Perception of the South American elites about social inequality in democracy

• Grant number: 06/06383-5
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: August 01, 2007
• End date: July 31, 2009
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - Public Policies
• Principal Investigator: Rafael Antonio Duarte Villa
• Grantee: Rafael Antonio Duarte Villa
• Host Institution: Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa (PRO-PESQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project is part of a research that has being made by the International Relations Research Centre (NUPRI) of USP that refers to the study of the perceptions of the Latin American Elites about specific issues. The project intents to keep this research with the participation of other research institutions, as the notorious Laboratory of International Relation Studies of Cases of São Marcos University. This research will integrate research groups from other countries creating the Latin-America Regional Politics Net. The study proposal is to seek, in a comparative way, valuate the perceptions of Latin-American elites from different countries about social inequality, culture, ethnics and its relations with the democratic question. It will emphasize, particularly, the support of different diagnostics and alternatives of politics that can mobilize with several elites sectors from the selected countries to the research. The study of the perception of the Latin-American elites about issues as the social inequality and its relation with the democratic questions are relevant for many reasons. First place, it is important to emphasize the common heritage shared by the Latin American countries when it comes to the subject of social inequality and political institutions vulnerability. In fact, the world contemporaneous scenario, the Latin American countries represent a living example of a non over come chronic state of extreme social inequality that put the democracy in check. However, a negligence of dimension in this diagnostic is the regional dimension. The recent years were testimony of the increasing articulation amongst the different sector of the Latin-American elites about this issues. This articulation has grown strong in different sectors and ideological “matizes” specially amongst the speakers of the interests of the social movements.Second place, its needed to focus on that, nowadays, more than in the past, the success of long reach policies aiming the social needs of the Latin-American countries passes, necessarily, through the articulation of a regional consensus. Many of the policies to over come the delay, inclusive in relation with the environment, depend on regional cooperation to be well succeeded. As the horizons of these policies is long and much bigger than any other government, it maintenance, on the next decades, is radically conditioned to the grade of consensus and convergence between the elites about the policies, its relevance and success probability. In relation to the fight for democracy, history recent that Latin America is prodigal in examples of how regionalist politics to defend the democracy were decisive to the existence of this regime in different countries. Recent fixed regional actions to guard the relative institutional instability in countries as Peru, Equator e Paraguay, are the most relevant examples in this process. (AU)