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Colombia is one of the most inequal countries in Latin America, which at the same time, is the most inequal region of the world. Even though this situation is discouraging it is not new, the difference lays on the importance that this situation has been taken in the political agenda in the nation, awakening multiple expectative between the citizens who has been the eternal losers: the poor. This paper focuses on the challenges that the new government of Gustavo Petro faces in matter of the inequality and poverty that affects over the half of the population in Colombia, at the same time provides a context of the Colombian case in the conjuncture of global and regional socioeconomic changes that incident on the chances of fulfill structural transformations at the social policy. Although this research acknowledges a large spectrum of inequalities existing in the territory (gender, generational, ethnic, racial) it focusses on the income inequality. This analysis takes place based on the data of specialized sources on the subject and the monitoring fluctuations of inequality in Colombia in the last decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite more than twenty years of implementation of Conditional Cash Transfers (ccts) inequality and poverty remain being one of the main problems of Latin America. These programs seek to stimulate consumption and reduce poverty and have become the axis of articulation of social protection in most of the countries of the region, incorporating logics of resource management and financing, and new actors and discourses on poverty. This paper critically presents the recent literature on ccts and analyzes the trajectories and approaches of the programs. The paper also analyses changes and continuities in the perspectives on poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work presents a balance of the tendencies in social policies during the political cycles of Latin America between 2000 and 2017. For this purpose, we discuss specific cases in a general way, taking examples from different experiences to illustrate the main continuities and interruptions of social welfare in matters such as poverty and inequality. It is proposed that besides international factors and economic circumstances, political actors and their ideological tendencies have been an important factor in facilitating or hindering changes in matters of redistribution and social policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes to analyze the dynamic of political contention during the implementation phase of health system reform in Colombia between 1995 and 2003. This article argues that the direction taken by the changes affected multiple actors in both instances the state as economic power to unions, international organizations, unions, political guilds, professional associations and divers organized groups. The narrative focuses on the debates and conflicts between the state and the societal actors in coalitions established, opportunities for social participation and its effects, the points of objection or defense to the reform and the influence of the correlation of forces in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One revealing test for gauging the extent to which pluralist democracy has advanced in the recently (re)democratized countries of Latin America is to determine the extent to which interest groups have come to participate in policy making in formal, open, extensive, and accepted ways as they mostly do in advanced liberal democracies. In other words, is this a new era or more of the same? To provide insights into this question, using six hypotheses, this article compares social insurance reform in Argentina and Mexico, and public health reform in Colombia. It appears that the political processes through which the reforms were adopted were fairly democratic, although aspects of the old regimes in all three countries, particularly corporatist relationships, were indispensable backups. The weaknesses that were apparent, however, stem less from the old ways of doing political business and more from the immaturity of the democratic process. Plus, pressures were felt by the executive branches and their allies to show to the international community that their country was a safe place in which to invest. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]