SOCIAL REFORMS

Social Policy for Institutional Change: Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru, in The World Politics of Social Investment: Volume II

The World Politics of Social Investment: Political Dynamics of Reform is the second of two volumes of the World Politics of Social Investment (WOPSI) project, which systematically maps and explains different welfare reform strategies in democratic countries around the world. This volume traces the development of social investment reforms across the regions of Nordic, Continental, and Southern Europe, as well as Central and Eastern Europe, North and Latin America, and North East Asia. The chapters in this volume study the impact of different structural drivers for social investment (e.g., demographic, poverty, demand for skill, or lack of an available workforce), the salience of social investment in the public debates, and the different political coalitions that led to or prevented the adoption of social investment strategies. The chapters are written by leading social policy scholars from different world regions. They all apply a joint theoretical framework (developed in the first of the two volumes) to explain the politics of social investment in a range of contexts and policy fields. Jointly with the first volume, the WOPSI project offers the first worldwide analysis of social investment reforms around the globe.

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Incomplete Universalization? Peruvian Social Policy Reform, Universalism, and Gendered Outcomes

This article analyzes Peruvian social reforms of the early 2000s, in relation to the stated goal of increasing universality as well as to their gendered impacts. It argues that three principal limitations inhibited the move to universality and did little to promote gender equality. First, the quality of public service is weak and this has had a particularly adverse impact on women. Second, the reforms have not limited the historical fragmentation of the Peruvian social policy architecture. Finally, social program implementation is still coercive, limiting the reinforcement of social rights based on citizenship for women.

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