Good Jobs and Social Services How Costa Rica achieved the elusive double incorporation

by Martínez Franzoni, Juliana; Sánchez Ancochea, Diego

• ISBN13: 9781137308412
• ISBN10: 1137308419
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-07-09
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Few developing countries have succeeded in simultaneously providing good jobs and access to social services for all. Large informal sectors and segmented social policies that provide benefits to only a small minority are among the problems that have hampered developing countries' ability to secure the double incorporation to the market and to social services. This book reviews Costa Rica's experience as one of the few successful exceptions. The authors concentrate on the essential role of the state in expanding public employment, promoting small firms and cooperatives and creating generous and universal social services. In explaining why the state implemented these policies, the authors go beyond dominant democraticcentred explanations and highlight the emergence of a new elite of small and medium producers, and the role of international ideas. The book also recognizes Costa Rica's struggles
to maintain the double incorporation during the recent period of neoliberal globalization. It concludes with eight lessons.

Author Biography

Juliana Martínez Franzoni is Associate Professor at the University of Costa Rica. Her work on social policy formation and socioeconomic and gender inequality in Latin America has been most recently rewarded with fellowships by Fulbright, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies and the British Academy. She currently conducts research on the formation of universal social policies in the periphery, and changes in work-family policies in Latin America.
Diego Sánchez-Ancochea is University Lecturer in the Political Economy of Latin America at the University of Oxford, UK and Governing Body Fellow of St Antony's College. His research, which focuses on state-society relations, income distribution and public policy, has been published in journals like World Development, Journal of Latin American Studies and Studies in Comparative International Development.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
1. A Country That Tamed an Alusive Challenge
2. Two Distinct Phases of Market Incorporation
3. The Social Policy Regime: Creation, Expansion and Resilience
4. The State as the Central Actor: Elites, Ideas and Legacies
5. Conclusion: What can we Learn from the Costa Rican Case?
References