expansion of social assistance does politics matter

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Economic & Political Weekly EPW march 2, 2013 vol xlviII no 9 47

Sony Pellissery ([email protected]) is with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Armando Barrientos ([email protected]) is with the Brooks World Poverty Institute, University of Manchester, United Kingdom.

Expansion of Social Assistance:Does Politics Matter?

Sony Pellissery, Armando Barrientos

This paper examines the significance of politics in the

rise of social assistance programmes in developing

countries in the last decade on the basis of case studies

of India, Brazil and South Africa. Most of the literature

on social assistance is focused on design and outcomes,

but ignores the politics of it. Politics influences social

assistance programmes in a two-way process. Politics

is crucial to the adoption, design and implementation

of social assistance programmes, but the latter also

have a feedback effect on local and national politics.

A comparative perspective helps identify some key

parameters in the politics of social assistance.

A big expansion of anti-poverty programmes is under way in developing countries. Large-scale anti-poverty transfer programmes providing direct transfers to

households in poverty have spread to a majority of middle in-come countries in the South. In low income countries, the growth of these programmes has been slower and more specu-lative, due in part to constraints on delivery capacity and fi -nance. Impact evaluation studies indicate that, taken as a whole and in combination with economic growth and basic service infrastructure, well-designed anti-poverty programmes can make an important contribution to the reduction of global poverty and vulnerability. To date, the focus of policy and research on anti-poverty transfer programmes has been on issues of design and impact. It is widely acknowledged that politics plays a signifi cant role in the adoption, design, and imple mentation of anti-poverty transfer programmes, but this remains a substantially under-researched topic. This paper argues that an understanding of the linkages between political processes and anti-poverty transfer programmes in develop-ing countries is essential to explaining their rapid growth as well as their orientation and shape. Based on a close examina-tion of developments in India, Brazil and South Africa, our paper aims to throw light upon the signifi cance of politics in the growth of social protection in developing countries.

There is uncertainty around terminology, especially in a comparative perspective, and it will be helpful to spell out the terminology used in the paper. Social policy includes the pro-vision of basic services – in the main, education and health-care, but also water and sanitation and others – and social pro-tection. Social protection includes three main components: social insurance, social assistance and labour market interven-tions. Social insurance covers contributory programmes cov-ering life course and work-related contingencies. Social assist-ance comprises tax-fi nanced programmes managed by public agencies and addressing poverty and deprivation. It has be-come commonplace to distinguish “passive” from “active” labour market policies, with “passive” interventions aimed at securing basic rights in the workplace and “active” interven-tions enhancing employability. Our paper focuses on social assistance or anti-poverty transfer programmes, i e, tax- fi nanced programmes directed by public agencies with the objective of reducing, preventing, and eventually eradicating poverty (Barrientos 2007).1

There is diversity in the design of social assistance in deve-loped and developing countries. In high income countries,

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march 2, 2013 vol xlviII no 9 EPW Economic & Political Weekly48

social assistance relies on an income maintenance design, pro-viding income transfers aimed at fi lling in the poverty gap. In developing countries, social assistance includes a variety of programme design, including pure income transfers as in non-contributory pensions or child grants and allowances; income transfers combined with asset accumulation and protection as in human development conditional transfer programmes or guaranteed employment schemes; and integrated anti-poverty programmes covering a range of poverty dimensions and ad-dressing social exclusion. There is also diversity in scale, scope and institutionalisation in social assistance across countries, and across programmes within countries.

The focus of this paper is on the politics of social assistance in developing countries. This involves examining a two-way process. On the one hand, social assistance is shaped by political processes (Barrientos and Pellissery 2012). Politics defi nes the adoption of social protection, its scale, and its scope. Political processes often defi ne its implementation, e g, as is the case with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Em-ployment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). On the other hand, social assistance programmes feed back into politics at the national and local levels. Social assistance programmes have the potential to enhance the political participation of groups in poverty at the local level, align electoral support, and change policy priorities and the effectiveness of service delivery. At the national level, social assistance programmes have the potential to lock in left of centre or populist coalitions, and perhaps generate wider changes in policy. In Brazil, the previ-ous president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s re-election in 2006 is credited by many to the success of BolsaFamilia, a social wel-fare programme. In India, the re-election of the United Pro-gressive Alliance (UPA) in 2009 is largely credited to the in-troduction of the MGNREGA in their fi rst term.

