Social Protection in Latin America: The Pursuit of Integrality with a Rights Approach

This paper aims at considering the following thesis: the scope, content and methods that social protection systems may acquire in each Latin American country depend on the approach that socio-politic winning coalitions might adopt, which will be conditioned by the influence of current politic, fiscal, organizational and ideological restraints, including those which are entangled in history and in the formal and informal institutional structure of each national case. Furthermore, in order to advance towards more integral systems, a structural and long-termed strategy is needed, and it should be expressed concretely in a set of political-institutional scenarios where social protection interventions will be formulated and implemented.

The document reviews the main conceptual debates regarding social protection in Latin America, and outlines the critical paths that may lead to tangible reforms (tailored to each context) of the institutional structure and of the public policies in the different countries of the region. Starting with a reassessment of the already present debate concerning the multidimensionality of social problems in the region, and showing relevant and aggregated information about some of these main issues, the article discusses three approaches of social protection that have been gaining strength in the political and academic debate on the future of social policy, in a scenario characterized by a progressively central role of the State in contexts where, despite the economic growth of the Latin American region during several years of the first decade of the 21st century, high levels of poverty and inequality are sustained, besides extremely heterogeneous national situations regarding their particular problems and the feasibility conditions needed to face them.

In a context where the number of voices that claim for the design and execution of integral social protection systems -based on a rights approach- is growing, the paper focuses on the complexities that inter-sector coordination and the relations between levels of government cause when trying to achieve this objective, which is complex not only in terms of public management, but also in relation to the political, social and fiscal concords required to its fulfillment past a phase where social rights have been seriously affected. Precisely paying attention to these difficulties, this work concludes presenting proposals and sketching possible paths to be followed in order to advance towards this new institutional and social policy scenario in Latin America.

Key words: Social Welfare; Social Security; Protection of Rights; Social Problem; Intersectoriality; Latin America