Central American countries have long exhibited exclusionary welfare regimes, marked by low social spending, limited coverage, and inadequate benefits. For example, in Guatemala—home of the highest maternal mortality rate in Latin America—only half the population has access to healthcare. Yet, even within this constrained landscape, notable episodes of reform have emerged, temporarily expanding coverage and reaching previously excluded groups.

This project seeks to theorize how institutional legacies, actor coalitions, and policy narratives—three key variables in the social policy literature—interact to enable social reform under conditions of state fragility. We examine cases in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua –countries that share exclusionary welfare trajectories but that have also implemented a limited set of redistributive policies.  We study both state-led interventions and community-driven initiatives, using a common framework to compare their dynamics and outcomes.

This project offers clear analytical and policy contributions.  It advances debates on community welfare provision in fragile contexts and identifies the mechanisms that enable social innovations under adverse conditions. As fiscal pressures rise and democratic backsliding threatens progress in Central America and beyond, understanding the pathways to inclusive social policy is more urgent than ever, as it is to look at efforts that bring together state and non-state actors. Additionally, while Latin America's social policies have been widely studied, there is virtually no systematic, cross-country research focused on policy formation in fragile, authoritarian settings. From a policy perspective, the project identifies mechanisms and enabling conditions that allow for social policy innovation in difficult environments. The findings will be of interest to international institutions working on social policy.