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The poverty of the state

Reconsidering the role of the statein the struggle against global poverty

Alberto CimadamoreHartley DeanJorge Siqueira

[editors]

Catalogación

Otros descriptores asignados por la Biblioteca Virtual de CLACSO:

Pobreza / Estado / Estrategias de reducción de la pobreza / Políticas sociales /Políticas públicas / Desigualdad social / Mundialización / Globalización /Privatización / Derechos humanos

Poverty / State / Poverty reduction strategies / Social policies / Public policies /Social inequality / Globalisation / Privatisation / Human rights

La responsabilidad por las opiniones expresadas en los libros, artículos, estudios y otras colaboracionesincumbe exclusivamente a los autores firmantes, y su publicación no necesariamente refleja los puntos devista de la Secretaría Ejecutiva de CLACSO.

THE CLACSO-CROP SERIES publishes high qualityresearch on poverty and poverty related themes. Itsmajor aim is to disseminate investigation supported bythe joint work of both organisations through theirfellowship programme, research presentations ininternational conferences and workshops and otherspecial projects of the CLACSO-CROP Programme onPoverty Studies in Latin America and the Caribbean.The Series will also include notable peer reviewedstudies on poverty related issues submitted by membersof the network.

Executive Secretary

Atilio A. Boron

Directive Committee

Incumbert Members

Frigotto, Gaudêncio Universidad Estadual de Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Girón González, Alicia Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Lanzaro, Jorge Universidad de la República, Uruguay

Larrea, Ana MaríaInstituto de Estudios Ecuatorianos, Ecuador

León, Rosario Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Económica y Social,Bolivia

Moulián, TomásDepartamento de Investigación Universidad de Arte y Ciencias Sociales, Chile

Ronda Varona, Adalberto Centro de Estudios sobre América, Cuba

Surrogate Members

Celton, DoraUniversidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina

Gómez, José MaríaPontificia Universidad Católica de Río de Janeiro, Brazil

Hernández Gil, José LázaroCentro Investigaciones Psicológicas y Sociológicas, Cuba

Montero Justiniano, LourdesCentro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Laboral y Agrario, Bolivia

Sandoval Manríquez, MarioUniversidad Católica Cardenal Raúl Silva Henríquez, Chile

Verduzco Igartúa, GustavoEl Colegio de México

Zuluaga Nieto, JaimeUniversidad Nacional de Colombia

Scientific Director

Else Øyen

Scientific Committee

Benhabib, Abderrezak Tlemcen University, Algeria

Erinosho, Layi Social Science Academy of Nigeria, Nigeria

Hunt, Paul University of Essex, United Kingdom

Jensen, Leif Penn State, United States

Korayem, Karima Al Azhar University, Egypt

Mehrotra, Santosh UNDP Regional Centre for Asia, Thailand

Olukoshi, Adebayo O. Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, Senegal

Petmesidou, Maria Democritus University of Thrace, Greece

Reis, Elisa Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Ricardo, Yolanda Centro de Estudios de América, Cuba

Saunders, Peter University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Sengupta, Arjun Harvard School of Public Health, United States

Shafi, Mohammad Aligarh Muslim University, India

Sojo, Carlos Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Costa Rica

Wilson, Francis Chair of CROP. University of Cape Town, South Africa

Xiaoshang, Du Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China

Comparative Research Programme on Poverty

CROP Secretariat

Nygårdsgaten 5, N - 5020Bergen, NorwayPhone 47 55 58 97 39 Fax: 47 55 58 97 45Website e-mail: [email protected]

CLACSOExecutive Secretariat

Av. Callao 875, piso 3º C1023AAB, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaPhone (54 11) 4811 6588 / 4814 2301Fax: (54 11) 4812 8459Website e-mail: [email protected]

Latin American Council of Social Sciences

CLACSO-CROP Series


Reconsidering the role of the statein the struggle against global poverty

Alberto CimadamoreHartley DeanJorge Siqueira

[editors]

Hartley DeanAlberto Cimadamore

Jorge SiqueiraAnete Brito Leal Ivo

Paulo Henrique MartinsVirgilio Álvarez AragónNelson Arteaga Botello

José Graziano da SilvaWalter BelikMaya Takagi

Tarcisio Patricio de AraújoRoberto Alves de Lima

Mayra Paula Espina PrietoHulya Dagdeviren

Rowan IrelandJohn-Andrew McNeish

Einar Braathen

Colección CLACSO-CROP

Editor Responsable Atilio A. Boron

Director de la Colección Alberto CimadamoreCoordinación Fabiana Werthein (CLACSO)

Hans Egil Offerdal (CROP)

Área de Difusión y Producción Editorial

Coordinador Jorge A. FragaEdición Florencia Enghel

Diseño Editorial Miguel A. Santángelo / Lorena TaiboRevisión de Pruebas Mariana Enghel / Ivana Brighenti

Logística y Distribución Marcelo F. RodriguezSebastián Amenta / Daniel Aranda

Arte de Tapa Diseño de Lorena Taibo basado en una fotografía de Javier Amadeo

Impresión Gráficas y Servicios S.R.L.

