International Journal of Sociology, vol. 41, no. 2, Summer 2011, pp. 3–9. © 2011 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 0020–7659/2011 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753/IJS0020-7659410200
Soraya Vargas Côrtes and Joshua Kjerulf Dubrow
Guest Editors’ Introduction Political Inequality in Latin America Democracy establishes formal conditions for political life, such as universal suffrage, civil liberties, and the right to form political organizations, yet political inequality is the outcome (Dryzek 1996; Huber, Rueschemeyer, and Stephens 1997). Political inequality can be defined as structured differences in influence over government decisions. Decades of research have clearly shown how macrolevel context combines with individual and group position within social, political, and economic structures, and affects political influence, such that political inequality interacts with a host of other inequalities, including gender, ethnicity, and class (APSA 2004; Dubrow 2010). Because political processes govern resource distribution, political inequality has profound consequences for the welfare of all people in society. While the literature on other major types of inequality, such as economic and educational inequalities, addresses the basic question “What are the causes and consequences of this inequality?” empirical studies of political inequality, especially outside of the West, are few. This is true of Latin America. Scholars such as Timothy Power, Evelyn Huber, and John D. Stephens have explored issues of democracy and political activity in Latin America (Huber 2009; Huber et al. 2009; Kingstone and Power 2008; Power and Htun 2006; Pribble, Huber and Stephens 2009). However, scholarship produced by Latin American scholars rarely reaches English-speaking
Soraya Vargas Côrtes is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil. Address correspondence to Soraya Vargas Côrtes, Av. Bento Gonçalves, 9.500 Prédio 43311, Sala D218 UFRGS, Campus do Vale, Porto Alegre/RS, Brazil CEP 91540-000; e-mail:
[email protected]. Joshua Kjerulf Dubrow is an assistant professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences and head of the Working Group on Political Inequality, sponsored by the Committee on Political Sociology. Address correspondence to Joshua Kjerulf Dubrow, Room 211, 72 Nowy Swiat, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland; e-mail:
[email protected]. 3
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audiences. This issue of the International Journal of Sociology draws together empirically based articles that focus on the unique impact of the Latin American context on the form, causes, and consequences of political inequality. The Concept of Political Inequality Political inequality is a matter of who influences the decisions of decision-making bodies. We regard political inequality as a multidimensional concept—comprising voice and response—that occurs in all types of governance structures, from social movement organizations, to local and national governments, to global governance (APSA 2004; Dubrow 2008, 2010). Voice refers to how constituencies express their interests to decision makers, either directly or through representatives. Response refers to how decision makers act and react to their constituencies and takes the forms of symbols and policy. A flexible concept of political inequality can be applied across countries and across time and across all types of political decision-making systems. Political inequality bridges sociology and political science, political sociology, and social stratification. The challenge of the field of political inequality is to unite the vast knowledge we have about social stratification—its theories, empirical research, and methodology—with the vast knowledge we have about politics found in political science and political sociology. In essence, the challenge is to take what is currently fragmented and multidisciplinary and make a coherent interdisciplinary knowledge of the concepts, measures, causes, and consequences of political inequality. The Latin American Context Latin America, which can be defined as the countries of South and Central America, is home to nearly 600 million people characterized by great political, economic, and social diversity. Although the definition of “Latin America” can vary by scholar, there are historical similarities throughout the region. Table 1 presents a recent statistical snapshot of Latin American countries, including population, gross national income (GNI) per capita (measured using purchasing power parity [PPP]), level of democracy, and level of economic inequality. Latin America is home to countries with populations of slightly over 3 million (Panama and Uruguay) to those over 100 million, including Brazil (193.7 million), currently the world’s fifth-most-populous country. Economically, Latin America is very diverse. Countries whose GNI per capita (based on PPP, in international dollars) ranges from a low of $3,710 (Honduras) to a high of over $14,000 (Argentina and Mexico). Latin America is also one of the most economically unequal regions of the world, with low variance in household income inequality, as evidenced by the Gini coefficient, which ranges from a little over 55 (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, and Panama) to a “low” of 41 (Venezuela). However, socioeconomic inequality has been declining in the past decade (CEPAL 2010: 11–13). The proportion of the poor dropped from 43.8 percent in 1999, to 32.1
