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- Convenors:
-
Charmaine Ramos
(International Institute of Social Studies)
Andrew Fischer (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Send message to Convenors
- Formats:
- Papers
- Stream:
- The politics of state policies and social protection
- Location:
- Library, Seminar Room 6
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 19 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Given the striking uniformity in the diffusion of social protection policies in developing countries over the last two decades, this panel critically examines the conceptions and realities of the 'external' and 'domestic' in the political economy surrounding such policy diffusion processes.
Long Abstract:
The last two decades have seen an intense diffusion of social protection policies across developing countries, particularly cash transfer programmes as a favoured poverty alleviation strategy. The process has been supported both ideationally and financially by international development organisations. Much like with policy diffusion debates in the 2000s, an emerging consensus in the associated scholarship identifies domestic politics as the dominant determinant of the uptake and implementation of these policies, despite the fact that they have been adopted in a fairly uniform, largely donor-conformant manner, across the board in a very short period of time. The striking uniformity in diffusion suggests the need for a more careful consideration of external political factors, including what constitutes external influence and how it might occur, the deconstruction of conceptions of 'external' versus 'domestic', and the identification of more subtle and complex social relations of power that transverse both. The marginal and superficial insertion of many of the programmes into domestic political economy dynamics in most cases also calls for a re-evaluation of the conception of domestic politics, who exactly the 'domestic' refers to, and what incentives motivate the elite actors who typically champion local processes of diffusion. This panel invites papers that engage in these questions, in dialogue with some of the research findings of the convenors and their research project on the political economy of externally financing social policy in development countries.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 19 June, 2019, -Roeland Hemsteede (University of Dundee)
Paper short abstract:
Unequal power relations between international actors and Malawi's government strongly influence on how its cash transfers are designed and implemented. This presentation explores processes of domination and resistance between stakeholders during the formation of policy, all while remaining partners.
Paper long abstract:
The Sustainable Development Goals call for the implementation of nationally appropriate social protection systems. However, what is 'nationally appropriate' and to what extent can governments of developing countries such as Malawi lead this process when they depend on international development partners for financing and expertise?
This paper explores how the power dynamics between national and international stakeholders have shaped Malawi's cash transfers, both in development as well as humanitarian settings. The analysis is based on numerous in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in Malawi's social protection sector. It looks critically at how development partners promote their ideas and interests by singling out specific groups that are 'deserving' of their support and the supply of funding and 'technical support', all of which can be instrumentalised as tools of domination. Malawi's government however is far from powerless, and in many cases able to resist, and sometimes even turn the dominance of development partners to its own advantage.
The paper finds that Malawi's cash transfers are strongly shaped by, and dependent on, international development partners. However, these development partners themselves are also subject to outside forces which affect their behaviour. The impact of all these power relations is that the eventual design and implementation of cash transfers is sometimes at odds with how Malawian politicians think about social protection. Consequently, this presentation engages with debates about the structural 'top-down' power relations whereby the 'North' tells the 'South' how its development should take place, despite decades of criticism and rhetorical international commitments to change.
Marion Ouma (Nordic Africa Institute)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines how different interests shaped social protection policy-making processes in Kenya. By mapping relations among actors in the social protection policy network, we demonstrate how the web of compatible interests and linkages, and a manipulation of resources, shaped policy adoption.
Paper long abstract:
Understanding the recent uptake of social protection policies in Kenya requires a more nuanced consideration beyond explanatory variables of social learning, political settlements and structural forces. A better explanation necessitates an examination of the web of interactions among actors seeking to influence policy change. For this reason, we examine the policy network as the space of interaction between a plurality of actors with different and varied interests, resource base and legitimacy to understand the adoption of social protection policies in Kenya. This paper uses a case study approach with a view of understanding the adoption of the Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) and the Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP). The methodology involves a qualitative research design based on in-depth interviews, a review of relevant documents and participant observation. By mapping out power relations among actors within the social protection policy network, we demonstrate how the web of compatible interests and linkages, and a manipulation of resources to influence others, shaped policy transfer and subsequent policy adoption.
