Paper short abstract:

Cash transfers have the potential to alter citizen-state relations by providing recipients with new avenues to access the state and its resources. In doing so, they can challenge dominant narratives about the state's roles and responsibilities in the everyday lives of marginalized citizens.

Paper long abstract:

Cash transfers have the potential to alter citizen-state relations by providing citizens with new avenues to access the state and its resources, which can in turn expand their access to the formal structures of the state. Moreover, the implementation of cash transfers can challenge dominant narratives about the state's roles and responsibilities in the everyday lives of marginalized citizens. While cash transfers are mostly likely to have transformative impacts on citizens-state relations in contexts where citizens have been previously marginalized by the state, the transformative impacts of cash transfers are mediated both by the design of programs and citizens' prior understandings and experiences with the state. These factors shape the norms of reciprocity built into the everyday practices of program implementation, shape citizens' interpretations of inclusion and exclusion, and determine whether recipients view cash transfers as a right, entitlement, or gift.

These reflections draw on research conducted for my book project that examines the impacts of cash transfers on recipients' perceptions and practices of citizenship in Kenya and Tanzania, research on subnational variations in the implementation of cash transfers in Kenya, and a new project on how cash transfers facilitate citizens' access to the state in Northern Uganda.