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A partir de los procesos de reforma del estado, muchas han sido las propuestas que plantean que el estado debe delegar a otros actores algunas de las tareas que venía realizando. En este marco, ha cobrado especial relevancia la participación de las organizaciones de la sociedad civil en la implementación de políticas sociales. El involucramiento de las ong ofrece algunas ventajas a priori muy claras por no tener fines del lucro y promover valores de solidaridad y compromiso social. Sin embargo, los primeros estudios que se han realizado sobre experiencias concretas muestran que también existen desventajas importantes, y, sobre todo, que la relación y el intercambio institucional entre el estado y las ong está lejos de ser simple. Este artículo resume los resultados de una investigación que

AbstractThis article analyzes how policy ideas already adopted in Europe, particularly in France, were taken into consideration for the design of Uruguay's National Public Assistance (NPA) policy. Established in 1910, the NPA was a pioneering government social policy for the time and for the region.Some have argued that the design of the NPA law followed the secular and republican model instituted in France at the end of the nineteenth century when France established the Assistance Publique, particularly regarding the extent of public assistance to the poor, the role of the state in the provision of health care (as opposed to charity-based provision) and the centralization of health-care services (as opposed to a decentralized health-care system).We analyze how these revolutionary ideas were discussed by the technicians and politicians who participated in the process that culminated in the approval of the law in Uruguay discussed these revolutionary ideas. We explore the factors that motivated the creation of the commission that developed the law. We also review available documentation on the drafting of the bill and the parliamentary debate that culminated in its approval. We find that the design of the NPA included many ideas diffused mainly from France. The French model was not simply emulated, however. Rather, the authors of the NPA thoroughly analyzed and considered the features and main consequences of the Assistance Publique, suggesting that diffusion in this case was more a process of learning than of simple mimicry.

Uruguay's social policy response to Covid-19 built on a strong social protection system and a favorable social situation that existed before the pandemic arrived. The country's favorable position in the region enabled the government to gradually reformulate key existing social policies to cover a broad proportion of the population. The newly installed government's response occurred within the country's structurally divided social protection architecture, which covers both formal workers and families not covered by the social security system. However, efforts in the two parts of the system have not been equally effective and there remains a portion of the population not covered by any of these social protection policies. ; 15

Este artículo analiza el mecanismo causal que subyace a las condicionalidades a partir del análisis de los procesos de implementación de la Asignación Universal por Hijo de Argentina y el Régimen de Asignaciones Familiares (Plan de Equidad) de Uruguay. Para ello, con el objetivo de aportar elementos sobre la relación causal entre condicionalidades y el eventual cambio de comportamiento de las familias, aquí se profundiza en cómo las condicionalidades son comunicadas a los receptores de ambas políticas, cómo son entendidas por ellos, y cómo el incumplimiento es sancionado. La comparación entre Argentina y Uruguay muestra cómo cada política pone el foco en distintas etapas de su proceso de implementación. Esto da cuenta de dos formas distintas de implementar las condicionalidades, alterando en forma distinta la cadena causal a través de la cual las condicionalidades podrían modificar la conducta de los receptores. El análisis provee elementos para reflexionar sobre el grado en que es esperable que las condicionalidades de las políticas de transferencias logren los efectos deseados y en qué condiciones es esto razonable.

AbstractTo what extent have Latin America's Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs adopted different forms of conditionality? What are the main features of this variation, if any? In this article, we show that conditionalities vary across Latin America's CCTs and across time within programs. Drawing on existing conceptualizations of welfare conditionality and a novel, purpose‐built dataset covering 16 countries from 1997 to 2019, we analyze the evolution and variation in the design of welfare conditionality in the region. We find that conditionalities among Latin America's CCTs exhibit many different types and also vary significantly in how the program's main attributes—behavioral requirements, monitoring, and sanctioning rules—combine and evolve across time in each program. These combinations show that governments do not consistently produce "pure" CCT models but instead use conditionality features in many different ways and also adjust them over time, frequently to make more explicit what they expect from CCT recipients.

AbstractWhat explains the 'punitive turn' toward more stringent conditionalities in welfare policies? Answering this question is crucial in a region such as Latin America, where cash transfers have proven politically consequential for incumbents. Our argument emphasises the role of electoral competition in shaping a government's decision to adopt a more punitive approach to conditionalities. We use process tracing to test our argument in a case involving a change from relatively lax to more stringent conditionalities in Uruguay's system of conditional cash transfers (CCTs). We also test other explanations from the welfare conditionality and the welfare and policy change literatures. We find that, as public opinion increasingly turned against state assistance to the poor, the opposition politicised the issue of non‐enforcement of conditionalities. This led Uruguay's left‐wing government to shift to more stringent enforcement of conditionalities to avoid alienating members of its electoral base who were not CCT beneficiaries. Our findings contribute to the current debate on why and how governments choose to sanction welfare recipients as a response to political dynamics, both in developed and developing regions.