International Political Science Review (2009), Vol. 30, No.

1, 6787

Competing Visions of Democracy and

Development in the Era of Neoliberalism
in Mexico and Chile
Judith A. Teichman
Abstract. This article takes as its starting point the current scholarly
concern with democratic quality, poverty, and inequality. It notes the
tendency of political leaderships at the federal level in Mexico and
Chile to exclude political pressures that contravene their neoliberal
imperatives. It develops this argument with specific reference to the
contestation over conditional cash transfer programs. Research reveals
the existence of two competing visions of democracy and development
at the root of this conflict. The neoliberal perspective is supported by
political-technocratic leaders who developed these programs, while the
community development perspective is found among their civil society
critics. The community development perspective challenges the key
tenets of the neoliberal viewpoint, making its exclusion from policy
development and monitoring understandable. However, this exclusion
may give rise to increased criticism of the responsiveness of democratic
institutions and to less than efficacious policy outcomes.
Keywords: Democracy Development Mexico Chile Poverty

Introduction
The debt crisis of the mid-1980s triggered an economic transformation in Latin
American countries with profound social and political repercussions. Neoliberal
policy prescriptions adopted through the 1980s and 1990s have produced neither
equitable prosperity nor widespread poverty reduction. This failure has coincided
with public disillusionment with democratic deliberative institutions, a development
that some observers have linked to citizens belief that their voices were not being
heard by public officials (Hagopian, 2005: 319, 325, 343). Hence, scholarly concern
for democracy has expanded from preoccupations with elections and civil liberties
to a variety of other issues related to the actual responsiveness of governments to
DOI: 10.1177/0192512108097057 2009 International Political Science Association
Sage Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC)

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citizens and ways in which citizens can ensure that responsiveness (Diamond and
Morlino, 2005: xi; Rueschemeyer, 2004: 76). As civil society organizations have
become vociferous and at times militant in their opposition to neoliberal policies because of their perceived negative social implications, scholarly interest
in social policy has increased (Avritzer, 2002; Stahler-Sholk et al., 2007).
This article focuses on the efforts of civil society organizations in Mexico and
Chile to influence a particular type of social policy outcome: conditional cash
transfer programs.1 The discussion, however, places these programs within the
broader context of neoliberal policy imperatives imperatives that have shaped
the varying receptiveness of states in Mexico and Chile to civil society pressures.
Poverty and inequality, preoccupations for civil society groups for some time,
are now among the major concerns of development experts and scholars alike.
Conditional cash transfer programs have become the best known anti-poverty strategy in the region.2 I argue that in both Chile and Mexico, countries with differing economic, social, and political experiences, contending visions of democracy
and development are at the root of the struggles over these poverty programs.
Further, the similarities between these two visions, labeled the neoliberal and
community development perspectives, across the two countries, are striking. In
this section, I outline the main facets of these visions as ideal type constructions.
I provide substantiating data in the sections that follow, especially in the fourth
and fifth sections of the article. Findings suggest the presence of competing political cultures: one powerful and in charge of social policy, the other considerably
weaker and excluded from the national domestic policy process.
Conditional cash transfer programs are, of course, just one policy area and
the evidence presented is not meant to suggest that participatory channels are
absent or that civil society organizations have failed to shape public policy in other
policy arenas. However, the criticisms raised by the opponents of these programs
fall within a category of demands residing outside of the Chilean and Mexican
states imperatives. States remain open to those groups whose demands they
can readily assimilate within their predominant policy imperatives and usually
closed to those they cannot (Dryzek, 1996). For the last two decades, the overarching imperative of the ruling elites of Mexico and Chile has been market
(neoliberal) reform a package of policies that has sought to reduce the role of
the state in the economy.3 While, early on in the market reform process, neoliberal
reformers assumed that the market was the best solution to poverty, they now recognize that the most excluded groups require targeted programs if they are to
be incorporated into the market.
In Mexico and Chile, many political leaders and technocrats at senior levels of
government, particularly those in finance ministries, share this revised neoliberal
policy imperative. The neoliberal vision contains a strong dose of the Schumpeterian
belief that the act of governing must be confined to elites who, unlike the general
public, are not driven by irrational influences and have a clear sense of reality
(Schumpeter, 1950: 257, 261). Hence, citizen participation occurs largely at
election time, while policy design and monitoring are the exclusive purview
of elected political leaders and high-level bureaucrats/technocrats the former
because they can be held accountable at election time and the latter because they
have the training to properly develop public (social) policy. Governments may
consult citizenry they consider highly qualified. The neoliberal predisposition
to a minimalist definition of democracy sees this as highly conducive to stable

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69

economic growth. Since the market is the most efficient allocator of resources,
the neoliberal view is predisposed (indeed, obligated) to exclude groups and demands that challenge this imperative, particularly those making demands that
would require interference with market mechanisms and/or involve an increase
in the role of the state. An overriding concern for macroeconomic stability also
drives the search for cost effective ways to address social problems. Technocratic
(quantitative) knowledge predominates in the development and assessment of
policies. Given the assumption that market-led economic growth will eliminate
most poverty, the neoliberal perspective believes that social support programs,
bestowed not as a right of citizenship but according to technocratic criteria, can
and should be kept to a minimum. Neoliberal policymakers are predisposed to
focus this support on individuals and families, not communities, because of the
belief that this support is the most efficient use of state resources and contributes
to macroeconomic stability.
The community development perspective, found among civil society group
leaders, involves a variety of demands not readily assimilated by the predominant
state imperative. It defines democracy in terms of citizen impact and policy
outcome that improves peoples lives. Hence, consultation, without actual impact,
is not enough. Furthermore, participation in policy design and monitoring must
occur on the part of both poverty-oriented organizations and the citizens of poor
communities. This perspective shares a number of important similarities with
alternative development, rights-based development, and feminist critiques of
mainstream development (Friedmann, 1992; Molyneux and Lazar, 2003; Pieterse,
2001). Like these perspectives, it sees the poor as central agents in their development (not the market) and attaches great importance to the efficacy of initiatives
developed with the use of local knowledge (the knowledge of people living in
poor communities). Therefore, poverty is not a technical matter measurable by
income level but is multidimensional and shaped by local contexts. This perspective
tends to view the state, if truly participatory, as a key ingredient in improved social
welfare, particularly in mitigating the negative social impact of the market. Finally,
the community development perspective attaches great importance to community
activities in the achievement of social cohesion and social improvements. Indeed,
this perspective sees individual and family as inseparable from the community
and argues that to be successful a program must give attention to both.
In both Mexico and Chile, civil society organizations have played a role in democratic transitions, and they continue to play important roles in popular struggles
to mitigate social hardship. As argued below, those facing the greatest difficulties in having their demands addressed are usually organizations whose demands
challenge neoliberal imperatives.
I obtained much of the material presented in this article through a series of
open-ended interviews of country and multilateral (the World Bank and the InterAmerican Development Bank) officials, and civil society activists in Chile and
Mexico. I also interviewed International Food Policy Institute officials involved
in the Mexican program. Multilateral senior officials included vice presidents,
division chiefs, senior and lead economists. Twenty-eight interviews of government
officials and civil society leaders were carried out in the case of Chile and forty
for Mexico. Country officials included individuals at the ministerial rank and
two levels beneath this rank. For Chile, country officials included officials in the
Social Planning Ministry, the Finance Ministry, the Office of the Presidency and

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the Social Solidarity and Investment Fund (FOSIS). For Mexico, country officials
included officials in the Finance Ministry, the Social Development Ministry,
political leaders in President Foxs transition team, and officials in Mexicos
social development fund, the National Institute for Social Development
(INDESOL). Civil society leaders interviewed included leaders and past leaders
of the organizations in Tables 1 and 2, among them the leaders of some of the
more active member organizations of the umbrella associations.4

Chile: the Legacy of Dictatorship, the Neoliberal Imperative,

and Pressure for Civil Society Participation
Following seventeen years of military rule, the election of a civilian government
in 1990 brought to power a centre-left coalition (the Concertacin), which,
while accepting the basic features of the neoliberal model put in place by the
military, promised growth with equity. Substantial poverty reduction, propelled
by healthy economic growth rates, has been overseen by a leadership composed
of highly trained technocrats, people with degrees and graduate degrees, often
in economics, from well-known US universities.5 These individuals honed their
academic/technocratic skills in think tanks in order to challenge the economic
policies of the military governments University of Chicago-educated economists
(Silva, 1991). Many of the new civilian leaders, having experienced the hypermobilization of the Popular Unity period (19703), sought to avoid popular
mobilization, which they believed would push public spending upward, erode
business confidence, and reduce economic growth. At the same time, the countrys
steady economic growth rates reinforced commitment to the market model. The
legacy of a centralized state with power heavily concentrated in the executive (the
presidency and the Finance Ministry) and a weak Congress facilitated a closed
policy process. By law, the Finance Ministry has power over all programs with budget
implications, making it, in effect, a super-ministry with control over all public
policymaking, including social policy (Teichman, 2001: 90). Meanwhile, Congress
is weak, particularly in fiscal matters, able to approve or reduce expenditures but
not able to increase or redistribute them (Siavelis, 1997: 328).
Following a drop in civil society organizational activity in the aftermath of the
political transition, the mass base of the Concertacin and organized labor agitated through the 1990s for better protection for workers and for more equitable
health care, with only limited success in achieving their goals (Sandbrook et al.,
2007: 16571). One study of citizen participation suggests that Chilean citizens
have been ever more excluded from the political arena and access to political
power, with both parties and social movements becoming increasingly sidelined
by government (Taylor, 1998: 122). Another presents evidence that President
Lagos (20006) cut short the process of consultation on health policy, causing
considerable disillusionment among civil society groups (Rindefjll, 2005:
1046, 125, 133). Civil society groups questioning of the principle of private
health care and labor demands that threatened to increase the cost of labor
challenged cherished neoliberal precepts. Kurtz argues that the stability of Chilean
democracy itself is based on the quiescence and political exclusion of the rural
poor also a necessary component of competitive export agriculture dependent
upon cheap labor (Kurtz, 2004).

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Nevertheless, the Concertacin has provided some improved channels of access

for its citizenry. The administration became more open to a gendered policy
agenda through the establishment of National Service for Women (SERNAM),
and it brought about improvements in the labor code which benefited women
and criminalized intrafamilial violence (Franceschet, 2005: 95, 128). However,
organizations representing middle-class women have been much more successful
at gaining access to SERNAM than has been the case for those representing poor
and indigenous women whose demands incorporate the particular social dimensions of their exclusion, class and race (Franceschet, 2005: 9; Richards, 2006).
Meanwhile, there is evidence that policymakers devalue the input of poor and
indigenous women because they are not educated (Paley, 2001; Richards, 2006).
Indigenous women argue that the states neoliberal project shapes its desire to
allow the exploitation of resources in Mapuche territory, while poor womens
demand for state-supported redistributive measures confronts a neoliberal
imperative that rejects the high degree of state intervention necessary to address
the problem (Richards, 2006: 9, 21).
With the return to civilian rule, international financial support for civil society
organizations declined, and most became financially dependent upon the
governments Social Solidarity and Investment Fund (FOSIS). Established in 1990,
FOSIS reflected the Concertacin leaderships initial support for communityinitiated projects and a desire to stimulate the active participation of local communities (Raczynski, 1995: 216). However, over the decade of the 1990s the focus
of FOSISs programs moved away from community-based projects toward ones
targeting individuals and families. One of the complaints of civil society organizations was the government requirement that they implement programs exactly
as designed by FOSIS bureaucrats without any opportunity to provide feedback
that might improve programs. By 2002, however, some middle FOSIS officials
were beginning to seek ways to open up the system to NGO advice. Most senior
officials, on the other hand, were strongly resistant to even this minimal involvement
in policy.
Although Chilean government officials were asked about their views on civil
society participation in social policy in general and in conditional cash transfers
in particular, they almost invariably gave responses that applied to all policy.
And although Finance Ministry officials demonstrated the most marked negative
position on civil society participation in policy, some highly placed Social Planning Ministry officials also shared this attitude. In the words of one of them:
Nongovernmental organizations cannot be involved in the design of policy.
They have their own particular interests. Many of them are based outside the
country and they bring these outside interests to bear on policy. They are not
accountable except to their own boards. The job of policymaking is that of
the elected official.

If the upper level of the state bureaucracy was not a particularly hospitable site
for policy persuasion, Congress was even less so. Civil society groups complained
that Congress people generally dismissed their concerns.
By the late 1990s, the Concertacin government faced growing criticism from
civil society organizations for its failure to afford them greater access to the policy
process. Initially, the government of President Ricardo Lagos moved to address

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these concerns when it accepted a loan from the Inter-American Development

Bank to strengthen civil society. The loan led to the establishment of a Citizens
Council, and activists saw this development as offering an opportunity for them
to help shape policy; indeed, the loan agreement states explicitly that one of the
purposes of the US$14.5 million loan is to foster active citizen participation in
public policies (IADB, 2005). However, the government never acted upon the
recommendations of the Council and most civil society representatives resigned
from the Citizens Council in frustration, convinced that the government had
abandoned any interest in civil society participation in public policy. In fact, the
government took only US$8 million of the US$14.5 million loan. A new Law for
Citizen Participation, providing a variety of measures to strengthen civil society
and promising state support for civil society participation, had its origins in this
earlier initiative. It holds out hope for an increased opening up but many civil
society organizations remain skeptical. These critics point to the vagueness of
participatory mechanisms and the threat to organizational autonomy stemming
from the myriad legal requirements that organizations must meet, if they are not to
risk losing their legal status (Coalicin por la Participacin Ciudadana, 2006).
Great hopes have been pinned on current President Michelle Bachelet, who
campaigned on promises to create a participatory democracy and address the
social needs of Chileans. However, the regimes accomplishments have fallen
considerably short of popular expectations, and it has faced an onslaught of civil
society protests and strikes by students, environmental organizations, indigenous
groups, and labor. On at least two key policy initiatives, reform of the pension
system (a major source of poverty for the elderly) and reform of Santiagos transportation system (upon which the low-income public depends), her government
failed to consult civil society organizations advocating for the poor. Her advisory
council for pension reform consisted of economists, including one member of
the political right who had served under Pinochet (Estrada, 2006), while the
transport reform plan came from a neoliberal think tank headed by her finance
minister (Vogler, 2007). Given that the latter proposed halving the number of
buses, the director of the countrys oldest poverty organization (Hogar de Cristo)
declared the transportation plan to be the worst humiliation of the poor in a
long time (Vogler, 2007). Civil society organizations rejection of the notion of
self-financing for the citys transportation system and their demand for a return
to a state-funded redistributive pension system, however, are demands that the
neoliberal imperative could not readily accommodate.

Mexico: the Technocratic Legacy and Challenges

to the Neoliberal Imperative
Mexicos transition from authoritarian single party (Institutionalized Revolutionary
Party, PRI) rule and move toward neoliberal reform were both events accelerated by
the debt crisis of the early 1980s. That crisis thrust to predominance technocratic
policymakers, most sporting graduate degrees from American universities (Centeno,
1999: 141). By 1989 one of them, Carlos Salinas, occupied the presidency and
the stage was set for an increasingly far-reaching market reform program. With
the transition to electoral democracy in the year 2000, President Vicente Fox, a
strong adherent of the market model, retained many of the previous regimes
technocrats, particularly in the Finance Ministry.6

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With the debt crisis, as access to state resources diminished because of state
streamlining and sharp reductions in state expenditure, the worker and peasant
organizations that had backed the PRI began to withdraw support. The earthquake
of 1985 and the failure of the government to respond adequately produced an
upsurge of grassroots organizing, particularly in Mexico City. By 1988 thousands
of grassroots organizations were backing opposition candidate Cuauhtmoc
Crdenas in the federal election. By 1997 the PRI had lost control of Congress.
In 2000 Vicente Foxs Alliance for Change, an alliance dominated by Foxs
Popular Action Party (PAN), was elected with strong support from a wide array
of civil society organizations, most of whom expected to be able to influence his
policy agenda.
Unlike the Chilean case, the Mexican political transition involved substantial
weakening of the presidency and a rise in congressional activism, since the
strength of the presidency had resided not in formal constitutional powers but
in the disintegrating informal corporatist/clientelist arrangements of the PRI.
Furthermore, the opposition made its earliest inroads against the PRI in local
and state elections in the 1980s and early 1990s (Rodrguez and Ward, 1995).
Numerous community-based movements with economic, social, and environmental demands contributed to the erosion of PRI power at the municipal and
state levels (Haber, 2006; Stolle-McAllister, 2005; Williams, 2001).
Despite the fact that Vicente Foxs centre/right administration was strongly
committed to the neoliberal imperative, it initially appeared willing to grant
policy access to civil society organizations, many of which were highly critical of
neoliberalism. In the period leading up to the election, thousands of civil society
organizations were consulted extensively on social policy, resulting in a report
produced by Foxs social policy transition team that recommended, among
other things, civil society participation and evaluation of social programs. In
addition, Fox did appoint people who had been active in the NGO community
to positions within his new government. He appointed Cecilia Lora, senatorial
candidate for the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in 1997 and
an activist in NGOs involved in womens issues, head of INDESOL, the government
agency responsible for allocating funds to nongovernmental organizations for
social programs. He also appointed Rogelio Gmez Hermosillo, former head
of the NGO Alianza Cvica and former member of the board of directors of the
NGO Convergencia, head of the countrys conditional cash transfer program.
Human rights activist Mara Claire Acosta was appointed subsecretary for human
rights in the Ministry of External Affairs. Despite this auspicious start, the opportunity for civil society organizations with social policy concerns to influence
policy declined as the administration wore on. The notable exception was
INDESOL. The Institutes director was, according to all, instrumental in keeping
the organization open to civil society input. Unlike FOSIS, INDESOL encouraged
policy feedback from civil society organizations and regularly requested modifications to programs in response to the advice it received.
As in the Chilean case, those making social policy demands that challenged
the neoliberal imperative tended to have the greatest difficulty in obtaining
policy access. Most of the social policy recommendations of the Fox social transition team were ignored, such as those calling for the major restructuring of
social policy including the establishment of universal programs in health and
education, beefed up infrastructure, and productive investment programs to

