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- Convenors:
-
Kate Pruce
(Institute of Development Studies)
Isaac Chinyoka (University of Cape Town)
Nabila Idris (BRAC University)
Hangala Siachiwena (University of Cape Town)
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- Formats:
- Papers Mixed
- Stream:
- Global inequalities
- Sessions:
- Thursday 1 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Against a backdrop of existing political and financial anxieties, COVID-19 has exacerbated inequalities globally. We invite papers that explore the politics of social protection at the juncture between old and new forces, focusing on design debates, financing challenges, and populist pressures.
Long Abstract:
Despite decades of effort to increase coverage and expenditure on social protection, including cash transfer programmes, over 4 billion people still remain systematically unprotected (ILO, 2017). The COVID-19 pandemic revealed and exacerbated these inequalities, with the poorest and the most vulnerable suffering disproportionately. Although governments responded with unprecedented horizontal and vertical expansions of social protection worldwide, their efforts were mediated by existing political institutions and degree of infrastructural (un)preparedness (Gentilini et al., 2020). In this panel, we will explore the politics of social protection at the juncture between old forces and new pressures in unsettled times.
There has been increased interest in universal basic income, although this remains a controversial policy proposal. Discussions about precarity of employment and income—caused by the pandemic but also the fourth industrial revolution—have gained traction. Debates surrounding universalism vs. targeting, financing challenges, debt restructuring, and democratic pressures from populist forces have also come to the fore.
Against a backdrop of pre-existing political trends, we invite contributions from a range of theoretical perspectives that critically engage with, but need not be limited to, the following questions and topics:
• What are the political opportunities and challenges for social protection created by the pandemic, including implications for universal vs. targeted schemes?
• How are elections and/or regressive political trends, such as populism, influencing social protection agendas and priorities?
• What do the growing financial challenges, including debt defaults and pandemic-linked recession, mean for social protection financing? What role do donors play here?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 1 July, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the politics underpinning targeting of social transfers in Ghana. Drawing on comparative case analysis, the paper demonstrates that regardless of state infrastructural power, the nature of political competition within districts exerts a stronger sway on targeting effectiveness.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the political dynamics underpinning the targeting of social transfers in Ghana. The Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) programme as a centrally designed social transfer is executed through decentralised state offices with varying capacities and political conditions. While evaluations have highlighted LEAP’s transformative outcomes, there are considerable variations in the scale and effectiveness of the programme across districts. The puzzle this paper explores is why LEAP is targeted better in some districts in northern Ghana than others despite having similar existing weak state infrastructural power? The paper explores the role of state infrastructural power and local political contexts in the application of targeting procedures. This paper is based on comparative case studies in two districts in the Upper West Region of Ghana, using a conceptual framework that combines institutionalist perspectives, and literature on coalitional relations in producing a variation in performance. It draws on 110 in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with sub-national political and social elites, bureaucrats, and beneficiaries. The paper finds that despite similarities in state infrastructural power across districts in the northern part of Ghana, the main factor shaping variation in the targeting of social transfers is the degree of political competitiveness within districts, with more competitive districts tending towards less effectiveness in the application of targeting procedures.
Paper short abstract:
A critical issue faced by all countries developing systems of social protection is how to select beneficiaries. This study examined the process of targeting the beneficiaries of the social protection programmes which provides cash and in-kind transfers interventions in Tanzania.
Paper long abstract:
Nearly 50% of the world population and 17.8% of the African population are at least covered by social protection benefits. In Tanzania, over 5 million people are covered by at least one social protection benefit. Despite its importance, less has been done to understand the processes of targeting beneficiaries and level of participation in such processes by programmes implementing cash and in-kind transfers in Tanzania. This study analyses and discusses data from household survey and in-depth interviews. Results indicate that geographical, proxy means testing and community-based targeting methods are widely implemented. The process of identifying programme beneficiaries is characterized by low community participation, fragmented activities, ad hoc plans, lack of grievance mechanisms, and errors of inclusion and exclusion. To ensure that social protection transfers reach the intended recipients, programmes should seek to adequately reduce factors that compromise the efforts of reaching the poorest and those who are most vulnerable. Community members should widely participate in the process of setting the identification criteria and in the actual process of identifying the beneficiary households. An efficient system for monitoring and graduation of beneficiaries is important to allow re-identification and enrollment of other needy people. These present important issues for designing programmes that aim to target people who are in most need of support in the situation where there is less opportunity for universal programme.
Paper short abstract:
I discuss a political balancing act across targeted versus universal social protection by opposing meritocracy with ideas of empowerment in the South African Covid-19 context. Using recent media outlets and policy initiatives, I highlight structural patterns in considerations of 'who deserves what’.
Paper long abstract:
Piketty begins his book Capital and Ideology with “every human society must justify its inequalities: unless reasons for them are found, the whole political and social edifice stands in danger of its collapse” (2019, 1). Understanding such justifications matters especially now – in times, when owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, old and new inequalities are immediately felt, experienced, and (re-)evaluated. Yet, little is known about how these (unequal) experiences strengthen or weaken public support for social protection, especially regarding universal versus targeted approaches.
In this paper, I discuss the case of South Africa where there is in a (re-)opened debate on pandemic-related relief measures, reflecting an ideological divide over a key principle of ‘who deserves what’. Amidst South Africa’s post-apartheid context and continued racial inequalities, meritocratic ideals, where rewards should track effort and ability, compete with the idea of empowerment, giving priority to the marginalized. For instance, I show while relief measures include discussions of a basic income grant for the unemployed (eNCA 2020), there is also support for formerly implemented race-preferential policies, such as the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) framework (Arnoldi 2020). Using media outlets and policy documents, I revisit the political balancing act across targeted versus universal approaches to discuss the two-fold challenge of facing the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic amidst prevailing structural inequalities.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the factors militating against the sustainability of Zambia's Social Cash Transfer (SCT) programme. Despite a rapid expansion of programmatic social protection after 2011, political support for SCTs has declined, at the expense of programmes that serve clientelist purposes.
Paper long abstract:
Zambia experienced a democratic change in government in 2011, which had implications for programmatic redistribution. The newly elected government expanded donor initiated Social Cash Transfers (SCTs) into a national programme as part of its pro-poor agenda. It assumed primary responsibility for funding programmes from international donors and more than doubled coverage of beneficiary households. This was significant because the previous administration was reluctant to scale pilots into a national programme, arguing that cash transfers were unproductive handouts that would encourage laziness and dependency. After a change in President in 2015 from the same governing party, SCTs continued to expand and were rolled out nationwide. Despite the rollout, payments to beneficiaries have been erratic, and a scandal involving the misapplication of donor funds for SCT beneficiaries was unearthed. Moreover, the government has in recent years prioritised the expansion of empowerment schemes, seemingly at the expense of SCTs.
Using process tracing evidence, this paper shows that commitments to expand cash transfers are inconsistent with what has been achieved in practice. The paper argues that the notional implementation of SCTs is informed by the governing party’s putative commitment to a pro-poor agenda as well as the influence of donors and government technocrats. However, the political and ideological interests of elites in the ruling administration have prompted the government to prioritise other forms of redistribution that serve as mechanisms for clientelist politics.