This book provides a theoretical and empirical examination of government privatization of national old-age pension systems.

Sarah M. Brooks is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Ohio State University. She has also been a post-doctoral Fellow at the Kellogg Institute at Notre Dame and a consultant for the World Bank. She has published articles in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, World Politics, International Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, and Latin American Politics and Society and written chapters in several edited volumes, including Learning from Foreign Models in Latin American Policy Reform (2004), New Ideas about Old Age Security (2001) and Pension Reform: Issues and Prospects for Non-Financial Defined Contribution (NDC) Schemes (2006).

Part I: 1. Introduction: transforming the welfare state: from social protection to the market; 2. Explaining structural pension reform: theoretical debate and empirical evidence; Part II: 3. Explaining the institutional transformation of social security; Part III: 4. Pension reform in Latin America: overview and scope of institutional transformation; 5. Pension reform in an open economy: negotiating globalization's double bind; 6. Contesting institutional change in society: where political strategies meet institutional legacies; 7. legislative conflict and institutional change: building majorities behind loss-imposing reform; Part IV: 8. Conclusions and implications: toward a new social contract?