Good Jobs and Social Services : How Costa Rica achieved the elusive double incorporation

Few countries have achieved social development, which requires simultaneously securing market and social incorporation (good jobs and access to social services). This book reviews Costa Rica's experience as one of the few successful cases of double incorporation in the periphery.

Few developing countries have succeeded in simultaneously providing good jobs and access to social services for all. Large informal sectors and segmented social policies that provide benefits to only a small minority are among the problems that have hampered developing countries'' ability to secure the double incorporation to the market and to social services. This book reviews Costa Rica''s experience as one of the few successful exceptions. The authors concentrate on the essential role of the state in expanding public employment, promoting small firms and cooperatives and creating generous and universal social services. In explaining why the state implemented these policies, the authors go beyond dominant democraticcentred explanations and highlight the emergence of a new elite of small and medium producers, and the role of international ideas. The book also recognizes Costa Rica''s struggles
to maintain the double incorporation during the recent period of neoliberal globalization. It concludes with eight lessons.