The scarce literature on the linkages between political proc-esses and social assistance is in the main country-specifi c and often also programme-specifi c. The comparative focus of the paper will help develop more general fi ndings. Our paper will focus on three countries: Brazil, India and South Africa. The justifi cation for selecting these three countries is straight-forward. They are three large middle income countries with a rich experience of social assistance innovations. They are lead-ing countries in their region. Together, they provide a range of approaches to the extension of social assistance and also di-verse political institutions. Our methodological approach will be twofold. A comparative study of the politics of social assist-ance in the three countries selected will help identify induc-tively key issues and questions. A process of triangulation is used to achieve the main objectives of the paper: to identify key approaches, fi ndings and knowledge gaps.

The rest of the paper is divided into two main sections. Sec-tion 1 presents the main fi ndings from the three-country case studies and draws out the main differences and similarities. Section 2 goes back to the main research question and discusses whether politics matter for the growth and effectiveness of social assistance in developing countries, and draws out the main conclusions.

1 Comparative Analysis of the Politicsof Social AssistanceThis section focuses on case studies constructed to map out and analyse the political dimension of social assistance growth in India, Brazil and South Africa. The main fi ndings are dis-cussed below.

India

The introduction of social assistance in India can be traced back to British colonial legacy.2 On the one hand, formal social security was introduced for employees in the formal sector af-ter the European model. In effect, this was divisive, as the well-off sections employed in regular jobs were able to gain welfare benefi ts, and close to 90% of the labour force (primarily in agriculture sector) was excluded from the same. On the other hand, in its low growth period until the early 1990s, the central government paid little attention to this issue and develop-ment, particularly rural development, was largely the focus. These anti-poverty programmes aimed to provide food and nutrition3 provide basic services like education, healthcare and housing, generate employment through public works pro-grammes4 and improve natural resources and assets of rural people through the Integrated Rural Development Programme.5 Anti-poverty programmes, as emerging from the nation-building discourse, dominated the politics of social assistance.6

The Constitution of India had left the issue of social assist-ance as “desirable activity” under its directive principles. This had left the ambition of political democracy as incomplete since economic democracy was underachieved (Dreze 2004). Given this context, federal states took initiatives to introduce social security measures. Uttar Pradesh introduced the earliest social welfare programme of old-age pension in 1957.7 Differ-ent states began to introduce different programmes such as pension for agricultural landless labourers, maternity benefi t, disability benefi t, relief for educated unemployed persons and employment guarantee depending on the “need” for the same in respective states. Thus, paternalistic principles dominated the origin of these programmes rather than a right to welfare or justice principles (Jayal 2001: 39). On some occasions, judi-cial activism (as in the case of mid-day meal scheme) forced governments to undertake such programmes (Dreze 2004). Very often, these programmes were also introduced as elec-toral instruments, with the name of the programme prefi xed with a politician’s name which would signal as to who needs to be credited for such a programme. These state-level pro-grammes were aimed at workers in informal sector, primarily agricultural workers on whom the political class relied for votes. In an important way welfare regimes in India could be classifi ed as “clientelist” or “populist”. A couple of states showed the infl uence of left-leaning politics to demand social assistance (Harriss 2000). In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the ac-ceptability of a tripartite welfare-fund model had laid the foundations of social contract.

In the last two decades, there has been a reversal of the story. The central government has enacted a number of social assistance measures by enacting court enforceable right-based

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promises to the erstwhile directive principles (such as right to education, right to employment and others) enshrined in the Constitution of India. From the point view of social assistance, three developments are important. First, in 1995 the central government introduced the National Social Assistance Pro-gramme (NSAP) under which fi ve different benefi ts were pro-vided. They complemented existing provision by federal states. These benefi ts were the Old-Age Pension Scheme (reaching 8.3% of elderly households), Widow Pension Scheme (6.2% of widow households), Disability Pension Scheme (reaching 14.1% of disabled households), Family Benefi t Scheme (one-time relief for the families where main breadwinner accidently died) and Annapurna (food for the elderly households).8

What triggered this development is very close to the story of liberalisation that India followed since 1991. Social sector ex-penditure for the period of 1991-95 showed a distinct decline in state’s expenditure, primarily since the centre’s aggregate transfer to states got reduced (Guhan 1995; Prabhu and Chat-terjee 1993) in the process of state retrieval. This provided an opportunity for bureaucratic-civil society entrepreneurs to ar-gue for direct transfer by initiating social assistance pro-grammes. These programmes were meant for poor house-holds. The identifi cation process for poor households took place every fi ve year, which has been a hugely politically con-tested matter both locally,9 and between state and central government in determining the threshold of the number of poor people in a state, since that determines the quota of transfer from the centre to the state. The poor households, identifi ed through the survey, classifi ed as “below poverty line” (BPL) survey are eligible for different NSAP programmes. Often, concentration of poverty in particular social categories helped create a clientelist politics of its own through this tar-geted approach.

