IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/110766.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social protection and state-society relations in environments of low and uneven state capacity

Author

Listed:
  • Alik-Lagrange, Arthur
  • Dreier, Sarah K.
  • Lake, Milli
  • Porisky, Alesha

Abstract

Grounded in social-contractual ideas about relationships between the governed and those who govern, the provision of social benefits to citizens has historically been predicated on expectations of acquiescence to state authority. However, the rapid expansion of noncontributory social assistance in sub-Saharan Africa, often supported by global donors through technical assistance programs, raises myriad questions about the relationship between social protection and the social contract in fragile and low-capacity contexts. Focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, but drawing on the theoretical and empirical literature on social protection from around the world, this review parses out the redistributive, contractual, and reconstitutive effects of social protection programming on citizen-state relations. We argue that program features—including targeting, conditionality, accountability mechanisms, bureaucratic reach, and the nature and visibility of state-nonstate partnerships—interact dialectically with existing state-society relationships to engender different social contract outcomes for differently situated populations.

Suggested Citation

  • Alik-Lagrange, Arthur & Dreier, Sarah K. & Lake, Milli & Porisky, Alesha, 2021. "Social protection and state-society relations in environments of low and uneven state capacity," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 110766, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:110766
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/110766/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elisabetta Aurino & Jean-Pierre Tranchant & Amadou Sekou Diallo & Aulo Gelli, 2019. "School Feeding or General Food Distribution? Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Educational Impacts of Emergency Food Assistance during Conflict in Mali," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(S1), pages 7-28, December.
    2. Ian MacAuslan & Nils Riemenschneider, 2011. "Richer but Resented: What do Cash Transfers do to Social Relations?," IDS Bulletin, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(6), pages 60-66, November.
    3. David Coady & Margaret Grosh & John Hoddinott, 2004. "Targeting of Transfers in Developing Countries : Review of Lessons and Experience," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14902, December.
    4. Alik-Lagrange, Arthur & Ravallion, Martin, 2018. "Workfare versus transfers in rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 244-258.
    5. Alex Hurrell & Ian MacAuslan, 2012. "The Political Implications of Cash Transfers in Sub-saharan Africa," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 255-272, February.
    6. Nicholas Awortwi, 2018. "Social protection is a grassroots reality: Making the case for policy reflections on community‐based social protection actors and services in Africa," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(S2), pages 897-913, September.
    7. Ravallion, Martin, 2019. "Guaranteed employment or guaranteed income?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 209-221.
    8. Ramlatu Attah & Valentina Barca & Andrew Kardan & Ian MacAuslan & Fred Merttens & Luca Pellerano, 2016. "Can Social Protection Affect Psychosocial Wellbeing and Why Does This Matter? Lessons from Cash Transfers in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(8), pages 1115-1131, August.
    9. Antony Young, 2014. "1 + 1 = 3," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Brand Media Strategy, edition 0, chapter 0, pages 81-99, Palgrave Macmillan.
    10. Orazio P. Attanasio & Costas Meghir & Ana Santiago, 2012. "Education Choices in Mexico: Using a Structural Model and a Randomized Experiment to Evaluate PROGRESA," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 37-66.
    11. Solomon Asfaw & Benjamin Davis & Josh Dewbre & Sudhanshu Handa & Paul Winters, 2014. "Cash Transfer Programme, Productive Activities and Labour Supply: Evidence from a Randomised Experiment in Kenya," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(8), pages 1172-1196, August.
    12. Ikedinachi K. Ogamba, 2020. "Conditional cash transfer and education under neoliberalism in Nigeria: inequality, poverty and commercialisation in the school sector," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(164), pages 291-300, April.
    13. World Bank, 2016. "Republic of Chad," World Bank Publications - Reports 24586, The World Bank Group.
    14. Alberto Chong & Hugo Ñopo & Juan Camilo Cardenas, 2008. "To What Extent do Latin Americans Trust and Cooperate? Field Experiments on Social Exclusion In Six Latin American Countries," Research Department Publications 4577, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    15. Orazio Attanasio & Alice Mesnard, 2006. "The Impact of a Conditional Cash Transfer Programme on Consumption in Colombia," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 27(4), pages 421-442, December.
    16. Naila Kabeer & Khawar Mumtaz & Asad Sayeed, 2010. "Beyond risk management: Vulnerability, social protection and citizenship in Pakistan," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 1-19.
    17. Maxine Molyneux & With Nicola Jones & Fiona Samuels, 2016. "Can Cash Transfer Programmes Have ‘Transformative’ Effects?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(8), pages 1087-1098, August.
    18. World Bank, 2016. "Identification for Development," World Bank Publications - Reports 26439, The World Bank Group.
    19. Ariel Fiszbein & Norbert Schady & Francisco H.G. Ferreira & Margaret Grosh & Niall Keleher & Pedro Olinto & Emmanuel Skoufias, 2009. "Conditional Cash Transfers : Reducing Present and Future Poverty," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2597, December.
