State reform, decentralization and health policies: a comparative analysis among Argentina, Brasil, Colômbia and México

Abstract

The come out fiscal crisis at the beginning of the decade of 1980 marked the exhaustion of the American Latin processes of development based in the conduction by the National States of the industrialization processes based on importation substitutions. Since then, the multilateral organisms have pressured so that institutional reforms are implemented that diminish this governmental protagonism, including the decentralization of the politics between the governmental spheres. The reforms in the health systems are enrolled in this context, and it reflects in the strenghtening of the infranational instances and have potential to affect also the organization of the territory. This study comparatively analyzes these processes in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.