Politicising poverty in Latin America in the light of Rawls’ ‘strains of commitment’ argument for a social minimum

Armando Barrientos

Global Development Institute Working Paper Series from GDI, The University of Manchester

Abstract: Abstract The paper discusses the rise of poverty and poverty reduction in the political and policy agenda in Latin America, reflected inter alia in the growth of social assistance. It identifies and discusses two main explanations offered in the literature: democratisation and left partisan power. It then introduces a third explanation based on Rawls’ theory of justice, in which a social minimum is essential for preventing the ‘strains of commitment’ from becoming excessive. Analysis of cross-country panel data for 18 Latin American countries for the period 1990-2008 assesses the plausibility of these explanations.

Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lam and nep-pke
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bwp:bwppap:18213

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