The Politics of Inequality and Redistribution in Latin America's Post-Adjustment Era

Abstract

Declining social and economic inequalities since the late 1990s coincided with several basic shifts in Latin America’s political landscape, including an electoral turn to the left and a revival of social mobilization from below. These shifts helped to ‘repoliticize’ inequality and return redistributive policies to a central place on the political agenda in the aftermath to the structural adjustment policies of the 1980s and 1990s. Equity gains, however, have occurred under conservative governments as well as leftist ones, and they are associated with a diverse set of public policy initiatives. The new politics of inequality, therefore, differ significantly from those of Latin America’s ISI era, as well as those that prevailed during the period of economic liberalization.