Strategies for Seeking Access to Social Programs in Argentina and Brazil

• In Event: Politics in the Global South’s Small and Medium-Sized Cities

Abstract

What explains why some citizens gain access to state-funded social benefits and programs to which they are entitled while others do not? Across the globe today, low- and middle-income democracies promise more social benefits to more citizens than they have at any time in the past. Beyond simply representing responses to material need, the spread of social programs and the growth in parchment guarantees of social rights reflect an increasingly widespread view among politicians, policymakers, and citizens that social rights are an integral component of democratic citizenship. While the state’s promise of social rights has expanded greatly in many lower and middle-income democracies, a vast literature demonstrates that access to these benefits – and hence the effective exercise of these social rights – remains highly uneven. We make use of focus groups conducted in cities in Argentina and Brazil to typologize the strategies that individuals use for seeking access to social programs. We illustrate how individuals’ conceptions of their social rights affects how and whether they seek out social welfare programs and benefits.

Authors

• Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro, Brown University

• Matthew S. Winters, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign