Trends and constrains to universalization of social assistance in Peru

• In Event: Towards universal social policy trajectories in Latin America? Reach, determinants and implications. Part 3.

Abstract

Since the return of democracy in 2000 and the fall of Fujimori’s regime, governments implementedsocial, institutional and political reforms. In social domains, social programs were decentralized and rationalized in order to cut their patronage legacies. Traditional social programs were targeted and the main Latin-American social policy innovation was adopted in 2005: a conditional cash transfer (CCT).
Based on the analysis of alimentary, nursery and conditional cash transfers programs, this paper argues that three main limitations weakened the construction of a viable path toward sustainable universal rights to social assistance. The first one concerns the social services offered. Alimentary, nursery, education and health institutions (the latter two are indispensable to meet the conditions of CCTs) are neither available nor of adequate quality across the country.The second limitation regards the eligibility of these programs that are targeted on the poorest population. Targeted programs are not universal rights but could be “points of entry” to universal rights of education and heath linked to citizenship. Here comes the third limitation: these programs are not seen by their recipients as universal rights who identify them as clientelistic and coercive.
The main hypothesis to explain these limitations is the path dependency of Fujimori’s regime, characterised by (1) the weakness of the state and the “technocratization” of political elite; (2)the faith in the market and in the targeting policiesopposed to universalism and (3) the strength of neocolonialism regulating relations between the state and citizen-recipients.

Author

• Nora Nagels, Université du Québec à Montréal