Читать книгу The Political Economy of the BRICS Countries - Группа авторов - Страница 124

PBF has substantially reduced the severity of the recipients’ poverty but brought comparably few Brazilians out of poverty completely. This is not surprising given the small amounts of money being transferred, but it represented a significant accomplishment on the path toward a Brazil that guarantees basic human needs. Bolsa Familia is cited widely as an exemplary social policy that illustrates Brazil’s commitment to social inclusion and expansion of citizenship rights (de la Briere and Rawlings, 2006). At the same time, conditional cash transfers exemplify the claim that the Brazilian democracy has succeeded in adding new programs to the social agenda that provide minimal social protection and that further basic education and health among marginal populations as long as they are kept within reasonable financial limits and do not upset important stakeholders. A key factor in the Bolsa’s political appeal is that it does not challenge enshrined social protections to the middle and upper classes. Although Brazil’s post-authoritarian governments have devoted new attention and resources to the social area, they have done little to narrow the stark differences in people’s effective access to public entitlements and social programs. One implication is that poorer groups with little political influence may be left without a strong political voice to defend the services or tracks that they alone occupy, while their better-off counterparts will have the means to defend their own spear of entitlements. For Brazil’s democracy, overcoming this historical division is an essential step toward providing meaningful citizenship to all.