The UPA Period

Both the second and third important developments took place in 2004 when the Congress Party-headed United Progressive Alliance government assumed power with the support of left parties.10 A wider civil society movement that pressed for food security got a signifi cant policy voice through civil society actors who were appointed members of National Advisory Council, which was responsible for monitoring the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the coalition government. Right to employment was one of the corner stones of the CMP

unlike the NSAP of 1995, the MGNREGA (initially called the NREGA) was legislated as a right and Parliament scrutiny was very high. Left parties, supporting the UPA government, also had pressed for social security programmes for the vast major-ity of unorganised sector workers. Eventually, in 2009 a social security board was legislated. A health insurance programme (Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana), designed particularly for the workforce in the unorganised sector, has already provided insurance against hospitalisation for 40 million households.

A key challenge faced at the time of introduction of all social assistance programme is from the right-wing that social assist-ance expenditure is both ineffective and wasteful. What has

been effective to counter such a position has been the dis-course on inequality. The growth story of India has widened inequality rather than bridge the gap. Therefore, introduction of social assistance was seen as helping to act as an inclusive instrument for the poorer sections. Socio-economic divisions within the country required programmes to create support from different sections. For instance, the MGNREGA programme takes into account the availability of private job opportunities in agricultural season in the process of providing labour for the wage-seeking households. However, when the agricultur-al wages went up, landlords showed resistance to MGNREGA it-self. At the same time, since the MGNREGA programme im-proves community infrastructure such as roads or irrigation facilities, it acted as an incentive for landlords. Taxpayers in urban areas were promised that when rural households were provided with employment in the villages, they would refrain from migration reducing the already hugely pressured urban infrastructure (Ambasta et al 2008; Mac Auslan 2008).

Lower levels of administration such as district or village government appear in the politics of social protection when the programmes are being implemented. In the interpretation of eligibility criteria or selection of benefi ciaries, local politics plays a critical role (Raabe et al 2010; Shankar et al 2011). How-ever, in designing the programme and fi nance, it is the politics at the state and central government levels which matters. Thus, implementation defi cits and corruption in the pro gramme are indications of an absence of government auto nomy from social forces. Introduction of the social assistance programmes huge-ly shapes local politics since local elites act as brokers to facili-tate access for the target population.11 This ability to satisfy local elites by the national or state level elites through the introduction of policies acts as a feedback mechanism.

What acts as a countervailing force to such a nexus between local elites and national elites is the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other civil society institutions. The politics of the civil society organisation is primarily about how these organisations are able to lobby local politicians and bureaucrats to implement the programmes. In the case of NREGA this has come to the fore when social audits conducted by NGOs reached conclusions different from government agencies. In other words, accountability achieved is through the participation of citizens as mediated through civil society organisations.

Accountability at the central government level is diffused due to the absence of a single ministry or autonomous agency in India. There are over 300 different types of anti-poverty schemes spread in 13 different ministries. There is hardly any coherence among these programmes. No attempt is also made for integration at national level. Often, NGOs have been suc-cessful to achieve integration at local level, since they priori-tise the needs for the local population and to claim for comple-mentary anti-poverty programmes for one particular locality. This has helped NGOs to remain as a sustaining force. Many times, government has taken the help of NGOs to carry out this role in concerted manner throughout the state by creating NGO consortiums.12

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To sum up, the expansion of social assistance in India through the initiatives of the central government has to be seen as a management of change that has occurred after eco-nomic liberalisation and the result of pressures from left par-ties for inclusive growth. Wider social contract is still elusive because of identity politics, and linguistic identities are fur-ther reinforced through the federal structure. When the po-litical party in power at the central and state levels are the same, there is a synergy for the delivery of social assistance for brief periods.

Brazil

Brazil provides one of the most interesting examples of effec-tive delivery of social assistance in the developing world. Not only has Brazil introduced important innovations in social assistance – BolsaEscola is the precursor of human development transfer programmes in Latin America and important techno-logical innovations in the implementation of the programmes, like the Single Registry – but it has also managed to make a large reduction of poverty over time and some reduction in inequality. More importantly, it has managed this in the con-text of, until recently, low growth performance. The policy process in Brazil has been intensely political, predominantly in a positive sense. The feedback effects from social assist-ance are also important, especially in the electoral success of Lula in 2006.

The starting point in tracing the rise of social assistance in Brazil is the 1988 constitution, which followed a long period of right-wing dictatorship from 1965 to 1985. The constitution was intended as a new social contract extending citizenship to all. The constitution enshrined a right to social protection, and led to a rethinking on the role and scope of social security and on the role of government in providing it. Prior to 1988, the role of the government was to support private charities and NGOs in the provision of social assistance. The constitution rec-ognised social assistance as an area of government responsi-bility for the fi rst time. Social assistance was based on a citizen-ship principle; access was a right for all Brazilians, in contrast to the dominant contributory principle behind the deve lopment of social insurance from the 1920s.

The constitution emphasised assistance to vulnerable groups, in particular, older people and people with disabilities living in households in poverty. The constitutional right led to the reform and expansion of two non-contributory pension schemes, the Prêvidencia Social Rural and the Benefi cio de Prestação Continuada. They had been introduced in a differ-ent guise in the 1970s, but with very limited reach and effec-tiveness. These were re-shaped, expanded and extended. A separate initiative developed from municipal activism in a handful of municipalities, BolsaEscola providing transfers with schooling conditions. It was grounded on minimum income guarantee proposals now combined with education. The pro-posal was taken up in several municipalities run by Workers Party politicians. The view was that without the links to basic services, the transfers would have very little effect in the medium and long run, and much less policy and political traction.

BolsaEscola is a hybrid minimum income guarantee and human development instrument, it refl ected thinking on the left and centre that income transfers were not suffi cient in the midst of persistent intergenerational poverty (Camargo 2004). BolsaEscola spread to other municipalities and in 1997 the government provided counterpart funding. In 2001 BolsaEscola became a federal programme. Its scaling up dur-ing Fernando Cardoso’s presidency was encouraged by the need to mitigate the poverty effects of the Plan Real to address hyperinfl ation.

During the Cardoso administrations in the late 1990s and early 2000s, addressing poverty through direct transfers be-came the new orthodoxy in part through political competition, among the different parties in the coalition government (e g, Jose Serra created the AuxilioGás to compete with BolsaEscola), but also within the Workers Party. This led to a proliferation of transfer programmes, with overlapping target populations. Together with other federal transfer programmes, it became the BolsaFamília in 2003.

In 2010, the two main non-contributory pension pro-grammes reached about 10 million households with a budget of around 1.5% of the gross domestic product, while BolsaFa-mília reached over 12 million households with a budget of 0.4% of GDP.

Parliamentary oversight and policy formulation has been a signifi cant feature in Brazil.13 Parliament’s active role in defi n-ing policy initiatives in poverty reduction goes back to the 1991 proposal for a minimum guaranteed income by senator Edu-ardo Suplicy from the Workers Party; since that date several proposed bills and amendments have been presented and dis-cussed in Congress every year. The proposals and amend-ments cover the spectrum, from right of centre politicians at-tempting to reduce the scope and reach of BolsaFamilia to left of centre parliamentarians aiming to expand the programme. Few bills successfully become law. Parliamentary activism re-fl ects strong public opinion and interest in social assistance. There is much less parliamentary attention on the non- contributory pension programmes, in large part because their constitutional recognition implies that discretion over their implementation is very limited. Effectively the government is required to provide entitlements to all Brazilians who qualify for the benefi ts. Budgets simply refl ect these entitlements. In the recent past parliamentary attention has led to amend-ments on the target population, e g, by redefi ning the scope of households for the purposes of defi ning entitlements, or restricting entitlements to the Prêvidencia Social Rural to resi-dents in rural areas.

There are three levels of government in Brazil: federal, estate and municipal. Municipalities are federal agencies with the same standing as the federal institutions. The estate level has not been active in social assistance. The federal govern-ment has infl uence over policy formulation, budgets, and im-plementation. The relationship between federal agencies and municipalities works through agreements and joint fi nancing. An important federal tool to stimulate quality and perform-ance is a Decentralisation Index, which ranks municipalities

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according to their effectiveness and performance with impli-cations for the federal fi nancing streaming down. The index is both a carrot and a stick. It supports municipalities with defi cient capacity and penalises underperforming municipalities. The index is a technocratic response to principal-agent issues, but increasingly modulates the partnership between federal and municipal levels. The Single Registry collects informa-tion on all households applying to any social assistance programme, the database enables the selection of benefi ciar-ies and provides information on their progress through time. It also enables a stronger coordination among programme agencies, as it can be accessed by all agencies involved in the programmes.

The federal government allocates a fi xed number of places for BolsaFamilia to municipalities. Local politicians and offi -cials are responsible for registering potential benefi ciaries. The information is assessed by the federal government and a score for each household determines eligibility. Local politi-cians and offi cials have some infl uence over the implementa-tion of BolsaFamília, through adding further interventions, raising benefi t levels, and also through ensuring the pro-gramme is implemented effectively (e g, whether they have fi lled the federal government allocations). The implication is that feedback effects are signifi cant at the local level too. Poli-ticians who can demonstrate effectiveness in implementing BolsaFamília can access electoral support and recognition.

Civil society and NGOs have a limited role in ensuring accountability of the programme at the local level, but the direct political accountability is more signifi cant.

It could be argued that the expansion of social assistance in Brazil, but particularly BolsaFamíilia, has extended the life of the centre left (Cardoso) and left (Lula) ruling coalitions. They are a dominant political force in Brazil. Importantly, the ex-pansion of social assistance developments has been shown to be consistent with fi scal responsibility, and retains a large measure of political support. Perhaps the most signifi cant feedback effect from social assistance to politics is the rise of social policy and social assistance to the top of the political agenda. Poverty reduction has a high profi le, and delivers elec-toral support for pro-poor politicians.

South Africa

In South Africa, social assistance can be traced back to the 1920s, with the introduction of non-contributory pension for poor whites. Social assistance followed the European model of developing income transfers for groups of deserving poor facing acute vulnerability, but with the fi lter of racial politics. Social pensions were restricted to whites initially, but later incorporated Indians and “Coloureds” and then Blacks. The conditions of entitlement and benefi t levels were differentiat-ed along racial lines, until the mid-1990s when discrimina-tion was abolished (Lund 2008; Seekings 2008; van der Berg 1997). Over time, the range of direct transfer programmes expanded to include disability and family grants. By the time the fi rst African National Congress (ANC) government came to power in 1994, social assistance was fragmented due to the

homelands policy of apartheid, and acutely under-resourced (Lund 2008).

The fall of apartheid led to a new constitution in 1996 which reaffi rmed a commitment to social assistance. Section 27 states that “everyone has the right to access to …(1) social se-curity, including, if they are unable to support themselves and their dependents appropriate social assistance” (Seekings 2008). The ANC government took steps to review and strengthen social assistance provision. It established the Lund Committee which led to proposals for a Child Support Grant to replace the family maintenance grant. In 1997 the government also published a white paper on social assistance which stated the objective of replacing poverty relief with a developmental approach to welfare. The Child Support Grant was initially designed to address child malnutrition and was focused on children 0-6 years of age. Over time, it was extended to include children up to 17 years of age. These measures led to a signifi cant expansion of the reach of social assistance grants. By 2010, one in every two households had a social as-sistance benefi ciary, and the budget has doubled since 1994 to over 3.5% of GDP. Social assistance is the main policy instru-ment addressing poverty, vulnerability and exclusion in South Africa. The grants are widely perceived to be effective in reducing poverty and vulnerability, in promoting social inclusion and equity, and facilitating a diffi cult transition from apartheid rule.

The politics of the ANC has dominated the expansion of social assistance since 1994 (Nattrass and Seekings 2001). Ini-tially, the challenge for the ANC government was to manage the transition from apartheid, while maintaining credible eco-nomic policies and fi scal responsibility. The government of na-tional unity which directly followed the fall of apartheid in 1994 constituted more of a compromise than a political mo-ment akin to a social contract.14 However, several initiatives which strengthened social assistance like the Child Support Grant Proposal, the constitutional recognition of the right to social assistance, and the White Paper on Welfare Policy devel-oped within a context of wide-ranging support for transforma-tion within the parameters of fi scal responsibility.

The next signifi cant political debate around social assist-ance came with the discussions surrounding the Taylor Com-mittee of Inquiry into a Comprehensive System of Social Secu-rity for South Africa in the early 2000s. A proposal for a basic income was receiving a substantial amount of attention from researchers and the trade unions. Intriguingly, the proposal for a basic income was supported by the National Party and the Communist Party. The arguments for a basic income in South Africa emphasised its advantages as a citizenship in-strument, important in the context of the racially segregated South Africa; as well as the more operational advantages of not requiring targeting and complex administrative imple-mentation. The Taylor Committee supported the basic income proposal. The ANC rejected the basic income on three main grounds: First, the white paper on welfare had argued for a change in the orientation of social assistance in South Africa, from poverty relief to a more developmental function. The basic

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income proposal was a step back from this objective. Second, there was no support within the ANC and outside for extending grants to the white population, especially given the large in-come differentials between them and the black population. Third, maintaining fi scal responsibility would have meant reducing the scope and generosity of social assistance in order to fi nance even a low level of the basic income.