    20. Kosuke Imai & Gary King & Carlos Velasco Rivera, 2016. "Do Nonpartisan Programmatic Policies Have Partisan Electoral Effects? Evidence from Two Large Scale Randomized Experiments," Working Paper 366526, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    21. Sam Hickey & Sophie King, 2016. "Understanding Social Accountability: Politics, Power and Building New Social Contracts," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(8), pages 1225-1240, August.
    22. Giovanni Carbone & Alessandro Pellegata, 2017. "To Elect or Not to Elect: Leaders, Alternation in Power and Social Welfare in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(12), pages 1965-1987, December.
    23. Conning, Jonathan & Kevane, Michael, 2002. "Community-Based Targeting Mechanisms for Social Safety Nets: A Critical Review," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 375-394, March.
    24. Nicola Jones & Rebecca Holmes, 2011. "Why is Social Protection Gender‐blind? The Politics of Gender and Social Protection," IDS Bulletin, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(6), pages 45-52, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Porisky, Alesha & Mohamed, Tahira Shariff & Muthui, Patrick Mutinda, 2023. "Kenya’s ‘Universal’ social pension: The politics of registration in Marsabit County," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Della Guardia, Anne & Lake, Milli & Schnitzer, Pascale, 2022. "Selective inclusion in cash transfer programs: Unintended consequences for social cohesion," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    2. Yvonne Beaugé & Jean-Louis Koulidiati & Valéry Ridde & Paul Jacob Robyn & Manuela De Allegri, 2018. "How much does community-based targeting of the ultra-poor in the health sector cost? Novel evidence from Burkina Faso," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 1-11, December.
    3. Henderson, Heath & Follett, Lendie, 2022. "Targeting social safety net programs on human capabilities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    4. Dodlova, Marina & Giolbas, Anna & Lay, Jann, 2016. "Non-Contributory Social Transfer Programmes in Developing Countries: A New Data Set and Research Agenda," GIGA Working Papers 290, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    5. Attanasio, Orazio & Polania-Reyes, Sandra & Pellerano, Luca, 2015. "Building social capital: Conditional cash transfers and cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 22-39.
    6. Zurab Abramishvili & Lasha Lanchava, 2015. "Education for the Poor," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp542, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    7. Fisher, Eleanor & Attah, Ramlatu & Barca, Valentina & O'Brien, Clare & Brook, Simon & Holland, Jeremy & Kardan, Andrew & Pavanello, Sara & Pozarny, Pamela, 2017. "The Livelihood Impacts of Cash Transfers in Sub-Saharan Africa: Beneficiary Perspectives from Six Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 299-319.
    8. Lendie Follett & Heath Henderson, 2022. "A hybrid approach to targeting social assistance," Papers 2201.01356, arXiv.org.
    9. González-Flores, Mario & Heracleous, Maria & Winters, Paul, 2012. "Leaving the Safety Net: An Analysis of Dropouts in an Urban Conditional Cash Transfer Program," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(12), pages 2505-2521.
    10. Pouw, Nicky R.M. & Rohregger, Barbara & Schüring, Esther & Alatinga, Kennedy A. & Kinuthia, Bethuel & Bender, Katja, 2020. "Social protection in Ghana and Kenya through an inclusive development Lens. Complex effects and risks," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    11. Follett, Lendie & Henderson, Heath, 2023. "A hybrid approach to targeting social assistance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    12. Dragan Filipovich & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa & Alma Santillán Hernández, 2018. "Campaign externalities, programmatic spending, and voting preferences in rural Mexico: The case of Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera programme," WIDER Working Paper Series 027, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Dragan Filipovich & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa & Alma Santillán Hernández, 2018. "Campaign externalities, programmatic spending, and voting preferences in rural Mexico: The case of Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera programme," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-27, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Kate Pruce, 2023. "The Politics of Who Gets What and Why: Learning from the Targeting of Social Cash Transfers in Zambia," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 35(4), pages 820-839, August.
    15. Ryckembusch, David & Frega, Romeo & Silva, Marcio Guilherme & Gentilini, Ugo & Sanogo, Issa & Grede, Nils & Brown, Lynn, 2013. "Enhancing Nutrition: A New Tool for Ex-Ante Comparison of Commodity-based Vouchers and Food Transfers," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 58-67.
    16. Jules Gazeaud & Victor Stephane, 2023. "Productive Workfare? Evidence from Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Program," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(1), pages 265-290, January.
    17. Heinrich, Carolyn J. & Knowles, Matthew T., 2020. "A fine predicament: Conditioning, compliance and consequences in a labeled cash transfer program," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    18. Stoeffler, Quentin & Mills, Bradford & del Ninno, Carlo, 2016. "Reaching the Poor: Cash Transfer Program Targeting in Cameroon," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 244-263.
    19. Paul J. Gertler & Sebastian W. Martinez & Marta Rubio-Codina, 2012. "Investing Cash Transfers to Raise Long-Term Living Standards," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 164-192, January.
    20. Bagga,Aanchal & Holmlund,Marcus Erik & Khan,Nausheen & Subha,Mani & Mvukiyehe,Eric & Premand,Patrick, 2023. "Do Public Works Programs Have Sustained Impacts ? A Review of Experimental Studies from LMICs," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10471, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    social contract; Social protection; state capacity; state society relations; sub-Saharan Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:110766. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.