Primera Edición“The poverty of the state. Reconsidering the role of the state in the struggle against global poverty”

(Buenos Aires: CLACSO, julio 2005)

Patrocinado por

Latin American Council of Social Sciences

Secretaría Ejecutiva

Av. Callao 875, piso 3º C1023AAB, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaTel.: (54-11) 4811-6588 / 4814-2301 - Fax: (54-11) 4812-8459

Website e-mail: [email protected]

ISBN

© Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales. Queda hecho el depósito que establece la ley 11.723.

No se permite la reproducción total o parcial de este libro, ni su almacenamiento en un sistema informático, ni su transmisión en cual-quier forma o por cualquier medio electrónico, mecánico, fotocopia u otros métodos, sin el permiso previo del editor.

Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation

9

Preface and Acknowledgements | 11

Hartley Dean, Alberto Cimadamore and Jorge SiqueiraIntroduction | 15

PART I – Theoretical and global dimensions

Hartley DeanThe global human rights agenda and the (im)possibility of the ethical state | 41

Anete Brito Leal IvoNew social policies to combat poverty in Latin America: dilemmas and paradoxes | 65

Paulo Henrique MartinsAnti-globalisation and anti-statism from the perspective of post-development and anti-utilitarianism | 91

Index

PART II – Policy and national dimensions

Virgilio Álvarez AragónThe strategy of poverty reduction and the educational gap in post-war Guatemala | 109

Nelson Arteaga Botello The future that will not come: the eradication of poverty from the Mexican Federal Government’s viewpoint (2000-2006) | 135

José Graziano da Silva, Walter Belik and Maya TakagiThe challenges of a policy of food security in Brazil | 157

Tarcisio Patricio de Araújo and Roberto Alves de LimaPublic employment policies as tools for the reduction of poverty and inequality in Brazil | 179

Mayra Paula Espina PrietoPoverty, inequality and development: the role of the state in the cuban experience | 199

Hulya DagdevirenPrivatisation for poverty reduction? The case of Bangladesh and its relevance for other developing economies | 219

PART III – Practical and local dimensions

Rowan IrelandFragile synergies for development: the case of Jardim Oratório SP Brazil | 241

John-Andrew McNeishPoverty, policy and ‘Sleight of Hand’ in Bolivia and Latin America | 263

Einar BraathenSocial Funds in Africa: a technocratic-clientelistic response to poverty? | 289

11

THE SPECTER OF POVERT Y has had an enduring presence withinthe history of humankind. The current age, however, is one in whichthe eradication of extreme poverty may yet be feasible. The resourcesto do so in a reasonable period of time are there. The desires and will-ingness of international organisations, governments and peoples areevident from prevailing discourses that express the need and a will onthe part of the international community to reduce and eradicatep o v e r t y. What are the factors that are impeding the accomplishmentof such a widely accepted goal? It is difficult to give a comprehensiveand definite response to this question. However, a substantial part ofthe explanation may lie with one of the most important, but problem-atic, structures of the modern world: namely, the state.

This was the premise behind the international workshop on“The Role of the State in the Struggle against Poverty”, jointly organ-ized by the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), theComparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP) and theJoaquim Nabuco Foundation (FJN) held in Recife, Brazil on 18-21March 2003. It was also the idea that guided the fellowship pro-gramme previously organized on the same topic by CLACSO andCROP in 2002. All these activities materialized thanks to the generous

Alberto Cimadamore,Hartley Dean

and Jorge Siqueira

Preface

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support of numerous organisations and persons. The NorwegianAgency for Development Co-operation (NORAD) has been crucial forthe continuing activities of the CLACSO-CROP Programme onPoverty Studies all over Latin America and the Caribbean. TheM o n t e v i d e o ’s Regional Office of the International DevelopmentResearch Centre of Canada (IDRC) generously supported the organi-sation of the Recife workshop. UNESCO Brazil, the Food andAgriculture Organization (FAO), the Ford Foundation and variousagencies of the government of Brazil, Pernambuco, Recife and Olindaalso made significant financial contributions.

This book, as will be explained in greater detail in ourIntroduction, is the fruit of that workshop and contains re-workedversions of some of the key papers that were presented and discussed.For this edition, papers that were originally presented in Spanish orPortuguese have had to be translated into English and, naturally, theeditors must apologize if any meaning or nuance from the originalpapers should have been lost in translation. While this edition of thebook is published in English, it is intended that Spanish andPortuguese language editions will shortly follow.

From the outset of this initiative the primary aim was to gener-ate an inclusive debate centered on poverty and the role of the state.The workshop and the book to which it has given rise have providedthe opportunity for academics from a variety of countries, culturesand scholarly traditions to contribute and to engage in a dialogueboth with each other and, in the course of the workshop itself, withseveral significant community organisations and decision makers. Ithad never been the intention –of either the workshop organizers orthe editors of this book– to assemble a seamless product, reflecting aconfluence of different theoretical perspectives, scientific disciplines,and political views. Our purpose was first to generate a volume thatreflects the sheer complexity of poverty as a phenomenon, and of thepaths towards its reduction or eradication. Second, we wanted to pro-duce a book that would be relevant to several audiences, rich in itsdiversity of styles, and rounded in terms of the different approachesthat are represented within it. However, what unites the wide spec-trum of authors who have contributed to this book is their commoncommitment to knowledge and understanding.

