Redistributive Politics in Truncated Welfare States

The relationship between class and support for redistribution is weak and variable in Latin America, despite the region’s extreme income inequality. I argue that public opinion reflects the degree to which tax and transfer policies genuinely redistribute resources to the poor. It is not in the material interests of the poor to support “truncated ” social policies that tie benefits to formal sector employment. I formalize the logic and use public opinion data from Latin America and Europe to show that popular support is dampened and unmoored from class in policy areas and countries where the poor gain less from social expenditures. In contrast to weakly progressive government welfare provision, more economically progressive forms of informal redistribution like land takings polarize preferences in Latin America. Attention to the structure of redistribution sheds light on political coalition formation outside of Europe and unifies literatures on social policy in developing and advanced economies