Pioneering anti-poverty policies in Brazil and Mexico: ambiguities and disagreements on conditional cash transfer programs

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Purpose: Focusing on the conditional cash transfers (CCTs) first created and implemented in Brazil and Mexico, this article takes a new look at the factors facilitating the creation of these innovative policies. In order to shed light on the continuous struggles that are faced when pioneering, formulating and adopting these anti-poverty policies, the authors analyze three types of ambiguities: axiological, partisan and electoral.Design/methodology/approach: Based on a gradual institutional change approach within the advocacy coalition framework, the authors conduct a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews, official public administration archives and newspapers.Findings: This article demonstrates that advocacy coalitions (for human capital, basic income and food security) and the quest for electoral gains are viable contexts for exploring the complex processes involved in setting up CCTs, of which Brazil's Bolsa-Família and Mexico's Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera (POP) provide emblematic examples.Originality/value: The findings contribute to comparative social policy research and institutional change analysis. The coalitions and ambiguous consensuses studied here expand the perspectives with a more detailed understanding of the chaotic processes involved in developing social policies.