeking nations; second, while the arrival of Chinese capital is welcomed by Latin American governments and pictured as part of non-imperialist South-South relations, Chinese oil companies and loans are sometimes criticized in local media by scholars, opposition andngos; and third, Chinese oil imports and investments have added to changing attitudes and policies towards strategic sectors under new political regimes, which allows for more social spending but which critics have labeled as the return to an ‘extractivist model.’

scholarly journals Exporting Francoist Modernity

2019 ◽  
pp. 114-135
Author(s):  
David Brydan
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Latin American ◽  
International Health ◽  
American Identity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Franco Regime ◽  
Collaborative Model ◽  
The One

Social experts played an important but contested role in Francoist attempts to establish Spain as an influential power in Latin America during the 1940s and 1950s. By encouraging Spanish experts to form ties with their Latin American colleagues, the Franco regime aimed to promote an image of itself as modern, scientific, and technically advanced on the one hand, and as socially progressive on the other. Despite the significant resources dedicated to this task, the Francoist narrative was strongly resisted both by Latin American leftists and by exiled Republican social experts who promoted a more collaborative model of Ibero-American identity. Nevertheless, Latin America did offer a route through which Francoist experts were able to engage with wider forms of international health and welfare. In areas such as social security, it also provided an opportunity for the regime to promote its vision of Francoist modernity to the outside world.

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