Scheming for the Poor: The Politics of Redistribution in Latin America

by William Ascher

Overview

Scheming for the Poor is the first comparative analysis of redistributive policymaking in Latin America. William Ascher examines the success or failure of progressive policies launched by nine governments grouped into three regime types—populist, reformist, and radical—over the course of the postwar history of Argentina, Chile, and Peru.

His findings challenge the conventional views that redistribution in Latin America is either doomed to failure or else is the inevitable consequence of a balance of pro-redistributive and anti-redistributive forces. Ascher shows that tactics and careful attention to practical politics and policy implementation are far more important than regime type and professed political objectives and credos. The adept policymakers—from the Argentine authoritarian populist Juan Perón to the Chilean reformist Eduardo Frei—delivered more as redistributionists than did the economic romantics.

Integrating the political and economic aspects of redistribution, Ascher shows that in political terms success stems from subtlety rather than stridency, perceptions rather than economic realities, the astute formation of coalitions, and aversion of the mobilization of the opposition. Ultimately, of course, economic pressures impose a limit on what is politically possible, and Ascher demonstrates how economic requirements constrain the politics of income redistribution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674790858
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	03/16/1984
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	348
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.30(d)

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

1. Defining the Redistributive Issue

2. Matching Tactics, Context, and Theory

II. The Authoritarian Populists

3. Argentina's Machiavellian Master

4. The Debacle of Chile's General of Hope

5. The Faltering Redistributionist Impulse in Peru

6. Interpreting the Authoritarian Populists

III. The Democratic Reformists

7. Gradualism in Chile

8. Reform in Peru

9. Argentina's Beleaguered Center

10. The Logic and Tactics of Reformism

IV. The Radicals

11. Collapse in Chile

12. The Peruvian Military

13. Common Predicaments

14. Conclusions

Notes

References

Index

Editorial Reviews

This is a major contribution to the study of both Latin American politics and the broader field of public policy. There is nothing of similar scope currently available in either English or Spanish.

Lars Schoultz

This is a major contribution to the study of both Latin American politics and the broader field of public policy. There is nothing of similar scope currently available in either English or Spanish
— Lars Schoultz

Professor of Political Science University of North Carolina