Social Inclusion, Cash Transfers, and Discrimination in Latin America, Plus a Quick Assessment of the Repercussions of the Covid‐19 Pandemic in Key Countries

Abstract

The second issue of Latin American Policy for this year features six relevant pieces of research dealing with trending topics in the region. Rosario Palacios, Sofia Larrazabal, and Rocio Berwart explain how educational policies in Chile compound a “policy assemblage” where diverse human and non-human actors are permanently negotiating their range of agency and power. Meanwhile, Norma Muñoz del Campo and Melina de Souza Rocha Lukic suggest that public policy changes in Brazil and Chile are better understood by highlighting continuities rather than focusing on theories based on critical junctures or exogenous shocks. Carlos Costa suggests that, in Brazil, spaces with greater homogeneity of voter types receive fewer cash-transfer benefits than their more-heterogeneous counterparts. Oscar A. Martínez-Martínez, Silviya Pavlova Nikolova, Brenda Coutiño-Vázquez, and Araceli Ramírez-López reveal that people in Mexico in situations of disability are less likely to access social services and educational opportunities, and to participate fully in work, and are, therefore, more prone to earn a lower income to cover their basic needs. Adrian Duhalt studies the development trajectory of Pemex’s petrochemical industry and situates the discussion within Mexico’s new policy shifts. Finally, Juan M. Gil-Barragan, Andres Aguilera-Castillo, and Llanet Suárez Galeano present the results of a bibliometric analysis of the literature on the economic and political relations between China and Latin America. Despite the research progress in this field, they conclude that coverage of the topic is in a relatively incipient phase. In this issue, in our Perspectives section, we also present a vigorous debate on sensitive current affairs affecting key Latin American countries. We are grateful to Andrés Rivarola Puntigliano, the director of the Nordic Institute of Latin American Studies at Stockholm University, for sharing his thoughts on how the Covid-19 crisis is challenging the current health and economic policies of Latin American countries. Diego Hernández Nilson and Camilo López Burian’s (University of Uruguay) contribution sheds light on how Uruguay is coping with the pandemics. Essays written by Lorena Oyarzún-Serrano (University of Chile), Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann (PUC-Rio), and Alejandro Simonoff (University of La Plata), reflect on how the health and economic crises are resonating in Chile, Brazil, and Argentina, respectively. Finally, a collective contribution by Luis Huesca Reynoso (CIAD-Mexico), Oscar A. Martínez-Martínez, and Ricardo Velázquez Leyer (the latter two from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City) offers an assessment of López Obrador’s first 2 years in office. We hope our readers find this collection of research articles and essays, as well as the two book reviews, useful and attractive. Isidro Morales is a researcher and professor in the School of Government and Public Transformation at Tecnológico de Monterrey, and an external fellow of the Mexico–United States Center and the Energy Center at Rice University’s Baker Institute.