The social effects of cash transfer policies’ implementation in Mexico and Brazil

Abstract

This article analyzes the social effects of implementing two cash transfer programs in Latin America (Oportunidades/Mexico and Bolsa-Família/Brazil), based on two dimensions: (1) implementation arrangements, and (2) interactions between beneficiaries and street-level bureaucrats. The first dimension, which guides the analysis of the Mexican program, encompasses aspects associated with organizational dynamics, bureaucratic processes, and institutional arrangements related to the implementation process. The second dimension, used as analytical lens to look into the Bolsa-Família Program, involves issues related to daily practices of policy implementation that involve moral judgments about and social control over groups of beneficiaries. Findings point to reinforcement of asymmetries, which contributes to increasing inequalities in different dimensions: social, symbolic, moral, class, gender, and stigmatization. Established in 2001 and 2003, respectively, both programs aim to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. Forty-seven interviews were held with policy implementers at various levels, including the local level, in the cities of San Luis Potosí and Puebla, Mexico. In Brazil, data was gathered from 70 interviews with beneficiary and non-beneficiary families and street-level bureaucrats in a underprivileged area in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. The analyses reveal that the State establishes multiple controls over the beneficiary population, exacerbating social inequalities. Data also shows that the locations in both countries are characterized by systematic surveillance of beneficiaries. By making these practices and their effects visible at the local level, this article demonstrates the central role that street-level bureaucrats play in implementation dynamics.