Effects of Federalism on Social Policies in a Comparative Perspective: Argentina and Brazil

This article analyzes the relationship between federative institutions and social policies in the new constitutional order in Argentina and Brazil. It draws on literature and data to describe two characteristics of federalism in both countries and relate this with the equitable advancement of policies such as education, health, and social assistance: jurisdictional centralization, which refers to the capacity of the central government to produce legislation about policy design; and fiscal federalism, concerned with the definition of revenues and social expenditure by the different levels of government. The conclusion is that Argentina and Brazil are example of centralized federalism and that this is not an impeditive to the advance of egalitarian social policies; but there are important differences between them. In Brazil there is greater jurisdictional centralization combined with fiscal federalism that includes centralized and stable rules to compound public revenues and a better definition of social expenditure, which structures more favorable conditions for universal and egalitarian social policies. In Argentina, jurisdictional centralization is lower and is combined with fiscal federalism with ample latitude for bargaining between the federated entities to divide revenue and define expenditure, factors which better accommodate territorially segmented social policies with a lower equalizing potential, as is the case of health.