Ezequiel Luis Bistoletti, Universität Kassel
During the last four decades Latin America has been subjected to unprecedented social experiments like no other region in the world. The early implementation of the neoliberal program known as the “Washington Consensus” since the middle of the 1970s, its terminal crisis at the turn of century, and the subsequent emergence of a new political constellation recently characterized as “post-neoliberalism” have no anterior precedents in any other part of the globe.
In this context, social policies experienced profound and opposing changes. The neoliberal reforms of the social policies that timidly appeared during the 1970s and definitively materialized during the 1990s entailed a common pattern which, beyond national differences, aimed at the mercantilization and the individualization of the social services in a context of apparent inevitability and urgency. As a result, the reforms contributed to the transformation of collective rights into individual goods. The crisis of the neoliberal program unleashed a massive popular reaction against the pernicious social and economic effects of the Washington Consensus in the region since the beginning of the 2000s. Consequently, social policies were re-reformed on the fly under opposing, sometimes contradictory, “post-neoliberal” premises. These premises entail the (re)tackling of the relation between labor market and social policy, the acknowledgement of (in)equality as a central aim of social policy, and a substantial increase of the resources dedicated to social policies.
The post-neoliberal reforms of social policies in Latin America have increasingly aroused the academic interest in the subject. Current research mostly concentrates on the effects of the expansion of social policy on the poverty and inequality reduction, therefore inquiring about the (positive/negative) impact of social policies for the lower classes, the influence of social programs on inequality, the consequences of social expenditure for the economy, etc. Unfortunately, research disregards the political dimension of the post-neoliberal reforms, concentrating on its effects but overlooking its causes. As a result, the political dynamics that underlie social policy remain completely unattended. These dynamics encompass the political struggles that lie behind social policies, the social and political alliances that configure the conditions of existence for the materialization of social policy, the constellations of power and interests that enable/disable social policies, etc.
The cases of Ecuador and Venezuela constitute an excellent example of the complex and divergent power dynamics that underlie the reforms of social policies in Latin America. Both the Ecuadorian and the Venezuelan left oriented governments have promoted the passing of framework laws (called LRSS in Ecuador and LOSSS in Venezuela) which aim at the creation of a new institutional order for the social security, including (contributory) social insurances as well (non-contributory) social assistance. Despite the parliamentary majority that both governments hold, the passing and the implementation of the laws have triggered profound clashes between the government and the opposition in Ecuador, and within the governmental party in Venezuela. These external and internal confrontations have led to the permanent modification of the law and the proliferation of reform bills (authored by both the opposition and the governmental party) in Ecuador, and have resulted in the perpetual deferral of the law’s enforcement in Venezuela.
My doctoral thesis analyses the political struggles that underlay the conception, passing, and (non-)implementation of the social security reform laws in Ecuador and Venezuela. The analysis focuses on the different actors and interests at stake (labor unions, employers’ organizations, social movements, political parties, burocratic sectors, government, etc.), the lines of conflict drawn by the law (both between government and opposition and within the governmental party), the balance of power among the different groups involved and their respective alliances, and the political and historical juncture that imposes the limits of the possible courses of action.