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Table 1 Statistical Snapshot of Latin America: Population, Gross National Income (in PPP), Economic Inequality, and Democracy Score
Country Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Uruguay Venezuela
Populationa 40,276,376 9,862,860 193,733,795 16,970,265 45,659,709 4,578,945 11,204,180 10,090,151 13,625,069 6,163,050 14,026,947 7,465,998 107,431,225 5,742,800 3,453,898 6,348,917 29,164,883 3,344,938 28,384,000
GNI (PPP)b 14,090 4,250 10,200 13,440 8,600 10,930 n.d. 8,110 8,100 6,420 4,570 3,710 14,100 2,540 12,180 4,430 8,120 12,900 12,220
Economic inequality (Gini)d 45.7 (2009) 58.2 (2009) 56.7 (2005) 54.9 (2003) 58.5 (2009) 48.0 (2008) n.d. 49.9 (2005) 46.9 (2010) 52.4 (2002) 55.1 (2007) 53.8 (2003) 48.2 (2008) 43.1 (2001) 56.1 (2003) 53.2 (2009) 49.6 (2009) 45.2 (2006) 41.0 (2009)
EIU democracyc 6.84 5.92 7.12 7.67 6.55 8.04 3.52 6.20 5.77 6.47 6.05 5.76 6.93 5.73 7.15 6.40 6.40 8.10 5.18
Source: World Bank, 2009. Source: World Bank, International Comparison Program database, 2009. According to the World Bank, “[Gross national income] (GNI) per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP). PPP GNI is gross national income (GNI) converted to international dollars using purchasing power parity rates. An international dollar has the same purchasing power over GNI as a U.S. dollar has in the United States. GNI is the sum of value added by all resident producers plus any product taxes (less subsidies) not included in the valuation of output plus net receipts of primary income (compensation of employees and property income) from abroad. Data are in current international dollars.” See www.worldbank.org for more details. c Economist Intelligence Unit Index of Democracy, 2010, http://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/ Democracy_Index_2010_web.pdf. d Source: CIA World Factbook, Distribution of Family Income Gini Index, which ranges from zero (perfect income equality) to 100 (perfect income inequality). Year of data is in parentheses. For more information, see www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/fields/2172.html. Note: n.d. = no data. a
b
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percent in 2010. Even if the magnitude of the change varies among countries, in seventeen countries the same tendency was found.1 Many Latin American countries are beginning, albeit very tentatively, to reduce the concentration of wealth currently held in the hands of the few. Only in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic has wealth redistribution all but collapsed (CEPAL 2010: 14). In the 1970s most of the region was governed by authoritarian systems, but over the past three decades democratic rule extended nearly everywhere, with the sole exceptions of Cuba and, by some accounts, Haiti (Hershberg 2009: 195). In contrast to a history of authoritarian regimes, social exclusion, and erratic economic performance, today most Latin American governments are relatively stable democracies that combine citizens’ political participation with economic and social growth. We use the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Index of Democracy (http://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy_Index_2010_web.pdf) to measure the level of democracy. The EIU overall score is the average of five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture, all of which ranges from 0 to 10, where the higher the score, the greater the level of democracy. Again, Latin America is characterized by diversity, with the highest scores slightly higher than 8 (Costa Rica and Uruguay) to the lower scores of democratically challenged countries such as Cuba (3.52) and Venezuela (5.18). Yet democracy scores do not properly represent the range of democratic types within countries and in many different social and political institutions that enhance political voice and responsiveness. Throughout Latin America, democratic regimes are a study in contrasts. Some argue that many Latin American political systems are not fully democratic (Hagopian and Mainwaring 2005; Smith 2005). Echoing some issues of the early 1990s in Eastern Europe, these democracies had inefficient electoral systems, weak and authoritarian institutions, limited accountability, ambivalent mass attitudes toward democracy, and stifled information flows (Hershberg 2009: 201). Only Costa Rica, Chile, and Uruguay consistently adhered to liberal democratic practices throughout the 1990s (Hagopian and Mainwaring 2005; Smith 2005). Nonetheless, civil society is blossoming; there is surprising openness of local electoral processes, particularly in major cities, and there are innovative institutional developments such as political decentralization and other participatory mechanisms that improve accountability and encourage voice equality (Drake 2009; Helmke and Levitsky 2006). Of the new forms of democratic participation, the most common are local-level participatory budget and policy councils. These democratic forums deliberate on budgetary, social, economic, and environmental issues, and on citizen and human rights. Outside of parties, trade unions, and business groups, these forums are new ways to represent group interests in the political system. Here, the voice of those who never before had a significant role in Latin American political life—ethnic minorities and indigenous groups, the disabled, the poor, women, and sexual minorities, among others—are being heard by policymakers (Avritzer and Costa 2004: 722–23).
