Neo-liberalism, Semi-clientelism and the Politics of Scale in Mexican Anti-poverty Policies
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Lucy Luccisano
Lucy Luccisano is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University. She is also affiliated with the North American Studies Program. Her research focuses on the Mexican Conditional Cash Transfer Program and the ways in which poverty programs are experienced on the ground. Several publications examine the implications of these programs on social regulation, subjectivity, mothering, citizenship and welfare-reform in the North American context. Her current research articles examine Mexican poverty policy within the context of neo-liberalism, decentralization and the politics of clientelism (Journal of Poverty , theCanadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies ,Politics and Policy and chapters in various edited collections).
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Laura Macdonald
Laura Macdonald is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University. She is author ofSupporting Civil Society: The Political Impact of NGO Assistance to Central America , (Macmillan/St. Martin’s 1997), co-author ofWomen, Democracy, and Globalization in North America: A Comparative Study (Palgrave Macmillan 2006), and co-editor ofPost-Neoliberalism in the Americas (Palgrave Macmillan 2009, with Arne Ruckert) and ofContentious Politics in North America (Palgrave Macmillan 2009, with Jeffrey Ayres).
Abstract
This article examines the implications of the multi-scalar politics of Mexican anti-poverty policy for the long-term process of democratization. The federal anti-poverty policy, Progresa/Oportunidades, was designed to eliminate traditional clientelistic practices. While more obvious practices of pork-barrel politics have been eliminated in poverty alleviation programs, continued practices of top-down processes of program design and implementation strategies have resulted in the emergence of semi-clientelism. Argued in this paper is that municipal and state political actors have responded to these federal policies in ways that may or may not promote deeper levels of democracy, and which have led to the reconstitution of semi-clientelism. The paper draws upon recent revisionist approaches to political clientelism, and introduces a multi-scalar approach borrowed from political geography. Based on this theoretical approach, the article examines the role of state and municipal authorities in the delivery of federal anti-poverty benefits within the Oportunidades conditional cash transfer program.
About the authors
Lucy Luccisano is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University. She is also affiliated with the North American Studies Program. Her research focuses on the Mexican Conditional Cash Transfer Program and the ways in which poverty programs are experienced on the ground. Several publications examine the implications of these programs on social regulation, subjectivity, mothering, citizenship and welfare-reform in the North American context. Her current research articles examine Mexican poverty policy within the context of neo-liberalism, decentralization and the politics of clientelism (Journal of Poverty, the Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Politics and Policy and chapters in various edited collections).
Laura Macdonald is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University. She is author of Supporting Civil Society: The Political Impact of NGO Assistance to Central America, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s 1997), co-author of Women, Democracy, and Globalization in North America: A Comparative Study (Palgrave Macmillan 2006), and co-editor of Post-Neoliberalism in the Americas (Palgrave Macmillan 2009, with Arne Ruckert) and of Contentious Politics in North America (Palgrave Macmillan 2009, with Jeffrey Ayres).
©2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
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- Planting the Seeds of Change Inside? Functional Cooperation with Authoritarian Regimes and Socialization into Democratic Governance.
- The Takeoff after Lisbon: The Practical and Theoretical Implications of Differentiated Integration in the EU
- "May the Best Man Win": Local Government Representatives
- Party Identification, Leader Effects and Vote Choice in Italy, 1990-2008
- Study of Volatility and Party System Transformation in the 2010 Election of the Czech Chamber of Deputies
- Neo-liberalism, Semi-clientelism and the Politics of Scale in Mexican Anti-poverty Policies
- Women’s Substantive Representation in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives: Testing the Added Value of a ‘Claims-making’ Approach
- A “New” Anarchism? – On Bifurcation and Transformation of Contemporary Anarchist Thought and Praxis
- Did the Financial Crisis Save the Red-Green Government in the 2009 Norwegian Election – the Dissatisfaction with Rising Expectations Superseded By a Grace Period?
- Historical Institutionalism and Comparative Federalism
- Principals or Beginners? The Regions and the Local Railway System (1997–2011)
- Decision Costs and Welfare Effects of Democratic Voting Rules: an Experimental Analysis
- Raising the Stakes. Passing State Budgets in Scandinavia
- European Governance: On the Relationship Between Democratic and Non-democratic Deliberation Within the European Multi-level System
- Political Development of Lithuania: A Comparative Analysis of Second Post-communist Decade
- The Normalization of Sino-French Diplomatic Relations in 1964 and the Formation of the “One-China” Principle: Negotiations over Breaking French Diplomatic Relations with the Republic of China Government and the Recognition of the People’s Republic of China as the Sole Legitimate Government
- Towards a Representative Bureaucracy: Promoting Linguistic Representation and Diversity in the Swiss and Canadian Federal Public Services
- Liberalism, Social Justice, and Individual Responsibility
- The Effects of Economic Performance on Infrastructure Spending at the State and Local Levels
- Toward a Liberal Theory of Punishment: Locke, Property, and Individualism
