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

Brooks, Sarah M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 052170149X ISBN 13: 9780521701495

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2008

Synopsis

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 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.

About this title

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).

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052170149X
• ISBN 13: 9780521701495
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 390