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Articles in This Issue The articles in this issue of the International Journal of Sociology address political inequality in various ways, and their combination paints a fascinating portrait of stubborn stabilities and dynamic processes of inequality. The first two articles examine the relationships between trust, politics, and inequality. Eduardo Marques qualitatively explores the network connections and exchange processes through which the poor of São Paulo—Brazil’s megacity of over 12 million residents—access day-to-day goods and services. Marques constructs a typology of poor people’s network exchange that shows how both daily and extraordinary help via interpersonal exchange vary by levels of trust and intimacy. Exchanges between residents of poor neighborhoods are dynamic, rather than static, and can fundamentally alter their networks (who they know, and where) in ways that are beneficial, or costly, as the case may be. Abby Córdova examines a different dimension of trust and policy. Using unique survey data that cover Latin America and the Caribbean—AmericasBarometer surveys by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) in 2008—Córdova reexamines and geographically resituates the classic finding that the greater a person’s wealth, the lower his support for government economic redistribution that benefits the disadvantaged. She finds that interpersonal trust meaningfully intervenes in the relationship, in which wealthy Latin Americans with higher levels of interpersonal trust are more likely than those with lower trust levels to favor policies of economic redistribution that help the disadvantaged. The next two articles consider the role of the state in producing or reducing political inequality. In examining the dynamics of the relationship between the Brazilian state and third sector organizations (TSOs), for example, various nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, Felix Garcia Lopez, Luciana de Souza Leão, and Mario Luis Grangeia find that the state and TSOs are growing increasingly close in terms of funding and policy jurisdiction. In Brazil, political inequality is reduced through inclusive deliberating councils that make TSOs both more efficient and more successful in influencing government decisions. Using interviews of sixty-one TSO directors, the authors argue that Brazilian TSOs simultaneously welcome state support and shun the everyday politics embedded in state practices; the state is a political machine, yet TSOs want the benefits of a close relationship without the wheeling and dealing that goes along with how the state operates day to day. The findings of Marques and Lopez, de Souza Leão, and Grangeia suggest that clientelistic Brazilian political traditions are decreasing in importance, a situation that potentially reduces overall political inequality. Clientelism privileges some actors over others, and the mechanism is the exchange relationship between patron and client. Marques and Lopez and colleagues argue that clientelism is a form of political inequality as equal voice and access is not given to all actors. According to Marques, the poor of São Paulo use exchanges for political favors, but policy benefits are distributed insofar as the policy was designed, that is, independent of
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exchanges and based on need. According to Lopez, de Souza Leão, and Grangeia, TSO organizations shun vestiges of the clientelistic tradition of the state, seeing it as a part of politics that is best left at a distance and in the past. Soraya Vargas Côrtes, Marcelo Kunrath Silva , and Maria de Lourdes Drachler take a more microlevel view in examining how the state governs political inequality in their study of São Paulo and Porto Alegre. In addition to standard variables such as education and interest in politics, engagement in organizations of all types— political and nonpolitical—positively influence the chances of political participation. Because organizational engagement in Brazil is stable and not declining, the authors take issue with the European biased assumption that participation in traditional hierarchical organizations such as churches, parties, and interest groups declines. Overarching their discussion is the strong role of the Brazilian state in structuring opportunities for organizational engagement and political activism. In the final article, Vanina Modolo examines political inequality before the law in terms of migrant political rights in the Mercosur (Mercado Común del Sur, or Southern Common Market) countries of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Although migrants benefit socially and