Nattrass and Seekings (2001) argue that while the ANC came to power it had committed to redistribution, and was/is ex-pected to bring to effect signifi cant redistribution, its capacity for redistribution has been limited by “…policies that keep the eco nomy growing along an inegalitarian path, with a large section of the poor being shut out of income generating acti-vities” (ibid: 495). There is a debate among researchers on poverty trends in South Africa, but the general view is that poverty rates have remained broadly stagnant since 1994, while demographics has ensured that the numbers in poverty have risen (Leibbrandt et al 2006; Leibbrandt et al 2010). So-cial assistance has been extremely signifi cant in preventing poverty from increasing. Overall, poverty and in equality out-comes remain problematic in South Africa, especially taking account of the fact that expenditure on social assistance has doubled as a proportion of GDP since 1994.

Right of centre politicians and business leaders are increas-ingly questioning the effectiveness of this large component of public expenditure and commonly voice concerns about poten-tial dependency effects from the grants. Trade unions have pointed out a fact that unemployed groups constitute a gap in the social assistance grants system. On the left, some NGOs have explored the potential for judicial routes to expanding the grants. This has tested the position of the government on welfare policy. The equalisation of the age of entitlement to the old-age grant to 60 for men and women (it was previously 65 for men), for example, followed a challenge in the courts over possible gender discriminations associated with a differ-ential age of entitlement. NGOs like the Black Sash play an im-portant role in monitoring and facilitating the implementation of social assistance on the ground. They also perform a key role in ensuring welfare rights are fully exercised.

The potential for change and reform of social assistance is limited by the type of politics which sustain the ANC, and the ANC’s support for the existing social assistance architecture. Nattrass and Seekings argue persuasively that voter loyalty to the ANC depends on partisan identifi cation with its role in bringing about political change in South Africa. To date, op-position parties are treated with considerable suspicion because of their association with apartheid; and few breakaway ANC groups have prospered. As Nattrass and Seekings put it, “Pop-ular discontent over unemployment and job creation was part-ly offset by relatively more positive assessment with respect to other issues, including fi scal and social policy, even though the electorate regarded unemployment as the most important” (488). Political conditions, therefore, preclude any large-scale reform to social assistance, due to the strength of partisan support for the ANC. At the same time, social assistance is important in maintaining and strengthening this partisan

support, particularly in rural areas of the country. The feedback effect of social assistance on politics is, therefore, signifi cant.

It is important to round up this assessment with a brief dis-cussion of fi scal space. The Government of South Africa has benefi ted from a signifi cant improvement in fi scal revenues over time, from a high base. This has enabled a large expan-sion of the grants without affecting other areas of government expenditure. There are concerns that further expansion of grants expenditure could place pressure on service provision, especially in the context of the impact of the fi nancial crisis (van der Berg and Siebrits 2010). Social assistance appears to have touched a ceiling in this respect. On the other hand, the government has committed itself to the introduction of a Com-prehensive Social Security System in South Africa, replacing the patchwork of occupational pension plans with a government-supported national social insurance scheme. This large-scale social investment will add to fi scal pressures and will have im-plications on social assistance. It is not surprising that support for a national social insurance scheme comes strongly from trade unions and urban groups.

2 Discussion: Does Politics Matter?

In this section we return to the main questions for the paper as set out in the Introduction, and draw out the main conclusions. Table 1 provides a summary of key features in the political processes, social assistance arrangements and feedback ef-fects into politics in the three case countries.

All the three case countries provide evidence of the signifi -cance of political processes for the emergence of social assist-ance institutions. Political processes and the introduction or extension of social assistance are indicative of a redefi nition of social contracts in the countries concerned. Beyond the demand-side for the expansion of social assistance based on demo-graphic and labour market change, and supply-side explanation based on the enlargement of the fi scal space of nation states, political processes appear to exert crucial infl uence on the ex-pansion of social assistance. At the same time, an expansion of social assistance in turn affects the preferences and constraints in a given society, and the range of policy instruments and levers available to governing elites. Therefore, how institutional trans-formation is managed would be critical to the stability of social assistance arrangements. The conclusions from the analysis in the paper are that politics has played a central role on the ex-pansion of social assistance in the three countries selected for detailed examination. This is a two-way process. On the one hand, political factors are the core of the adoption, design, and imple-mentation of social assistance but on the other, social assistance feeds back into political processes helping reshape them in turn.