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provide employment all policies not only positing a fundamental increase

in the role of the state but also manifesting a notable lack of faith in the ability of
the market to solve pressing social problem. New members of Foxs social policy
transition team were appointed to the cabinet. Two years into the Fox administration, even strong Foxistas were becoming disillusioned with the presidents
commitment to civil society participation. Ricardo Govela, a former leader of a
poverty-related NGO and a member of Foxs social transition team, stated publicly
that, in his view, the government had no interest in strengthening the role of civil
society in public policy (Reforma, September 27, 2002). By 2004 it was clear that
the administration had also rejected its social transition teams call for civil society
participation. The Law for Social Development rejected NGO participation in
favor of a technical committee, composed of academics and government officials,
charged with monitoring social policy.
The Fox administrations rejection of an agreement negotiated with civil society organizations on a human rights bill is a further indication of the discomfort
that the administration felt with the incorporation of social rights. Discussions
between the governments Intersecretarial Commission on Human Rights and
human rights organizations produced, in early 2004, a consensus on a new human
rights bill. In the negotiations, civil society groups, including Convergencia, one
of the organizations covered in this article, pressed for and achieved an expanded
concept of human rights that included social rights (labor rights and measures
prohibiting discrimination against women). However, the presidents legal office
removed the social and labor rights aspects of the bill before sending it on to
Congress. Similarly, trade unions have struggled against increasing pressure for
labor flexibilization. Although women trade unionists, for example, have been
able to persuade the leftist opposition PRD party to incorporate their gender concerns, the likelihood of the government incorporating any of their proposed labor
protection measures is remote (Brickner, 2006: 68). To do so would undermine
the labor flexibility seen as crucial to export competitiveness.
One event may have been pivotal in triggering disillusionment among former
Fox administration enthusiasts for civil society consultation. In the first year of
the Fox administration, a large number of NGOs were invited to comment on the
budget proposal. This attempt at consultation, according to one observer, was
such a fiasco that many Fox administration officials became convinced that civil
society involvement in most policy was not possible. In the words of a senior
member of the Fox transition team:
What we took away from this experience was that civil society organizations cannot
really participate in policy. The majority of nongovernmental organizations
have good intentions but low professional abilities. There is a great deal of
technical knowledge [required to understand the budget process] and they
just could not grasp the process. It became clear that NGOs just do not have
the capacity to participate.

Throughout the Fox years, civil society organizations continued to react at the
national, state, and local levels, oftentimes intensely, to policies perceived as threatening to communities and livelihoods. Highly mobilized groups have had some
success but largely in areas the state could incorporate within the predominant
policy imperative. Small grain producers, hit hard by the opening of the Mexican
market to imported grains, were successful in obtaining an increase in the federal

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75

agricultural budget in 2001, but tariff reductions on grain remained intact

(Acua Rodarte, 2003). While during the Fox administration the Organization
of Peasant Ecologists in the state of Guerrero secured the release of two of their
members from prison, the government reversed the suspension of logging in the
region in 2001 and deforestation continues (Cienfuegos and Carlsen, 2003)
giving priority to market driven resource-based growth. Under President Fox, at
the federal level, environmental NGOs witnessed a decline in both consultative
fora and policy influence (Dez, 2006: 1612). However, NGOs concerned with
HIV/AIDS, with strong financial backing from the World Bank and support
from international NGOs, have continued to have access to and an impact on policy
(Torres, 2006). Civil society organizations have often found more opportunity
for organized resistance and exerting influence on policy at the state and local
level through local Planning and Neighborhood Councils. However, there is evidence of differential access and influence based on social class (Guarneros-Meza,
2007: 1067).
Like other groups that have challenged the neoliberal imperative, critics of
conditional cash transfer programs in both Chile and Mexico have also faced
considerable difficulty in being heard and influencing policy outcome. An
examination of the struggles over these programs reveals important similarities
in the two cases despite the fact that they have had divergent economic and social
experiences over the last twenty years.7 There are also political contextual differences: while Chile was a consolidated neoliberal democracy by the time the
government introduced its conditional cash transfer program, the Mexican
program spanned its authoritarian and democratically elected regimes and debate
surrounding the program occurred during the transition process. Nevertheless,
in both cases there is a sharp tension between the technocratic/neoliberal vision
of democracy and development and the community development one.

Chiles Conditional Cash Transfer Program: Policy Exclusion

in a Consolidated Neoliberal Democracy8
In 2002, incoming President Ricardo Lagos announced Chile Solidario. A program
aiming to confront extreme poverty, it focused on the countrys poorest 225,000
families. It originated in the concerns of two sets of technocrats: the administrative unit within the Finance Ministry responsible for expenditures (the Office of
Budget Management) and a group of officials in the Social Planning Ministry.
Budget officials were especially driven by the neoliberal imperative. Faced with the
fallout from the 1997 Asian crisis, their primary concern was keeping expenditure
under control; they saw conditional cash transfer programs as a way to use public
monies more effectively. Officials in the Social Planning Ministry wished to find a
way to reduce extreme poverty without creating welfare dependency. At the same
time, both sets of technocrats recognized the need for state action since extreme
poverty figures were no longer declining despite economic growth. The program provided for the transfer of a small sum of money to the female heads of
households contingent upon their fulfilling no less than fifty-three conditions,
involving, among other things, school attendance and regular health checkups.
Described as the perfection of targeting, the selection of participant families
by means of a detailed income survey known as the Ficha CAS reflected the
highly technocratic nature of the program. Preparation of the program included

