What explains equity-enhancing reforms under centre-right governments? Evidence from Brazil

TY - JOUR

T1 - What explains equity-enhancing reforms under centre-right governments? Evidence from Brazil

AU - Alves, Daniel H.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025.

PY - 2025/1/2

Y1 - 2025/1/2

N2 - Inequality levels declined across Latin America between the 1990s and 2010s, but research remains incipient on how equity-enhancing initiatives sometimes emerged in centre-right governments. This article checks which mechanisms enabled education reform and cash-transfer schemes during the PSDB-led administration in Brazil (1995–2002), considering electoral competition, left-wing legislative strength, social mobilisation, and coalition dynamics. By combining multiple data sources, it is possible to observe the president promoting his party’s electoral ‘brand’ and cultivating a large multiparty alliance as the equalising policies passed through Congress. Meanwhile, leftist legislators comprised a relatively weak group, and bottom-up pressures were almost non-existent. As validity checks, the study first engages with two alternative explanations: personal leadership and bureaucratic action. Second, it proposes applying competitive elections and cross-party cooperation as possible explanatory factors for the persistence of the two analysed redistributive programmes in the governments of the left-wing Workers’ Party (2003–2016) and the far-right Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2022).

AB - Inequality levels declined across Latin America between the 1990s and 2010s, but research remains incipient on how equity-enhancing initiatives sometimes emerged in centre-right governments. This article checks which mechanisms enabled education reform and cash-transfer schemes during the PSDB-led administration in Brazil (1995–2002), considering electoral competition, left-wing legislative strength, social mobilisation, and coalition dynamics. By combining multiple data sources, it is possible to observe the president promoting his party’s electoral ‘brand’ and cultivating a large multiparty alliance as the equalising policies passed through Congress. Meanwhile, leftist legislators comprised a relatively weak group, and bottom-up pressures were almost non-existent. As validity checks, the study first engages with two alternative explanations: personal leadership and bureaucratic action. Second, it proposes applying competitive elections and cross-party cooperation as possible explanatory factors for the persistence of the two analysed redistributive programmes in the governments of the left-wing Workers’ Party (2003–2016) and the far-right Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2022).

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85213983436

U2 - 10.1177/02633957241310577

DO - 10.1177/02633957241310577

M3 - Article

SN - 0263-3957

JO - POLITICS

JF - POLITICS

ER -