Negotiating Universalism in India and Latin America Fiscal Decentralization, Subnational Politics and Social Outcomes

This book explores how vertical inter-governmental political and fiscal bargains and horizontal variation in political, social and economic conditions across regions contribute to or undermine the provision of inclusive and sustainable social policies at the subnational level in Latin America and India.

The question of how to advance universal social rights while reducing territorial inequalities has been a central dilemma for Latin America and India. After several decades of ambitious decentralization reforms in both regions, the balance between local accountability versus centralized planning remains a theoretical and empirical problem in need of systematic exploration. The chapters in this volume incorporate both federal and decentralized unitary states, pointing to common political tensions across unitary and federal settings despite the typically greater institutionalization of regional autonomy in federal countries. The contributors examine the territorial dimension of universalism and explore, in greater and empirical detail, the causal links between fiscal transfers, social policies and outcomes, and highlight the political dynamics that shape fiscal decentralization reforms and the welfare state.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Regional & Federal Studies.

Introduction: Negotiating universalism in India and Latin America: Fiscal decentralization, subnational politics and social outcomes

Andres Mejia Acosta and Louise Tillin

1. Rethinking measures of democracy and welfare state universalism: Lessons from subnational research

Agustina Giraudy and Jennifer Pribble

2. Federal transfers, inequality, and redistribution: Contrasting theories and empirical evidence for five Latin American cases

Lucas I. González

3. The centralization vs decentralization tug of war and the emerging narrative of fiscal federalism for social policy in India

Yamini Aiyar and Avani Kapur

4. Who benefits? Intergovernmental transfers, subnational politics and local spending in Ecuador

Andres Mejia Acosta and Karla Meneses

5. Extractive industries and regional development: Lessons from Peru on the limitations of revenue devolution to producing regions

Javier Arellano-Yanguas

6. Public policy provision from a subnational perspective: Context, institutions and spatial inequality

Rodrigo Rodrigues-Silveira

Andrés Mejía Acosta is Senior Lecturer at the Department of International Development, King’s College London, UK, and Associate Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Business and Economics, University of the Americas (UDLA), Ecuador.

Louise Tillin is Reader in Politics and Director of King’s India Institute, King’s College London, UK. She is an editor of the journal Regional and Federal Studies.