economically, electoral rights are a different matter. Modolo traces the legal framework for migrants to vote and to stand for office and finds the legal situation simultaneously chaotic—legal rights of this kind can vary by country and administrative jurisdiction—and orderly—in most countries and in most districts, rights to vote and stand for office are denied. Studies of the legal basis for political inequality in comparative perspective are rare, and Modolo’s article makes a significant contribution to the literature. Political Inequality in Latin America Taken together, the articles presented here offer a complex, yet hopeful portrayal of political inequality in Latin America. The glass is half-full: Democracy is spreading throughout Latin America, historically high economic inequality is showing signs of decline, and clientelistic practices of the authoritarian past are on the wane. Deliberating councils at the federal and local levels reduce political inequality of voice, and historically marginalized groups and civil society organizations are the beneficiaries. The glass is half-empty: Many countries throughout Latin America have comparatively low levels of democracy, economic inequality remains high, electoral rights for migrants are legally restricted, and the new, inclusive policies designed to improve the voice of low-resource groups have not yet led to profound social, economic, and political change. We hope this issue of the International Journal of Sociology serves as the start of greater efforts to bring Latin American scholarship on political inequality to global audiences. The field of political inequality in cross-national perspective grows and provides food for thought and spirited debates. We encourage this journal’s readership to bring their knowledge and research focus to bear on political inequality in Latin America now and in the future.
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Note 1. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Venezuela (CEPAL 2010: 14).
References American Political Science Association (APSA) Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy. 2004. American Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality. Available at www.apsanet.org/imgtest/taskforcereport.pdf (accessed July 4, 2007). Avritzer, L., and Costa, S. 2004. “Teoria crítica, democracia e esfera pública: concepções e usos na América Latina” [Critical Theory, Democracy, and the Public Sphere: Concepts and Practices in Latin America]. Dados 47, no. 4: 703–28. Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL). 2010. Social Panorama of Latin America. New York: ECLAD/United Nations. Drake, P.W. 2009. Between Tyranny and Anarchy: A History of Democracy in Latin America, 1800–2006. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Dryzek, J.S. 1996. “Political Inclusion and the Dynamics of Democratization.” American Political Science Review 90, no. 3: 475–87. Dubrow, J.K. 2008. “Guest Editor’s Introduction: Defining Political Inequality with a Cross-National Perspective.” International Journal of Sociology 37, no. 4: 3–9. ———. 2010. “Cross-National Measures of Political Inequality of Voice.” ASK: Research and Methods 19: 93–110. Hagopian, F., and S.P. Mainwaring, ed. 2005. The Third Wave of Democratization in Latin America: Advances and Setbacks. New York: Cambridge University Press. Helmke, G., and S. Levitsky. 2006. Informal Institutions and Democracy: Lessons from Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hershberg, E. 2009. “Democracy in Latin America: A Review of Recent Literature.” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 34: 195–208. Huber, E. 2009. “Politics and Inequality in Latin America.” Political Science and Politics (October): 651–55. Huber, E; D. Rueschemeyer; and J.D. Stephens. 1997. “The Paradoxes of Contemporary Democracy: Formal, Participatory, and Social Dimensions.” Comparative Politics 29, no. 3: 323–42. Huber, E.; F. Nielsen; J. Pribble; and J.D. Stephens. 2006. “Politics and Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean.” American Sociological Review 71: 943–63. Kingstone, P.R., and T. Power, ed. Democratic Brazil Revisited. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008. Power, T., and M. Htun. 2006. “Gender, Parties, and Support for Equal Rights in the Brazilian Congress.” Latin American Politics and Society 48, no. 4 (Winter): 83–104. Pribble, J.; E. Huber; and J.D. Stephens. 2009. “Politics, Policies, and Poverty in Latin America.” Comparative Politics 41, no. 4 (July): 387–407. Smith, P.H. 2005. Democracy in Latin America: Political Change in Comparative Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.
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