Institutions, Policies, and inequality-reduction in Contemporary Brazil

MARTA ARRETCHE

Title

Institutions, Policies, and inequality-reduction in Contemporary Brazil          

Abstract

Contemporary democracies face a major challenge: how to handle inequality. Political science research has identified two broad approaches to confronting this challenge: one stresses the need for political institutions to make reforms possible while the other emphasizes the crucial role of policies.

Although there is little doubt about the prospects of democracy in Brazil, a widespread belief sustains that Brazilian political institutions do not fare well. Among others, Brazilian federalism is expected to leverage the political power of backward regional politicians who control low-strata voters, and so opposition to inequality-reduction reforms is expected to be succeed.  However, nationwide comprehensive policies were adopted from the mid-1990s on.

To explore the impact of institutions and policies on poverty and inequality, this presentation will analyze municipal-level data on territorial inequalities in health and education conditions in Brazil from 2000 to 2010.

The analysis finds no linear relationship between income and social conditions, indicating that cross-municipal and over-time variation in health status and educational attainment is mediated by the way in which national-level policies affect the centrifugal tendencies associated with federalism, decentralization, and local conditions.