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a consultative seminar involving academics with established credentials on poverty

issues, personally known to the president. Only one person connected with one
of the poverty-oriented civil society organizations (Hogar de Cristo) was included.
This discussion, however, focused on the issue of whether there would be a simple
transfer of cash or a transfer combined with psychological-social support in the
form of social workers assigned to beneficiaries of the program. The seminar did
not address the major issues of concern to civil society organizations.
All four Chilean civil society organizations (see Table 1) were critical of the
new program. One of the most critical was Accin. It claimed that its member
organizations arose in response to the human rights violations of the military
dictatorship and were among that regimes most active opponents. It was also
the most vociferously critical of the current regimes neoliberal economic model
despite being widely viewed as closely tied to the Concertacin government.
The other umbrella organization, ASONG, was established under the protection of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
during the period of military rule. The member organizations of ASONG tend
to be older, internationally recognized humanitarian organizations, such as the
Red Cross and long-standing domestic and often religious organizations. The
first civilian government of Eduardo Frei established the National Foundation
for Overcoming Poverty to build a society-wide consensus on how best to reduce
poverty and inequality. Originally it was comprised of representatives from a cross
section of society (labor, poverty organizations, government, the private sector),
but private sector representatives exited the organization over their opposition to
increased labor protection and measures to reduce inequality. The Foundation
then reconstituted itself as an independent organization administering a variety
of poverty-related programs. Hogar de Cristo, established in 1944, is the oldest
poverty organization and is widely recognized as the organization with the greatest
expertise in poverty programs, a reputation that secured its representation at the
consultative seminar.
table 1. Civil Society Organizations Concerned with Poverty in Chile
Year
estab.

Type

Accin (Chilean
Assoc. of NGOs)

1990

Umbrella

70

ASONG (Assoc. of
NGOs Consultative
to the UN)
National Foundation
for Overcoming
Poverty
Hogar de Cristo

1982

Umbrella

38

1996

Individual

NA*

1944

Individual

NA

Name

No. of Main
affiliates concerns

Politics

Poverty, inequality, Critical left,

community, rural Concertacin
development
Poverty, youth,
Independent
women, relief work
Poverty, inequality, Critical left,
community
Concertacin
development
Poverty,
Concertacin
marginalization,
children, youth

Note : *NA: Not applicable.

Source: Interviews, civil society organization documents.

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All saw their activities in both running poverty programs and lobbying government on social policy as integral to the democratic political process because
these activities contributed to good policy outcomes and helped to hold government accountable. These civil society leaders not only directly challenged the
neoliberal concept of minimalist democracy and elite-generated knowledge,
but three of the four (Accin, ASONG, and the National Foundation) also challenged the neoliberal faith in the market. They were, for example, highly critical
of the one size fits all aspect of the Chile Solidario program, arguing that its
rigid fifty-three conditions neglected both the particular circumstances faced by
different families and the fact that local conditions can vary markedly among poor
communities. One ASONG leader with long experience in local development
projects was particularly blunt about the possibility of success for such a topdown approach: if you do not involve the local population and become aware
of local conditions your program will fail.
However, it was not enough just for program designers to be aware of local
conditions. Civil society leaders diverged significantly from neoliberal technocrats
on the issue of who ought to participate in policy development. For the former,
poor citizens must be personally involved in the program and policymakers must
allow the perceptions of the poor to shape policy outcome. This was particularly
necessary for the beneficiary selection process. The use of fine quantitative distinctions in income (technocratic knowledge) to select beneficiaries would result
in a failure to incorporate all of the neediest and might well include people not
thought by their local communities to require such assistance. Failure to incorporate
local knowledge would not only produce poor policy outcome, but would also
be likely to generate intra-community conflict. Civil society leaders privileged local
knowledge (knowledge of the real life situations faced by poor people) over quantitative data, conceptualizing poverty as multifaceted, as involving more attributes
than simply income. Hence, Hogar de Cristo called for the involvement of local experts (people without university degrees, resident in the poor community) in
program development and implementation, and Accin recommended that
local community representative committees oversee the selection of program
beneficiaries (Accin, 2002: 11; Hogar de Cristo, 2002: 2).
Civil society leaders also criticized the program for the absence of complementary community development projects, which were necessary, they argued, to
establish social networks, social cohesion, and employment opportunities. This
demand directly challenged the neoliberal faith in the market; it was argued that
the market supplemented by a targeted transfer program would not be enough to
lift the extremely poor out of their misery. For Hogar de Cristo the government
had to even go beyond community development projects to ensure the pursuit
of a macroeconomic growth program sufficient to generate employment for program beneficiaries (Hogar de Cristo, 2002: 4). And finally, civil society leaders
of Accin, Hogar de Cristo, and the National Foundation regretted what they
saw as the increasingly targeted nature of Chilean social policy since 1990 and
the abandonment of community projects based on local initiatives. They saw
this development as abandoning a cherished value in Chilean daily life: that of
community spirit and solidarity.
By 2003 most, though not all, Finance and Planning Ministry officials took a
position opposing civil society participation in policy development and monitoring
of Chile Solidario.9 Two senior government officials expressed the view that the

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organizations which were pressing for involvement in Chile Solidario were not
civil society because they were largely composed of the non-poor operating
programs funded by the government. According to this view, civil society was in
fact already participating in the program. The remarks that follow reflect a concept
of participation quite distinct from the one held by the community development
perspective. In the words of one top official: We see civil society participation
in Chile Solidario as occurring when the family signs the contract with the state
making a pledge to achieve certain goals. This is participation of the poor in
the program. Excluded from policy input, Chilean civil society organizations
nevertheless continued to lobby the authorities. All submitted documents to the
Ministry of Social Planning outlining their objections to the program.
While the Chilean Solidario program was being discussed among World Bank
and Chilean Finance and Social Planning Ministry officials, in preparation for
the 2003 loan, parallel discussions were also occurring between these World Bank
officials and the leaders of the civil society organizations involved with poverty
issues.10 Chilean civil society organizations gained a sympathetic hearing from
World Bank officials who supported both a civil society advisory committee on
policy design and local community monitoring of the program. However, the
government resisted World Bank pressure for civil society participation, arguing that Congress was the rightful place for public involvement in policy. Reiterating the concern about the absence of NGO accountability, one irritated senior
official exclaimed: We are responsible for the Bank loan for this program, not
the NGOs, so why should they be involved?
Accin, the Foundation for Overcoming Poverty, and Hogar de Cristo made
a joint proposal to the World Bank and to the Social Planning Ministry that they
carry out a citizens evaluation of the Chile Solidario program. While the World
Bank was supportive and willing to provide the necessary funding, the failure of
the Planning Ministry to support the initiative meant that the loan fell through.
The World Bank eventually convinced Chilean officials to agree to civil society
monitoring and evaluation of the program and this was written into the loan
conditions (World Bank, 2003: 9). The civil society organizations viewed this as
only a partial victory, however, since they were not to be involved in policy design and Planning Ministry officials formed part of the evaluation team. Some of
these organizations prepared to carry out their own independent evaluation
of the program.