What is the infl uence of politics in shaping social assistance in the South? Our case studies suggest that the infl uence of politics is strong. At one level, this is an obvious fi nding. At their core, social assistance is a manifestation of solidarity val-ues in particular countries and communities which are them-selves political.15 Social assistance represents institutions es-tablished with the objective of addressing poverty and vulner-ability. Their scale and scope refl ects shared understandings

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identity politics and fi lters, as in South Africa. At a higher level of abstraction, social assistance can embody, and therefore, strengthen and develop, shared values and preferences. These institutions can fi rm up and develop social contracts and shared notions of social justice. In many countries, but espe-cially in Brazil and South Africa, social assistance is widely perceived as an instrument of inclusion. Just as in low income countries with poorly developed social protection institutions, social assistance can be perceived as an instrument of exclu-sion. Feedback processes from social assistance and politics have not been studied suffi ciently in the literature.

On each component of this two-way process, further re-search is needed to provide deeper insights. Contrasting the autonomy exercised by Brazilian institutions for delivering so-cial assistance with that of India and South Africa it is impor-tant to focus on how effective service delivery strengthens po-litical credibility. It is also important to examine in more de-tail the infl uence of identity politics, as observed in South Af-rica and India, in reducing the role of service delivery in af-fecting credibility-based politics (Keefer and Khemani 2003). Identity politics structures social assistance through stratifi ed mechanisms. Identity politics could also prevent the expan-sion of social assistance. This is an important area for further research, the linkages existing between (in)effective delivery of social assistance and political credibility.

Decentralisation of power to lower levels of administration could intensify politics around delivery of social assistance. In India, the highest impact of feedback processes is through local politics. In Brazil, though decentralisation is signifi cant, the infl uence of local politics is insulated through strong au-tonomous institutions at the national level that deliver social assistance. In South Africa, high level of coordination of social assistance programmes under a single ministry creates an environment through which local politics gets distanced. In other words, decentralisation has to work with other counter-vailing forces. If not, an outcome as in India, where authority diffusion is rampant allowing capture of social assistance pro-grammes would take place.

and social priority attached to poverty. The main reasons why this fi nding has purchase on current development discourses arise from the techno-managerial approach often employed by international organisations (Devarajan and Widlund 2007). This approach often ignores political infl uences on social pro-tection institutions. However, the relevance of politics for social assistance delivery is relatively under-researched. Explaining the rapid emergence of social assistance in deve-loping countries has to address this knowledge gap.

T he examination of three case countries reveals that tradi-tional approaches to studying the role of politics in social as-sistance which are focused solely on identifying incentive structures as a motivation for elected politicians and non-elected bureaucrats (Alesina and Tabellini 2004) is too limited as a tool for capturing the political dynamics around social assistance in southern democracies. Social contracts and pacts, key events, ideology, values, and knowledge are impor-tant too. Unlike conventional wisdom, our case studies suggest several dimensions in which political infl uences need to be studied. A sole focus on elites, or its polar opposite, the as-sumption of full political competition, are too limited as an approach to social assistance (Krishna 2006). These different dimensions need to be studied separately and then integrated to form a more comprehensive picture.

Conclusions

Social assistance institutions also help shape political pro-cesses. What is the signifi cance and orientation of feedback processes? As noted in the paper, these institutions feedback into political processes at different levels and in different ways. Many studies have discussed, and measured, the role of social assistance in aligning electoral support for incumbents. The role of social assistance can be reduced to a purely instru-mental one (Hall 2008). It can also be examined as a legiti-mate form of aligning party coalitions and political support around pro-poor policies (Stokes 2004). The case studies reveal a complex interaction between local and national politicians and the electorate, as in India and Brazil, but also the role of

Table 1: Political Processes and Social Assistance India Brazil South Africa

• Continued democracy since independence, and Constitution recognised social rights as merely desirable activity

• Multiple political parties and fragmented opposition• Local/sub-national governments initially provide

social assistance and later national governments extend them

• Proliferation of fragmented anti-poverty programmes shift towards inclusive growth agenda through rights-based social assistance

• Strong constituencies around the PDS and BPL implies opposition to rights-based approach Process deficits and uneven implementation of MGNREGS indicates primacy of state politics

• Social assistance aligns electoral support at state level

• Capture at delivery stage of social assistance reinforces clientelistic and identity politics

• Exclusion by design, through narrow targeting, generates alienated welfare state since social assistance is perceived as a programme for the poor people.

