
The Great Gap
Inequality and the Politics of Redistribution in Latin America
Edited by Merike Blofield
The Great Gap
Inequality and the Politics of Redistribution in Latin America
Edited by Merike Blofield
“I find The Great Gap to be the best and most important contribution to the study of Latin America written for quite some time.”
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- Reviews
- Bio
- Table of Contents
- Sample Chapters
- Subjects
Aside from the editor, the contributors are Pablo Alegre, Maurício Bugarin, Daniela Campello, Anna Crespo, Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Fernando Filgueira, Liesl Haas, Sallie Hughes, Juan Pablo Luna, James E. Mahon Jr., Juliana Martínez Franzoni, Adriana Cuoco Portugal, Paola Prado, Elisa P. Reis, Luis Reygadas, Sergio Naruhiko Sakurai, and Koen Voorend.
“I find The Great Gap to be the best and most important contribution to the study of Latin America written for quite some time.”
“Inequality encompasses diverse aspects of social, political, and territorial relations that commonly elude even learned discussions and debates. The Great Gap sets a high standard for Latin Americanists as well as comparativists in terms of both the breadth and depth of its analyses of this fundamental issue.”
“Social scientists have long assumed that political democracy will reduce social and economic inequalities. Thus, they have been puzzled by the persistence of extreme inequalities under democratic regimes in Latin America. Merike Blofield and her co-authors shed new light on this question by exploring how inequalities shape group interests, political power, and democratic processes, often in ways that reproduce those very inequalities. This provocative and insightful text breaks new ground in the study of the political economy of inequality, in Latin America and beyond.”
“Blofield’s volume is itself a wake-up call that democracy is only as strong as the level of equality it can help to produce.”
“In The Great Gap: Inequality and the Politics of Redistribution in Latin America, University of Miami political scientist Merike Blofield assembles a distinguished group of social scientists to look at why democracies tolerate high inequality. Blofield concludes that a ‘window of opportunity’ may be opening for more redistributive policies as populist regimes in Venezuela and Bolivia offer a wake-up call to the region’s elite about the perils of not acting. This may help persuade the middle and upper classes to invest in a new social contract where more public expenditures target the ‘unincorporated’ poor. . . . Blofield’s volume is itself a wake-up call that democracy is only as strong as the level of equality it can help to produce.”
“Blofield’s outstanding volume is a major contribution to our understanding of the relationship between inequality and politics. In addition to showing how inequality is reproduced, it persuasively demonstrates how pervasive inequality is in Latin America, how elites, the media, and the public perceive inequality, and how inequality affects taxation and social policies. . . . [It] deserve[s] a wide audience, and not only among Latin Americanists.”
“Interdisciplinary attempts to understand the increasingly complex relationships between continuing inequality and politics in Latin America are somewhat thin on the ground. Merike Blofield's excellent edited volume, prepared under the aegis of the Observatory on Inequality in Latin America at the University of Miami, represents a welcome contribution in this regard.”
Merike Blofield is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami.
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: In equality and Politics in Latin America
Merike Blofield
Part 1: The Socioeconomic Context
Chapter 1 | Fault Lines in Latin American Social Development and Welfare Regime Challenges
Fernando Filgueira
Chapter 2 | Inequality of Opportunity in Latin America: Economic Well- Being, Education, and Health
Anna Crespo and Francisco H. G. Ferreira
Part 2: Elite Culture, Framing, and Public Opinion
Chapter 3 | Elite Perceptions of Poverty and Inequality in Brazil
Elisa P. Reis
Chapter 4 | Media Diversity and Social Inequality in Latin America
Sallie Hughes and Paola Prado
Chapter 5 | Public Opinion on Income Inequalities in Latin America
Merike Blofield and Juan Pablo Luna
Part 3: Agenda Setting and the Politics of Inequality
Chapter 6 | The Politics of Redistribution in Less Developed Democracies: Evidence from Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela
Daniela Campello
Chapter 7 | Inequality and the Cost of Electoral Campaigns
Maurício Bugarin, Adriana Cuoco Portugal, and Sergio Naruhiko Sakurai
Chapter 8 | Shallow States, Deep Inequalities, and the Limits of Conservative Modernization: The Politics and Policies of Incorporation in Latin America
Fernando Filgueira, Luis Reygadas, Juan Pablo Luna, and Pablo Alegre
Chapter 9 | Gender Equality Policies in Latin America
Merike Blofield and Liesl Haas
Part 4: Taxation and Social Policies
Chapter 10 | Tax Reforms and Income Distribution in Latin America
James E. Mahon Jr.
Chapter 11 | Are Coalitions Equally Important for Redistribution in Latin America? The Intervening Role of Welfare Regimes
Juliana Martínez Franzoni and Koen Voorend
Conclusion: Inequality and the Politics of Redistribution
Merike Blofield
Contributors
Index
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