Sophie Plagerson
(Sophie Plagerson)
Jeremy Seekings
(University of Cape Town)
Marianne Sandvad Ulriksen
(Danish Centre for Welfare Studies)
Alesha Porisky
(Northern Illinois University)
Format:
Panel
Streams:
Politics and political economy
Sessions:
Thursday 7 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
States, Citizens and Social Protection in Africa.
Panel P05a at conference DSA2022: Just sustainable futures in an urbanising and mobile world.
This panel invites papers that critically examine how state-citizen dynamics influence the trajectories of social protection in Africa, and how in turn social protection shapes the relationship between states and citizens.
Long Abstract:
The expansion of social welfare has been integral to historical processes of state-building, and is key to securing just and sustainable wellbeing outcomes for vulnerable populations. However, as social protection is being extended in contexts of weak infrastructural capacity across both democratic and authoritarian states, it is important to develop an evidence base which explores changing relations between states and citizens, and shifting conceptions of citizenship.
Across Africa, over the past twenty years, the landscape of social protection has evolved rapidly, including more recently in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, with the widespread introduction of non-contributory pensions, public works programmes, social cash transfers, and social insurance for previously excluded populations, extending social assistance to vulnerable populations.
In order to understand and disentangle the effects of how social protection is recasting the political, administrative, and social aspects of changing citizen-state relations in Africa, this panel invites papers which present evidence on the perspectives of stakeholders (including political elites, state administration, street-level bureaucrats, development agencies, beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of social protection) that can shed light on how the design, reach, and implementation social protection policies are shaped by citizen-state relations and how, in turn, their implementation shapes citizen-state relations in profound and sometimes unexpected ways. The panel discussion will offer a comparative angle of beneficiary perspectives across a broad range of countries, with different levels of state capacity, in rural and urban settings.
This paper explores how Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net programme facilitates administrative decentralization and enhances state infrastructural power while intensifying/reconstituting state-society relations in Ethiopia's Somali pastoral periphery.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing on analysis of fieldwork data on implementation of Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in Ethiopia's Somali region, in this paper we argue that social protection programmes enhance administrative decentralization and hence state (infrastructural) power while reconfiguring state-society relations in the periphery. As the largest donor-funded social protection programme in sub-Sharan Africa, PSNP has been launched since 2005 to enable rural poor households improve their food security and lift them out of poverty. The (sub-)kebele administration - most local, decentralized state institution - has become key for PSNP implementation. However, (sub-)kebele administrations were not functional, if they were established at all, in the Somali periphery so that initially PSNP was implemented through clans. However, our paper shows that PSNP implementation, gradually, enables the establishment/consolidation of (sub-)kebele administrations in the Somali periphery by remobilizing PSNP fiscal resources, informally/unofficially, as key sources of financing (sub-)kebele administrations and incentivizing officials; raising competition, among different clan lineages, for political representation within the existing (sub-)kebele administrations or by establishing the new ones as political power in the (sub-)kebele is directly translated into better access to PSNP (and other state) resources; expanding infrastructures that enhance territorial reach of the state; and (re)using PSNP documentations, such as client cards, as administrative documents in making nomadic pastoralists visible/legible, governable subjects. Finally, we argue that such practices and effects, accompanied by diverse subtle practices, enhance state-building in the periphery by intensifying/reconstituting state-society relations beyond kinship-based network.
This paper examines the targeting of cash transfers in Zambia, through the lens of women-state relations. It argues that by overlooking unequal societal responsibilities, social protection can entrench rather than challenge gendered access to state assistance based on status rather than rights.
Paper long abstract:
Women's interactions with the state have historically been limited, both in terms of political inclusion and in the private domain where their access to state structures is often mediated by men (Nazneen et al., 2019; Mohanty, 2012). And yet, literature on citizenship and rights has often overlooked variations in citizen-state relations, based on gender and other identities of exclusion. Drawing on Mohanty's (2012) concept of women-state relations, this paper asks how access to state assistance through cash transfers is shaped by gender.
