Paper short abstract:

The paper critically interrogates what is new about the concept of social protection and offers new empirical research from the MENA region. Conceptual and policy links are drawn with social policy.

Paper long abstract:

Based on extensive empirical research in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), funded in part by the ESRC, this paper advances a conceptual and policy critique of social protection with a view to highlighting the of significance of social policy systems in developing countries as frameworks for social protection action. The paper fulfills two key objectives: First, it offers a critical review of social protection academic and policy discourses over the last two decades; identifying and critically evaluating three distinct strands: crisis or risk management; extending social contracts and social justice; institutionalizing social policy systems. The paper argues that it is the latter approach which has received least attention in the social protection literature yet it can be conceptually forthcoming in orienting policy towards the creation of more socially and politically sustainable societies. Second, the paper focuses on a geographical region which has not received sufficient academic attention in relation to social protection: MENA. Social protection arrived late to MENA, gaining a sense of urgency in policy spheres only after the "Arab Spring". This factor, along with the post-2015 SDG agenda have opened up political space for social protection but in the narrow sense of targeted social safety nets and support for vulnerable groups. Using the findings from a recently completed ESRC project encompassing Lebanon, Turkey and Iran as well as other research completed on North Africa and the Arab Gulf, the paper argues that only by engaging directly with social policy frameworks in MENA will social protection successfully offer a new paradigm for development action.