Legal, Political, and Institutional Aspects of a Comprehensive and Viable Strategy to Combat Poverty

Abstract

Costa Rica has witnessed during decades, a constant speech by political parties, institutions and analysts about how to win the struggle against poverty. Infinity of articles and documents both of national and international sources, have preached concepts and varied schemes which become popular and which sustain the creation of institutions, policies and concrete programmes which, once born, do tend to stay forever even without solving the original problems; new concepts and schemes are added to this complex and diffuse institutional, conceptual and budgetary framework which becomes so uncritically espoused by so many individuals who do not even have or have had real bureaucratic experience regarding the management of such intricate and non systemic institutional and political processes, a situation deriving mainly from their turning their backs on a major constitutional and legal superior framework which does order and organise in the country these subjects and processes since 1949 and which orders, above all, the fundamental factors of political conduction and administrative management which are so determinant over the real efficacy of such fight against socioeconomic inequity. This article reveals how this relevant omission by so many has had as its inevitable consequence the recurrent failure of winning this war against poverty, but it also shows how to overcome such failure in viable ways if we only take objective account of that national normative framework and conceptual approach on this matter.