Applying a process-tracing methodology, the study analyses the targeting of Zambia's social cash transfer scheme. Based on 77 semi-structured key informant interviews with institutional stakeholders, as well as 16 focus group discussions with beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries, the research finds a predominant belief that 'able-bodied' men and women should be working to support themselves and their families. While this appears to subvert women's 'traditional' societal roles as dependents and caregivers, it does so in a punitive rather than a transformative way.
While there has been an apparently empowering shift towards increased flexibility in gender divisions in the labour market in Zambia (Evans, 2014), this has not been accompanied by a change in attitudes to unpaid care work. Caring and homemaking roles continue to have low status and are considered to be 'feminine' work, perpetuating the long-recognised 'double burden of labour' for women. The paper argues that by overlooking unequal societal responsibilities, social protection can entrench rather than challenge gendered access to state assistance based on status rather than rights.
This paper explores how elected politicians in Zambia perceive social protection, represent their electorate's interest in the social protection policy process and how donors influence this state - citizen relationship.
Paper long abstract:
Elected politicians sit at the interface between the state and the citizens and play a critical role in shaping the social contract. This article presents rare insights into their participation in donor-led social protection policy processes in Africa. Taking the case of Zambia, it asks how politicians have been involved in policy processes and how donors have influenced their perceptions. The article relies on 45 key informant interviews with Members of Parliament (MPs), donors, NGOs, and consultants, as well as key secondary documentations. Our findings indicate that donors managed to shape the policy narratives of MPs and narrow their participation in formal policy arenas. Yet, they did not influence their involvement in informal policy processes, understanding of social protection and underlying values of social justice. It is argued that for donor-led social protection to change state-society relations, the active participation, support, and deliberation of elected politicians is indispensable.
This paper argues that the state effectively mobilized state power after electoral violence in Nakuru, Kenya to make and enforce cash transfers targeting decisions down to the local level, but that the impacts for strengthening citizen-state relations were limited due to incomplete program coverage.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines how variations in political power shape the distribution of cash transfers in areas of post-electoral violence in Nakuru, Kenya. Drawing on 40 interviews with civil servants and community leaders, 16 focus group discussions with beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries, and community mapping conducted across two sub-counties in Nakuru, this paper argues that the central state, in the wake of post-electoral violence, has effectively mobilized state power to make and enforce targeting decisions down to the village level to mitigate ethnic tensions and strengthen citizen-state relations. The paper further argues that the success of such localized distribution in strengthening citizen-state relations is limited due to incomplete program coverage which undermines citizens' rights to social assistance. These findings are brought into conversation with other research published on cash transfers and citizenship across Kenya. In doing so, it highlights how citizen-state relations are shaped by program coverage, infrastructural power, and political power.
Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality. Log in
Jeremy Seekings (University of Cape Town)
Marianne Sandvad Ulriksen (Danish Centre for Welfare Studies)
Alesha Porisky (Northern Illinois University)
Short Abstract:
This panel invites papers that critically examine how state-citizen dynamics influence the trajectories of social protection in Africa, and how in turn social protection shapes the relationship between states and citizens.
Long Abstract:
The expansion of social welfare has been integral to historical processes of state-building, and is key to securing just and sustainable wellbeing outcomes for vulnerable populations. However, as social protection is being extended in contexts of weak infrastructural capacity across both democratic and authoritarian states, it is important to develop an evidence base which explores changing relations between states and citizens, and shifting conceptions of citizenship.
Across Africa, over the past twenty years, the landscape of social protection has evolved rapidly, including more recently in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, with the widespread introduction of non-contributory pensions, public works programmes, social cash transfers, and social insurance for previously excluded populations, extending social assistance to vulnerable populations.
In order to understand and disentangle the effects of how social protection is recasting the political, administrative, and social aspects of changing citizen-state relations in Africa, this panel invites papers which present evidence on the perspectives of stakeholders (including political elites, state administration, street-level bureaucrats, development agencies, beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of social protection) that can shed light on how the design, reach, and implementation social protection policies are shaped by citizen-state relations and how, in turn, their implementation shapes citizen-state relations in profound and sometimes unexpected ways. The panel discussion will offer a comparative angle of beneficiary perspectives across a broad range of countries, with different levels of state capacity, in rural and urban settings.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 7 July, 2022, -