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- Convenors:
-
Hayley Jones
(LSE)
Diego Sanchez-Ancochea (University of Oxford)
Juliana Martinez Franzoni (University of Costa Rica)
- Location:
- Room 9 (Examination Schools)
- Start time:
- 14 September, 2016 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel examines expansionary innovations in social policy in the last two decades and assesses whether they can be the basis for universal welfare regimes in the South. To this end, the panel considers whether reforms have gone beyond access, to also reduce historical patterns of segmentation.
Long Abstract:
Starting in the 1980s, economic liberalisation and the pressures of fiscal discipline led to the retrenchment of many broad-based social policies. Limited compensatory programmes reached the poor while the non-poor were driven towards private means of social protection. More recently, the growing recognition of the costs of such reforms has driven innovation in social welfare provision in many parts of the developing world, with considerable South-South policy learning. These innovations have expanded coverage—particularly but not only among the very poor—of both transfers and services. New programmes covering millions of people have been created, from conditional cash transfers to non-contributory pensions. Generosity and equity in people's access to benefits has been less studied cross-nationally and across policy sectors, and yet these are crucial for present and future inequality. To what extent have these innovations in social policy reduced historical patterns of segmentation in the type and quality of benefits? Have they decreased inequality in society more generally? How might these new social policy innovations contribute to building more universal social welfare regimes? These are some of the questions we hope the papers for this panel will tackle.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This paper proposes a conceptualisation of universalism in social policy that is generally applicable for developing countries, beyond northern ideal types. As an umbrella term, it reflects guiding principles along three dimensions: provisioning modalities; costing and pricing; and financing.
Paper long abstract:
This paper proposes a way of conceptualizing universalism in social policy in a manner that bears more general applicability beyond ideal type northern welfare states, and that clarifies much of the conceptual confusion surrounding the term, particularly with respect to its application to developing countries or development goals. Universalism in this sense needs to be understood as an umbrella term reflecting a set of guiding principles along three dimensions: provisioning modalities, which includes issues of access and coverage; costing and pricing, which relate to commodification, although here understood differently from the way Esping-Anderson and the subsequent welfare state literature have (arguably wrongly) conceived commoditification; and financing, which involves the principle of (social) insurance. Within each dimension, we can think in terms of a spectrum from strong to weak (or absent) universalistic principles underpinning various institutional systems of social provisioning. This approach is useful because it takes us away from the dichotomy of targeting versus universalism and towards a more policy relevant method of identifying shifts towards stronger or weaker universalistic principles within historically and structurally specific and institutionally contingent contexts. It also assists in the analysis of the potentially equalizing effects (or not) of movements towards greater universalism, as well as the political economy factors that hinder or promote such movements along various disaggregated aspects of social policy.
Paper short abstract:
This paper summarises the main findings of our book on the determinants of universalism in the South. We show that democracy and progressive leadership create pre-conditions to promote equal social policy but the “right” architectures, state actors and ideas determine ultimate success
Paper long abstract:
Social policies that cover the whole population with similar generous entitlements could make a decisive contribution to reduce inequality in the South. They can also create more integrated societies and cross-class coalitions between the poor and the middle class. Promoting universalism may be easier if countries combine different instruments, including social insurance and social assistance that if they only try to build tax-funded, citizenship based programs.
How can countries move in the right direction? This paper summarises our main findings from a recent book. We combine a comparative analysis of the cases of Costa Rica, Mauritius, South Korea and Uruguay and a detailed historical account of the Costa Rican experience to answer this question. Our work highlights the role of policy architectures— the combination of instruments that define who access to what specific benefits, when and how —in promoting more or less universalism. Success in building ideal policy architectures comes as a result of democracy and progressive leadership as preconditions and active state actors and adequate international ideas as drivers.
Paper short abstract:
This paper looks at changes in policy effort, socio-economic outcomes, political participation and mobilization in Latin America. We conclude that Latin America has become more inclusionary, a move rooted in the third wave of democratization. Yet, numerous challenges remain to deepen inclusion.
