Desigualdad, Democracia y Políticas Sociales Focalizadas en América Latina. y

Abstract

This paper explores some mechanisms that tend to reproduce the weakness of Latin American democracies through the pervasiveness of social inequality. The analysis focuses on the limitations of targeted social policies to break this circularity from three arguments: i) social policies weaken social citizenship, ii) they encourage political patronage and iii) they take care of vulnerable people but they not imply rights for them. The paper also argues that these limitations, in turn, are a source for the rise of new actors and forms of collective action that can lead to Latin American democracies to be more inclusive.