Mexicos Conditional Cash Transfer Program: Political Transition

and the Challenge to the Neoliberal Imperative
Mexicos conditional cash transfer program was an important issue during the 2000
election campaign. PRI President Ernesto Zedillo had introduced the Mexican
program, Progresa, in 1997. But despite the avalanche of criticism directed
against the program, President Fox (20006) decided to maintain it, renaming it
Oportunidades. Like the Chilean program, it provides cash payments to the female
heads of extremely poor households in exchange for keeping children in school
and taking them to health clinics. By 2002 the government had extended the
program, originally targeted at 400,000 families, to over four million families.
Like the Chilean program, the Mexican one arose out of concern for a key
neoliberal policy imperative. Technocrats in the Finance Ministry and in the

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National Population Council were preoccupied with fiscal challenges in the wake
of the 1995 economic crisis. Like their Chilean counterparts, these technocrats
viewed state subsidies as wasteful because the benefits were not sufficiently targeted
at the extremely poor. They also placed a high value on the use of technocratic
criteria in the beneficiary selection process. The development of an index of
marginality made possible the selection of the poorest communities. Then, detailed
surveys allowed for the selection of beneficiary families within these communities
in accordance with whether incomes fell below the value of a basic food basket.
The arrangement for ongoing outside evaluation of the program that could be
used to support the argument that the program should continue also reflected
this technocratic preoccupation with hard data.11 Critics, particularly leaders
of civil society organizations, expressed moral revulsion at a program evaluation
process that involved the use of a control group (10 million Mexicans) who received no Progresa support and whose progress could be compared with those
who did (Reforma, December 27, 2000; December 28, 2000). The controversy
fed growing antagonism toward technocratic approaches to poverty alleviation,
which, according to critics, ignored important social and ethical dimensions.
The Fox social transition team, having engaged in extensive consultation with
thousands of civil society organizations on social policy, strongly recommended
civil society involvement in both the program and its monitoring.
There are four major civil society organizations in Mexico concerned with
social policy (Table 2), all of which see their organizations as having an important
role in both democratization and social policy development. All had concerns
about Progresa, although their levels of criticism varied. FAM and Convergencia,
both on the political left, were the most critical. Many of the organizations belonging to FAM were established in the wake of the 1985 earthquake to pressure
the government to provide housing for the poor. The FAM supported the left
opposition candidate Cuauhtmoc Crdenas in the 1988 national election. By
the mid-1990s, however, it had turned its attention from housing to more general
table 2. Civil Society Organizations Concerned with Poverty in Mexico
Name
FAM (Forum for
Mutual Support)
Convergencia
(Convergence
of Civil Society
Organizations for
Democracy)
CEMEFI (Mexican
Center for
Philanthropy)
Fundacin Miguel
Alemn

Year
estab.

Type

No. of
affiliates

1992

Umbrella

250

1990

Umbrella

120

1998

Umbrella

7300

1984

Individual

NA

Main
concerns

Politics

Housing, poverty,
inequality
Human rights,
social rights

Left/PRD

Promotion of
a culture of
philanthropy
Rural
development,
research

Right

Source : As for Table 1.

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Left/PRD

PRI

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issues of poverty and inequality. The other umbrella organization on the political
left, Convergencia, is primarily concerned with human rights and approaches the
poverty issue from the perspective of social rights as an aspect of human rights.
CEMEFI, with some of Mexicos major corporations (Televisa, Bancomer, Banamex)
as members, claims as its mission that of promoting a culture of philanthropy
and strengthening organized citizen participation in solving problems. Although CEMEFI claims to be politically independent, some of its leaders have
been closely associated with the PAN and it is widely perceived as right leaning
in its political orientation. Finally, family and friends of past Mexican president
Miguel Alemn established the Prista Fundacin Miguel Alemn. It oversees
rural support programs and a variety of research activities in health, tourism, and
the environment. It was the least critical of Progresa/Oportunidades, perhaps
because a PRI government established the program.
These four organizations have a history of acting together, going back to the
early 1990s during the twilight of PRI authoritarian rule when they struggled
against the PRIs hostility to civil society and began to lobby for the countrys
Law to Promote Civil Society Organizations, passed in 2003.12 This common
struggle forged a strong bond through constant dialogue and led to the emergence of a certain commonality of perspective on the points identified below.
Because Mexicos political transition involved an invigorated role for Congress,
leaders of these organizations saw lobbying congressional representatives as an
important activity. However, there was a consensus among these civil society
leaders that Congress people and parties (particularly the PRI) were reluctant
supporters of civil society participation.
Mexican poverty NGOs demonstrated greater variability in their attitudes than
Chilean NGO leaders. The two left-leaning organizations (FAM and Convergencia)
saw democracy, civil society participation, and efficacious policy outcomes for
the poor as inseparable. The other two organizations placed more weight on
participation as an important goal in itself. CEMEFI accorded civil society particular importance in ensuring democratic accountability and in mitigating
corruption. Notably, views about what constitutes civil society also differ. FAM
and Convergencia are strongly and vociferously critical of neoliberalism and
reject the notion (espoused by the other two organizations) that entrepreneurs
should also be considered part of civil society. All, however, saw Mexican civil
society weakness as a problem for Mexican democracy, arising from a cultural legacy
that had strongly discouraged civil society participation in politics and policy.
There was also a consensus that civil society participation was especially important in poverty policy issues. For all except the Fundacin Miguel Alemn,
for which consultation appeared to be sufficient, strengthening democracy
meant civil society involvement in the design of public policy. This perspective
included the right-leaning CEMEFI, one of whose leaders went so far as to declare
that civil society should determine policies. As in the Chilean case, the reasons
for this insistence on close involvement in policy stemmed from the fact that
Oportunidades, in many respects, did not seem to be up to the task of solving
poverty. Most Mexican civil society leaders had little faith in the market to lift
people out of poverty and envisioned an expanded role for the state that went
well beyond promoting education and health care through cash transfers.
Like their Chilean counterparts, Mexican civil society leaders identifi ed
the lack of sufficient attention to community development programs as one of