Paper long abstract:
Latin America has been the global champion of inequality for decades if not centuries. Colonial rule built an economy and polity based on highly unequal income and wealth in addition to deeply exclusionary political systems. Over the 2000s, however, most indicators of poverty, inequality, informal employment, secondary school achievement and rights fulfilment have improved across Latin America. Almost all governments launched new social programs, from non-contributory pensions to conditional and unconditional cash transfers. It is unclear, however, to what extent these efforts are cosmetic and/or fragile or whether they represent enduring and meaningful reforms of Latin American political economy. This paper asks whether these improvements are a solid step forward towards a more inclusionary Latin America. To answer, we look at changes in policy effort, socio-economic outcomes, political participation and mobilization. Our conclusion is that Latin America has indeed become more inclusionary, a move which finds its roots in the third wave of democratization and the effects of democracy over time as opposed to the combination of the 'pink tide' and the commodity boom. But, the end of the commodity boom poses considerable risks. Rising incomes along with increased participation and mobilization have created the conditions for Latin American citizens to expect and to demand more of their governments. Yet, it is unclear that representative democracy can offer responses that deepen the inclusionary process and effectively incorporate aspiring classes in a stable, institutionalized system of interest aggregation and mediation.
Paper short abstract:
The paper examines the relationship between levels and types of social protection and progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. It identifies which forms of social protection are most effective at achieving specific development goals.
Paper long abstract:
While countries with higher levels of social protection coverage should be able to achieve greater progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) this relationship has never been empirically tested. The paper examines the relationship between social protection and the MDGs using composite and disaggregated social protection indicators as well as composite and disaggregated MDG progress variables. Thus identifies which forms of social protection are most effective at assisting with specific development goals. The composite MDG progress index is an aggregated score of the eight core targets for developing countries from 2000 to 2013. The paper also uses Asian Development Bank's (ADB) social protection index (SPI) for 35 South East Asian and Pacific countries as an alternate indicator for social protection.
There has been much conjecture about inequality and social protection being missing elements of the original MDG. The new round of goals: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), include the reduction of inequality as an overarching goal and social protection policies as a means for its achievement. It is therefore important to determine if levels of social protection have any bearing on MDG progress and to inform how innovative methods of social protection can be harnessed to achieve progress towards the SDGs.
Paper short abstract:
This paper offers evidence on young people's schooling in Brazil's Bolsa Família programme to argue that such a segmented approach to policy may contribute to segmented outcomes for young beneficiaries, challenging the idea that CCTs may facilitate long-term poverty reduction.
Paper long abstract:
Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) have become a central feature of the social policy landscape across Latin America and increasingly other parts of the developing world. On the one hand, these programmes have incorporated large portions of the population previously excluded from social welfare systems, and in many ways, from the benefits and rights of citizenship. On the other hand, CCTs represent a highly segmented approach to social policy, in terms of both social service provision and the conceptualisation of poverty embodied in such programmes. This paper argues that such a segmented approach to social policy appears to reinforce segmented outcomes among beneficiaries. Based on qualitative research with young beneficiaries of Brazil's Bolsa Família programme, this paper offers evidence of persistent segmentation in schooling. Despite modest increases in school enrolment and attendance rates, (timely) progression and completion of the basic education cycle remains problematic among beneficiary youth. Moreover, the quality of schooling accessed by beneficiaries appears incompatible with the necessary human capital formation to alter young people's labour market and life trajectories. The findings suggest that the highly segmented education system into which young beneficiary are inserted may serve to reinforce their limited opportunities over the long-term. This fundamentally challenges the notion that CCTs' can facilitate their aim of long-term, intergenerational poverty reduction through improved schooling and in turn altered life trajectories and outcomes. The findings also suggest the need to consider the ways in which CCTs may or may not contribute to more inclusionary social welfare systems.