Political processes for policymaking

Social assistance

Feedback effects

• 1988 constitution a new social contract after 20 years of dictatorship

• Party fragmentation and weak party allegiance• Parliamentary activism and scrutiny• Federal structure, with federal government-

municipalities partnership on implementation

• Rapid growth of social assistance• Organic growth of flagship programme, from

municipal activism to federal policy• Shift from vulnerable group approach in the

constitution, influenced by long-standing focus on social insurance, to citizenship-based guaranteed minimum income rules based and rights based social assistance

• BolsaFamilia associated with Lula and Workers Party contributes to electoral success

• Poverty and social assistance at the centre of policy and political debates

• Municipal leaders share credit for effectiveness of social assistance

• 1996 constitution a new social contract after the fall of apartheid

• Governing coalition faces weak opposition, strong allegiance to ANC based on racial politics faces weak opposition

• Federal structure but central government rules social policy

• Social assistance instrumental to managing social and economic transition from apartheid rule

• Rules-based and rights-based social assistance means tested cash transfers Vulnerable groups approach but wide reach of anti-poverty transfers

• Social assistance reinforces ANC support, especially in the context of low growth, high unemployment, and conventional macroeconomics

• Poverty and equity at the centre of policy and political debateWide political and public support for social assistance

SPECIAL ARTICLE


Notes

1 The terminology used in different countries is itself shaped by political perspectives and ide-ology. Policy debates in India approach the MGNREGS as a “rights-based” programme or as an employment programme which is often taken to be intrinsically different to the National Social Assistance Scheme. The discussion be-low takes the MGNREGS as social assistance, as it is a tax fi nanced programme providing transfers to households in poverty with the aim of reducing poverty. There is no intrinsic reason preventing social assistance defi ned in this way to be “rights-based” or to focus on employment.

2 For a long view, see Osmani (1991). 3 The largest of the programmes, the public dis-

tribution system, which distributes essential food items and non-food items (e g, kerosene) through a network of fare price shops, in-curred expenses close to 1% of GDP primarily as subsidy. This was largely untargeted until 1990s. Apart from this, specifi c nutritional programmes for children and pregnant women were in place under an umbrella pro-gramme of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS).

4 Since 1960s large number of public works pro-grammes which provided cash or kind in ex-change of labour was a predominant mode of relief especially in the times of drought in rural areas.

5 These sets of programme were initiated in 1952 and community was taken into confi dence while designing what kind of programme could bring developmental changes. Thus, interven-tion varied from providing assets such as milk animals to improving dryland to providing market linkage or fi nance for small business.

6 There is considerable scholarship that has ana-lysed the relationship between the advantages for political class through the introduction of such anti-poverty programmes. See for in-stance, Kohli (1987) and Harriss (2000) among others.

7 See Dev (1998) for a list of year of introduction of the programme and different states where they were introduced.

8 The fi gures of reach are based on World Bank (2011). General evaluation of these program-mes is that though the benefi ts are small, it makes big difference to the households (Dutta et al 2010).

9 See Hirway (2003).10 Drought relief programmes in Rajasthan since

2001, and its demand at national level had prompted the Congress Party to include a promise of employment guarantee in the na-tional election of 2004 (Dreze 2010).

11 In many north Indian states, panchayat (village level government) election has become more contested (with more money spent by candi-dates during election) after the intro duction of NREGA since the elected body of panchayat gets to control huge amount of money allocat-ed for NREGA works. A study has shown how selection of workers for NREGA programme is according to the caste lines one respective caste member is elected as the head of the panchayat (Khosla 2011). See Pellisery (2008; 2005) for same effects on social pension.

12 The experience of Andhra Pradesh which leads in the implementation of NREGA has a statewide NGO consortium where regular monthly meetings are held between NGOs and government agencies at state level, district level and sub-district level. This has been in-strumental in bringing the synergy between natural resource management and NREGA in the state.

13 Britto and Soares (2010) provide a detailed dis-cussion of the role of parliament in defi ning social assistance policy in Brazil.

14 The minister responsible for social assistance in the national unity government was in fact from the National Party (Lund 1995), The National Party and Intakha left the govern-ment of National Unity in 1996.

15 Rawls’ “political conception of justice” is a comprehensive statement on this point.

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