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81

the key inadequacies of the conditional cash transfer approach. Once again,
even civil society leaders associated with the political right, presumably the
most likely to view the market model as efficacious, also took up this point. In
the words of one former leader of CEMEFI who had also been a strong Fox supporter: Oportunidades is not a real program to overcome poverty. To do this you
must organize civil society and strengthen societal groups. You must develop
both human capital and the social fabric at the same time. There were, however,
differences over the concept of community development. While all emphasized
the importance of productive activities because of their employment generating consequences, for CEMEFI this meant the provision of micro-credit to
stimulate business activities. For FAM, it meant the development of cooperative
productive activities. Nevertheless, all agreed that a finely tuned targeted transfer
program, in the absence of state-supported employment generating activities,
was not enough.
Leaders of three of the four organizations (FAM, Convergencia, and CEMEFI)
echoed one of the main concerns of Chilean NGO leaders the failure to incorporate local knowledge through involving the poor in the program selection
process. They too feared that the use of finely tuned income data to select beneficiaries would result in errors of inclusion and exclusion. They were especially
concerned about the dangers of intra-community conflict. According to one
FAM leader, Oportunidades destroys the social fabric of communities. It creates
conflict. I have seen this happen. Indeed, a study carried out by IFPRI, the organization charged with the official evaluation of Progresa, provides evidence
of the divisive impact of the program. One qualitative report, buried in the
nine-chapter IFPRI evaluation, revealed the negative impact of the program on
community cohesiveness and the sadness of community members arising from
a program that gave benefits to some who, as far as members of the community
could see, were no more deserving than those who had been excluded (Adato,
2000: 1314, 1819). For FAM and Convergencia the solution was some form of
local citizen involvement in the beneficiary selection process to ensure both a
fair and effective system of beneficiary selection and community agreement that
those incorporated into the program were, in fact, the most in need of help.
Meanwhile, Mexican officials, including one former civil society leader, stood
firm in their rejection of civil society organization involvement in any aspect of
the program. In the words of one of them: Civil society organizations are not and
should not be involved in policy design. Yes, they should be listened to. But that
is all. They are incapable of seeing the bigger picture. The sentiments expressed
by Mexican officials reflected the neoliberal vision that sees policymaking as the
exclusive purview of educated elites. In a comment reminiscent of that made by a
Chilean official, one official stated: Civil society participation in Oportunidades
occurs when beneficiaries commit themselves to attend health clinics and keep
their children in school. Mexican officials argued that civil society involvement
in beneficiary selection would perpetuate or create clientelism and that the use
of quantitative criteria was the fairer and more transparent method of choosing
beneficiaries. They flatly rejected the relevance of local knowledge.
Civil society organizations lobbied their own government (the Ministry of
Social Development) and Congress. They apparently received a sympathetic
hearing from some Congress people, particularly members of the PRD. They also
complained bitterly to the World Bank civil society personnel. The scenario was

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similar to that in the Chilean case. The World Bank eventually offered US$20
million to carry out a civil society consultation on Oportunidades but the Fox
administration rejected the offer. The Mexican administration also refused to
take up Ford Foundation support for the same purpose. According to some civil
society leaders, the stiffest resistance to civil society consultation came from the
Finance Ministry.
The criticisms made by Mexican civil society organizations resonated with
many Congress people, with many academics, and with members of Mexican
society more generally. Criticism of PRI rule merged with criticism of neoliberalism for many PRI opponents, and that included criticism of past social policy.
There is evidence in the Mexican case that social policy began to respond to this
barrage of criticism, showing concern for a wider spectrum of the poor and for
community development. The Fox administration introduced a new program,
Habitat, to address the poverty of the elderly through community participation.
Oportunidades incorporated very small poor communities in their entirety in
order to avoid the sort of community divisions identified by the programs critics.
A new health insurance program, Seguro Popular, goes beyond the extremely poor,
aiming to provide health care to those in the informal sector. This contrasts with
the Chilean case, where civil society has apparently been less successful in persuading policymakers to increase the weight of community-oriented programs.

Conclusions
In Chile and Mexico, states resisted pressure from civil society organizations for
participation in policy development when they perceived the demands as threatening to their neoliberal policy imperatives. While all civil society organizations
may be expected to complain bitterly when they feel their demands are not
being met, those, like the civil society organizations covered in this study, whose
demands are not readily accommodated by the dominant imperative face greater
and more consistent resistance. These organizations both advocate for the poor
and have considerable experiential knowledge of poor communities. As such,
they identify what is probably neoliberalisms most daunting challenge: that of
ensuring equitable prosperity.
Struggles over conditional cash transfer programs, between their technocratic
supporters and civil society opponents, have at their core distinct approaches to
the meaning of democracy and the requirements for development. For opponents
of these programs whose views approximate to the community development perspective, democracy is largely instrumental. They judge its quality in terms of the
ability of civil society to shape policy outcome. Opponents of conditional cash
transfer programs challenge the neoliberal imperative on a number of fronts.
They believe that minimal targeted interventions will fail to reduce poverty sufficiently, that stronger interventions by the state are necessary, that local knowledge is superior to technical knowledge in making programs efficacious, that
the uneducated poor must be actively involved in poverty policy, and, finally,
that community development must be a central component of the development
project. The neoliberal vision has a great deal of difficulty incorporating these
ideas. It sees democracy in minimalist terms and views the participation of civil
society organizations and local community members in policy design and monitoring
as inappropriate because effective policy requires technocratic expertise. It sees

