scholarly journals Welfare State Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (1970s–2000s): Multidimensional Welfare Index, Its Methodology and Results

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gibran Cruz-Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Multidimensional Welfare ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Welfare Index ◽  
Latin American Countries ◽  
The Welfare State

There is an ongoing debate between focalization and universalization on welfare policies as the best way to develop the welfare state in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, there is a need to develop a measure that exhibits the multidimensional nature of the welfare state, instead of focusing on the social spending dimension. Segura-Ubiergo (The political economy of the welfare state in Latin America: globalization, democracy and development. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2007) constructed a welfare effort index (WEI) to facilitate understand the relative degrees of welfare state development among Latin American countries. The WEI focuses mainly on social spending and ignores the other dimensions of welfare. Based on a comparative analysis of 17 Latin American countries and following the methodology of Segura-Ubiergo, a new index that aims at enriching the WEI was constructed. The new index is multidimensional in that it has eight indicators relating to three dimensions of welfare: social spending, coverage of welfare programs and outcome of welfare institutions. Principal component analysis was used for reducing the indicators into three indexes that represent three proposed dimensions of welfare. The combination of these three indexes gives the multidimensional welfare index. The results of the index account for more than 75 % of the data variance.

scholarly journals Maritime Piracy in the Modern Era in Latin America

2020 ◽  
pp. 121-128
Author(s):  
Amarilla Kiss
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
International Law ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Legal Aspect ◽  
Maritime Piracy ◽  
American States ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Domestic Law ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
Latin American Countries

Maritime piracy is an activity that was considered defunct long ago and that Latin American countries experience it again in the 21st century. Since 2016 the number of attacks has increased dramatically involving armed robbery, kidnapping and massacre. Modern day piracy has nothing to do with the romantic illusion of the pirates of the Caribbean, this phenomenon is associated with the governmental, social or economic crisis of a state. When it appears, we can make further conclusions regarding the general conditions of the society in these states. But do these attacks really constitute piracy under international law? Does Latin American piracy have unique features that are different from piracy in the rest of the world? The study attempts to answer the questions why piracy matters in Latin America and how it relates to drug trafficking and terrorism. Apart from that, the study presents a legal aspect comparing the regulation of international law to domestic law, especially to the national law of Latin American states.

Literary and Cultural Representations of Asians in Latin America and the Caribbean

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zelideth María Rivas
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Asian Immigrants ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
World War ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Latin American Countries ◽  
Latin American And Caribbean

Representations of Asians in Latin America and the Caribbean have been caught in the fissures of history, in part because their presence ambivalently affirms, depends upon, and simultaneously denies dominant narratives of race. While these populations are often stereotyped and mislabed as chino, Latin American countries have also made them into symbols of kinship and citizenship by providing a connection to Asia as a source of economic and political power. Yet, their presence highlights a rupture in nationalistic ideas of race that emphasize the European, African, and indigenous. Historically, Asian Latin American and Caribbean literary and cultural representations began during the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade (1565–1815) with depictions of Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino slaves and galleon laborers. Soon after, Indian and Chinese laborers were in demand as coolie trafficking became prevalent throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Toward the end of the 19th century, Latin American and Caribbean countries began to establish political ties with Asia, ushering in Asian immigrants as a replacement labor force for African slaves. By the beginning of World War II, first- and second-generation immigrants recorded their experiences in poetry, short stories, and memoirs, often in their native languages. World War II disrupted Asian diplomacy with Latin America, and Caribbean and Latin American countries enacted laws that ostracized and deported Japanese immigrants. World War II also marked a change for Asian immigrants to Latin America and the Caribbean: they shifted from temporary to permanent immigrants. Here, authors depicted myriad aspects of their identities—language and citizenship, race, and sexuality—in their birth languages. In other words, late 20th century and early 21st century literature highlights the communities as Latin American and Caribbean. Finally, the presence of Asians in Latin America and the Caribbean has influenced Latin American and Caribbean literature and cultural production, highlighting them as characters and their cultures as themes. Most importantly, however, Latin American modernism emerged from a Latin American orientalism that differs from a European orientalism.

Social Expenditure and Welfare State Financing

2021 ◽  
pp. 452-472
Author(s):  
Herbert Obinger
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Social Expenditure ◽  
National Differences ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
State Financing ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Western Democracies ◽  
Cross National ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter focuses on both the expenditures and the revenues of the welfare state. Using the latest data available, it depicts and analyses major developments in social spending and public revenues in twenty-one advanced Western democracies since 1980. The entry discusses measurement issues, depicts the determinants of cross-national differences in spending and revenue levels identified in the literature, and sheds light on the impact of social spending and taxation on social outcomes, such as income inequality. It is argued that spending and revenue figures, irrespective of several shortcomings, provide important indicators of both the logic and pattern of welfare state development.

scholarly journals THE WELFARE STATE: GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS, OBSTACLES AND CHALLENGES IN LATIN AMERICA.