Keywords: social protection, interests, resources, Kenya, policy transfer, policy network
Andrew Fischer (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the complexities of the external financing of social protection that are generally overlooked in the literature on the political economy of social protection, with the result of underemphasising or misinterpreting the influence of external actors within these policy agendas.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the complexities of the external financing of social protection that are generally overlooked in the literature on the political economy of social protection, with the result of underemphasising or misinterpreting the influence of external actors within these policy agendas. External financing in this sense refers mostly to official financial support from bilaterals or multilaterals for cash transfer programmes in particular, given that these have generally been the focus the so-called social protection agenda in developing countries. The idea that external sources can serve as an important channel for financing social protection discussions is a generally accepted assertion that is almost never problematised, although here I problematise by drawing from an understanding of aid (or other forex) absorption, on two grounds: one, that absorption happens through trade deficits, e.g. redistributive impact of foreign inflows occurs through enhanced consumption of goods and services; and two, that most spending on social protection is in domestic currency, hence technically not requiring forex in any case. These points raise questions why external resources would be sought by recipient governments for programmes such as social protection and how these resources are channelled into such spending.
From this starting point, I then discuss several of the main observations and insights coming out of the fieldwork of our research project in seven countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Zambia, Cambodia, Philippines, Ecuador and Paraguay). This mostly involved elite interviews with various government ministries (Central Banks, Finance Ministries, Social Welfare Departments, etc.) and with various donors and international organisations, e.g. the main ones that actually intervene in and try to influence social policy making (e.g. the IMF, WB, various UN, EU, DfID, USAID, etc.), together with extensive documentary and exploratory quantitative analysis. The research shines light on very different albeit implicit perspectives of governments (especially finance ministries) in comparison to donors with respect to issues such as sustainability, resource mobilisation, policy space and priorities, concerns over transparency and accountability, etc. In particular, these differences in perspectives suggest that common understandings about causality and motivations regarding the adoption and expansion of cash transfer programmes, as well as the politics around recipient government ‘ownership’ of these programmes, are generally misinterpreted, with important implications concerning how we understand the political economy regarding social policy development in these countries.
Ana Lucia Badillo Salgado (Erasmus University Rotterdam) Emma Lynn Cantal (Erasmus University Rotterdam) Benedict Yiyugsah (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Paper short abstract:
This paper argues that the diffusion of CCTs in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia is engendered by external influences, facilitated by transnationalised policy elites in the country cases. It maintains that the targeting modality embodied by CCTs is reinforcing selectivity and residualism.
Paper long abstract:
This paper investigates the diffusion and convergence in the adoption of Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) in Ghana and Zambia (Africa), Ecuador and Paraguay (Latin America), and Cambodia and the Philippines (Southeast Asia). It argues that the similarity of the schemes and mechanisms through which they were introduced and eventually adopted in these countries is partly caused by donors/international actors wielding influence in domestic social policymaking within the context of asymmetrical policy space and power relations. However, the paper does not conceive of external influences/pressures to occur in a deterministic manner, but rather, through the willing participation of policy elites who have internalised transnational interests, and hence, could not be identified as purely domestic actors. Unlike extant explanations that tend to be one-dimensional, the paper seeks a more nuanced interpretation based on critical assessments of the complex interaction between external and domestic political economy variables. This entails tackling such questions as how do external influences/pressures take place; what and who constitutes the external and domestic; and how do tensions resulting from the competing interests and power asymmetries of policy actors play out in social policymaking.
Moreover, we question CCTs' purported success. Fieldwork conducted in 2017, coupled with a documentary analysis of the social protection and fiscal systems yield evidence demonstrating that CCTs, which are implemented in tandem with social registries of poor households, have reinforced selectivity and residualism, as well as inequities within broader systems of social protection.