Paper short abstract:
This paper evaluates the effect of a key social policy innovation: education vouchers. It analyses its effects on quality and social segregation. It shows that the effects are negative and that the neoclassical assumptions of the quasi-market model do not hold in reality.
Paper long abstract:
In the context of a new global wave of privatisation of social services, the increasing role of private education around the world constitutes a critical source of inequality and social stratification. This article analyses the political economy of vouchers in Chile, as a social policy ´innovation´ which is being followed by a number of countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa. This case study is important since it constitutes one of the oldest and most extensive voucher systems in the world and thus represents a valuable experience from which numerous general lessons may be drawn. For this purpose, this paper examines a key pillar of education markets, i.e. the role of competition between schools as a driver for education quality improvement. Using a large dataset of students and schools in Chile, it empirically estimates the effect of competition over academic outcomes, showing that its effects are negative. In other words, this policy innovation fails to rise education outcomes, but at the same time it increases education inequality and social segregation among students from different social classes. The paper then offers an explanation of these findings, analysing each one of the main underlying neoclassical assumptions of the voucher model in education, demonstrating through empirical evidence why they do not work in reality. Finally, it discusses the main policy implications.
Paper short abstract:
The excitement around cash transfers as an expansionary innovation in social policy ignores the fact that the poor themselves can be wary of such policies. We explore this reluctance in South Africa, arguing that it stems from the moral role of work in people's cosmologies and social categories.
Paper long abstract:
The case is building for expanded forms of social protection. The ILO is a strong supporter of creating universal social protection floors, the World Bank is enthusiastic about cash transfers to the poor, and an increasing number of NGOs, experiments and supporters are springing up around the world promoting unconditional cash transfers and universal basic income grants. However, despite the excitement generated by positive results in experiments and the triumphalism of development scholars who claim that this is a quiet revolution across the South (Ferguson 2015; Hanlon, Barrientos and Hulme 2010), not only have cash transfers been rejected repeatedly by policy makers, but they are at times viewed with suspicion and disdain by the poor, the very people who stand to benefit the most from universal grants and transfers.
This paper builds on in-depth qualitative work in South Africa's informal settlements and villages to explore the poor's reluctance around the idea of universal cash transfers. In particular it focuses on the construct of the "lazy" person to explore the link between the rejection of cash grants and the moral role that work plays in people's cosmologies and social categories. The moral goods in question are thus not generosity and equity, but rather just desserts and industriousness. We argue that the moral role of wage labour has been largely ignored in both academic and policy debates around cash transfers, but is a vital factor in garnering - or losing - both grassroots and political support for the universalization of social welfare regimes.
Paper short abstract:
The re-reforms of pension systems in Latin America are shifting the trajectory towards an advanced universalism, with greater coverage, generosity and equity. However, there are challenges about long-term sustainability of these reforms in terms of funding and political support.
Paper long abstract:
The construction of social protection systems in Latin America has been profoundly influenced by the minimalist approach that many governments adopted after the debt crisis. However, with the new democracies, governments increased social investment and began to implement innovative social protection polices oriented to lowering the high levels of poverty and inequality. In particular, these new trends on public policies are interesting evidence about how universalism is being growingly attractive to governments and is the main drivers of policy reforms. Then, the article presents a literature review of the concept of universalism, based on the contributions of Anttonen (2002), Anttonen et.al (2012), Anttonen and Sipilä (2014), Martínez-Franzoni and Sánchez-Ancochea (2014; 2016), Filgueira (2006; 2014), and Pribble (2013), and how it is having a practical impact on the design and implementation of new pension systems to improve the achievement of economic security in elderly. This is important because the region is facing a population aging, a rise on life expectancy, and they did not take advantage, properly, of the demographic bonus. Since the mid-2000s, Latin America started a new wave of legislation on pension re-reforms to fulfill the deficit of private pension schemes. These private systems were created after the Chilean reform of 1981 that was followed by the rest of the region during the mid and late 1990s. Finally, the article attempts to establish the main challenges for the region on the incorporation of universalistic approaches on the recent pension re-reforms.