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (6) ◽  
pp. 141-172
Author(s):  
Mauricio Godinho Delgado ◽  
◽  
Lorena Vasconcelos Porto
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
The Many ◽  
Second World ◽  
Latin American Countries ◽  
The Welfare State

This paper provides an analysis of the organizational model of the political and the civil societies which became prevalent in Western Europe after the Second World War: the Welfare State. It also provides a discussion on the reasons why this model of organization has never been effectively implemented in any Latin American country. To this end, firstly, the text highlights the many and most important characteristics of the Welfare State, with attention to the peculiarities it assumes in specific European countries. Secondly, based on these comparative elements, a typological synthesis of the Welfare States is drawn, considering the range from the most sophisticated examples to those which only meet the minimum relevant criteria of this model of State and social organization. Finally, the reality of Latin American countries is analyzed and it is indicated to what extent they have (or have not) structured something that could be effectively considered a Welfare State. In this framework, it is concluded that, although there are a few Latin American countries showing progress in terms of achieving these characteristics in comparison with the great majority of countries in the region, the obstacles and challenges for the full structuring of a real Welfare State in this region of the globe are still persistent.

scholarly journals Mapping Welfare State Development in post-Neoliberal Latin America

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gibran Cruz-Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
State Development ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Revenue Collection ◽  
Welfare Institutions ◽  
Multidimensional Welfare ◽  
Welfare State Development

Why have some countries in Latin America and the Caribbean developed more comprehensive welfare systems than others? Do political and economic factors help us signal the (un) favourable paths taken by countries with different degrees of welfare state development in the XXI century? This paper addresses limitations of previous comparative research to continue (re) searching the conditions of welfare state development. A composite multidimensional welfare state development index (WeSDI) is constructed for 18 countries between 2000–2015. The four dimensions are the magnitude of social expenditure, the scope of coverage of welfare programmes, quality of the coverage of welfare programmes and outcomes of welfare institutions. The WeSDI uses goalposts (i.e. natural zeros and aspirational targets) to normalise individual indices and avoid the “relativity problems” of results. We use crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to test how necessary and/or sufficient eight political and economic conditions are (alone or in combination) to foster multidimensional welfare state development in the region. The causal conditions are openness to external shocks, debt obligations, revenue-collection capabilities, labour movement strength, strength of the left, policy legacies of welfare institutions, size of the outsider population and quality of democracy. The paper confirms the relevance of democratic strength, revenue-collection capabilities (and to a lesser degree policy legacy of welfare institutions) as sufficient conditions of high and medium levels of welfare state development in the (post) neoliberal era. In addition to labour movement strength, these same economic and political factors are relevant to understand the conditions behind very low levels of welfare state development.

Estimating Income Poverty and Inequality from the Gallup World Poll

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Gasparini ◽  
Pablo Glüzmann
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Income Poverty ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
The World ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Latin American Countries ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
Gallup World Poll

This article takes advantage of a new source of information, the 2006 Gallup World Poll, to estimate and characterize income poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) at the country level, and to compare LAC with other regions in the world. The Gallup survey has the advantage of being conducted in over 130 nations with almost the same questionnaire; it stands as a complement to national household surveys for international comparison purposes. Our results confirm that Latin American countries are among the most unequal in the world, but we also find, considered as a single unit, Latin America is less unequal than other regions.

The Welfare State amid Crime: How Victimization and Perceptions of Insecurity Affect Social Policy Preferences in Latin America and the Caribbean

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-422
Author(s):  
Melina Altamirano ◽  
Sarah Berens ◽  
Sandra Ley
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Crime Victimization ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Criminal Violence ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Welfare State

Criminal violence is one of the most pressing problems in Latin America and the Caribbean, with profound political consequences. Its effects on social policy preferences, however, remain largely unexplored. This article argues that to understand such effects it is crucial to analyze victimization experiences and perceptions of insecurity as separate phenomena with distinct attitudinal consequences. Heightened perceptions of insecurity are associated with a reduced demand for public welfare provision, as such perceptions reflect a sense of the state’s failure to provide public security. At the same time, acknowledging the mounting costs and needs that direct experience with crime entails, victimization is expected to increase support for social policies, particularly for health services. Survey data from twenty-four Latin American and Caribbean countries for the period 2008–12 show that perceptions of insecurity indeed reduce support for the state’s role in welfare provision, whereas crime victimization strongly increases such preferences.

China’s Arrival in Latin America

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David B. H. Denoon
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Trading Partner ◽  
Development Bank ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Development ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Latin American Countries ◽  
East West ◽  
The U.S

This chapter lays out the basic themes of the book and examines the commercial and strategic interests of U.S. and China in Latin America. China has become the largest trading partner for more than half of the Latin American countries, while the U.S. has sought to be the preeminent power in Latin America and the Caribbean since 1823 and the announcement of Monroe Doctrine. China does not pose a direct military threat to the U.S. or its Latin interests, but it does represent serious competition in the economic and diplomatic arenas. In the past decade, a clear East-West split has developed among the Latin American states. Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina became more nationalistic and anti-U.S., while Chile, Columbia, and Peru have tended to be more market-oriented and comfortable working with U.S. power. The U.S. currently benefits from disarray on the Left in Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela. Newly developed institutions, e.g., UNASUR, the New Development Bank, and TPP, may also change the U.S.’s and China’s influence in the region.

scholarly journals Welfare State Development, Individual Deprivations and Income Inequality: A cross-country analysis in Latin America and the Caribbean

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gibran Cruz-Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
State Development ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Dimensional Variable

Several scholars have confirmed the role that the welfare state (WS) plays in reducing poverty, promoting equality and ensuring the common wellbeing. One of the limitations of the scholarship has been the conceptualization and operationalization of the WS and poverty as one-dimensional variables. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between welfare state development, single-dimensions deprivations and income inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean, before and after controlling for demographic and cyclical factors. The WS is operationalized as a one-dimensional variable, but also taking into account its multidimensional nature. Three individual deprivations suffered by people on poverty and two income inequality indicators are used as dependent variables. Three pooled time-series cross-section regression analyses with panel-corrected standard errors models were carried out on 18 countries in the region around 2000, 2005 and 2010. This paper shows that the development of social-welfare programs and institutions seems to be an effective way of tackling individual deprivations suffered by people on poverty in the region. On the other hand, the WS development didn’t appear to be effective to reduce income inequality. The outcomes of welfare institutions appear to be the pivotal dimension to reduce income inequality and income deprivations in the region.

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