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83

the market as the most effective mechanism of poverty reduction and resists
more interventionist solutions perceived as more costly. The technocratic architects of the conditional cash transfer programs argue that the NGOs that seek
involvement in these programs represent particular interests, lack the necessary
professional know-how, and are not accountable. The neoliberal vision sees the
poor as ill equipped to participate in policy development.
In Mexico, where there is greater poverty and the neoliberal model has met
with considerably less success, and where communities and livelihoods continue
to be shattered by various aspects of the neoliberal policy prescription, civil
society criticisms have had greater saliency. Some new social policy initiatives
suggest an attempt is being made to address many of the concerns raised by the
community development perspective. These developments have been facilitated
by the fact that Mexicos political system is more decentralized and its federal
Congress more active, affording more access points to civil society groups.
In Chile, on the other hand, the community development vision appears to
be more firmly excluded. The Chilean political system is more highly centralized,
and the technocratic policymakers more entrenched and more determinedly
resistant to civil society involvement in policy. The relative success of the
Chilean economic model, in terms of steady economic growth rates and poverty
reduction, are no doubt important factors in convincing policy elites of the
correctness of their vision. At the same time, the tenaciousness of community
development proponents is notable, particularly given the countrys much lower
level of poverty and the generally more positive impact of the market model in
reducing poverty. Opposition activity is on the rise and it may yet secure a more
participatory democracy and revisions to some of the major features of the current overarching imperative.
After two decades of neoliberal restructuring and the predominance of marketoriented technocratic policymakers, the community development perspective
not only persists but also boasts a core of dedicated adherents. Conditional cash
transfer programs are, admittedly, only one policy type. However, these programs
have become a central focus of the discussion over poverty reduction. Despite
widely divergent social, economic, and political experiences, struggles over policy
in both Chile and Mexico reflect the tension between these two perspectives.
This struggle suggests political cultures deeply divided over both the meaning of
democracy and what is required to reduce poverty. The findings presented here
would appear to confirm survey data that also identify a split in fundamental
beliefs in Mexico and Chile between citizens who define democracy as liberty
and others who perceive democracy as substantive policy outcomes in terms of
social improvements (Klesner, 2001: 123). The civil society leaders examined in
this study are driven by a concern to improve the lives of the poor and, for the
most part, do not believe that is possible without a different form of democracy
one more deeply participative than is currently the case and a more activist state.
The neoliberal and community development visions are not easily integrated.
An opening up to the community development perspective could well mean
inroads into some of the most cherished tenets of the neoliberal vision, a development that neoliberal proponents will resist. The failure to open up to the community
development perspective, however, may risk increasingly harsh criticism of the
responsiveness of democratic institutions and the less than efficacious policy
outcomes in poverty reduction.

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Notes
1. I deal with a specific type of civil society organization: the nongovernmental organization
(NGO). NGOs are nonprofit organizations, with varying degrees of financial dependence
on governments. They provide services for, or advocate on behalf of, third parties.
Some observers argue that financial dependence on the state has been responsible for
a decline in NGO activism (Taylor, 1998: 116). In Latin America, the prospect of state
containment of dissent through co-optation is an ongoing challenge for oppositional
groups seeking to improve the lives of the disadvantaged. On this, see Haber (2006).
2. The following countries now have such programs: Nicaragua, Colombia, Ecuador,
Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Jamaica,
and Peru. The World Bank has also been promoting these programs in other parts of
the global south (interviews, three senior-level officials, World Bank).
3. These policies include trade liberalization, privatization, deregulation, reduction/
elimination of the public deficit, and labor flexibilization (reforms such as the greater
freedom to hire and fire geared to reduce the cost of labor). There are, however,
very important differences in the extent to which governments in the two cases have
incorporated social objectives, as illustrated by the fact that Chile has a considerably
higher level of social expenditure than Mexico and its social programs cover a much
higher proportion of the population (Teichman, 2008: 448).
4. As confidentiality was a condition of these interviews, only descriptive, nonidentifying
characteristics are included. I conducted interviews with multilateral officials in English.
All others were conducted in Spanish.
5. Between 1990 and 2003 poverty declined in Chile from 36.8 percent of the population to 18.7 percent. However, inequality has remained high.
6. For example, Francisco Gil Diaz, architect of the countrys trade liberalization, became minister of finance, and Santiago Levy, a former top-level finance official, became
head of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS).
7. In contrast to Chile, Mexico suffered a severe economic crisis in 1995 and economic
stagnation thereafter. Poverty has remained widespread.
8. Chile is a consolidated neoliberal democracy in the sense that there is a consensus
among members of its elected political elite, across the political spectrum, on the
efficacy of the neoliberal model.
9. The information in the remainder of this section comes from interviews with four
senior officials, two each from the Finance and Planning ministries, and from two
World Bank officials involved in the program. A notable exception to the generalization
that senior officials were opposed to civil society consultation was Minister of Social
Planning Cecilia Prez, who had been director of the National Foundation for Overcoming of Poverty before taking over the ministry. In her brief tenure (from 2002
to March 2003) she made efforts to expand civil society participation. In January of
2003 the ministry appears to have been contemplating the establishment of working
groups to stimulate civil society participation involving Hogar de Cristo and the
municipal government in Chile Solidario (La Segunda, January 9, 2003). However,
this idea was dropped once Prez left office.
10. A number of smaller organizations, including organizations representing indigenous
interests, were also involved.
11. The organization contracted to do the evaluation was IFPRI. Its positive findings are
widely regarded as having been instrumental in President Foxs decision to keep the
program.
12. This law provides them with a legal framework, a variety of tax benefits, and with the
commitment that strengthening civil society organizations would better enable them
to participate in policy.

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Biographical Note
Judith A. Teichman is Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto.
She has published numerous articles in scholarly journals, most recently in World
Development, Global Governance, Comparative Politics, and Third World Quarterly. She
is co-author of Social Democracy in the Global Periphery: Origins, Challenges, Prospects
(Cambridge University Press, 2007) and author of The Politics of Freeing Markets
in Latin America: Chile, Argentina and Mexico (University of North Carolina Press,
2001) and of two books on Mexican politics. Her current research is a comparative study of poverty and inequality trends in Mexico, Chile, and South Korea.
Address: Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, 1 Devonshire
Place, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3K7, Canada [email: [email protected]].
Acknowledgments: The author is grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities
Council of Canada for its financial support for this project. The author would also
like to thank the three anonymous external reviewers for their helpful comments.

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