F i n a l l y, we would also like to acknowledge and thank AtilioBoron, Executive Secretary of CLACSO; Else Øyen, Scientific Directorof CROP; Fernando Lyra, the President of the Joaquim Nabuco

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Cimadamore, Dean and Siqueira

Foundation; and Clovis Cavalcanti, former Director of the Institute ofSocial Research at the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, for their enthusi-astic endorsement of the workshop from the first stages of its organi-sation. Last but not least, we wish to stress that none of this would bepossible without the gracious professionalism of Fabiana We r t h e i n(CLACSO), Helenilda Cavalcanti (FJN) and the staff of the JoaquimNabuco Foundation, who attended to all the details and surmountedall the problems that naturally arise in an international collaborationsuch as the one which gave birth to this book.

Alberto Cimadamore, Hartley Dean and Jorge SiqueiraEditors

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A QUARTER OF THE WORLD’S population, that is 1,300 million peo-ple, lives in severe poverty. Nearly 800 million people do not getenough food, and about 500 million people are chronically malnour-ished. More than a third of the children of this world are malnour-ished. More than 840 million adults are illiterate –of whom 538 mil-lion are women– and 1,200 million people live without access to safedrinking water. These are some of the basic facts and figures on pover-ty, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

* Hartley Dean is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the London School of Economicsand Political Science. Alberto Cimadamore is Professor of Theory of InternationalRelations at the School of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires, andResearcher at the National Council of Scientific and Technological Research ofArgentina. Jorge Siqueira is Director of the Institute of Social Research at theJoaquim Nabuco Foundation, Ministry of Education, Brazil.

Hartley Dean,Alberto Cimadamore and Jorge Siqueira*

Introduction

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The data are well known by most students, informed people and poli-cy makers. What seems to be less well known, accepted or acted uponis the fact that, according to the same source, today the world ‘has theresources to eradicate poverty … and that extreme poverty can bebanished from the globe’. In the words of UNDP “[p]overty is nolonger inevitable and should thus no longer be tolerated”. Despitethese striking facts and laudable aims, poverty is present everywhere,even in developed countries where more than 100 million people livebelow the poverty line, more than five million people are homelessand 37 million are jobless (UNDP 2004: 1-2).

Why is it then that one of the most urgent social, economic andethical problems of humankind cannot be solved despite the fact thatthere are enough resources to do so?

In order to answer this question, we contend, we have to startasking questions about the state and its role in the struggle againstp o v e r t y. That is the main concern of this book, as it was of the work-shop that led to its production.

The attainment of such a desirable objective –that is, the eradi-cation of poverty- requires decisive action that most governments areapparently not prepared to take (Pinstrup-Andersen et al. 2002: 269)despite the fact that the state still has the responsibility and the maininstruments to define strategies against poverty in the contemporaryworld. The social and political task is huge –sometimes overwhelm-ing– because in many cases, such as in Latin American countries, thestate has to deal not only with an enormous accumulated deficit inthis matter (the ‘old poverty’), but also with the ‘new poverty’ createdby the neo-liberal experiment, the adjustment and restructuring ofnational economies (Pachano 1994: 26-27). Nonetheless, the task isimperative considering that the resources to deal with poverty and itssocial, economic, ethical and political consequences are available.

There is a considerable consensus in poverty studies that the stateis central to poverty reduction and the creation of better conditions forsocial inclusion and equity. But the mere existence of unacceptable lev-els of poverty, inequity and exclusion in most of the less developedcountries (LDCs) shows that the state has not only been inefficient inreducing those levels, it has actually allowed them to increase.

Therefore, a substantial reform of the state would appear to bethe logical step ahead to deal with these social maladies. From a nor-mative standpoint, such reform should aim for the sustainable creationof wealth as well as its equitable redistribution. Fiscal, economic and

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Dean, Cimadamore and Siqueira

social policies are the potential instruments to redefine social relationswithin different historical forms of state. However, some forms of stateare better suited than others to be part of the solution to poverty. Itmay be argued that some specific forms of state are prone to povertycreation –particularly in countries in the South where vested interestssupport voluntarily or involuntarily the policies that produce poverty( Wilson et al. 2001: 13)- while others are better suited to poverty reduc-tion. In theoretical or abstract terms, therefore, the state can be part ofthe problem as much as the solution. In any event, the performance ofthe state in such matters is susceptible to empirical evaluation.

The state is a central concept in the social sciences. As a socialand power structure, it has the ability to condition social relationsand outcomes. Poverty, as a social phenomenon, can be conceived asthe result of the interaction of agents that respond to the stimuli ofsocial and power structures operating at various levels of analysis,including the state, the market, and the international context(Cimadamore 2003: 238).

Once conceived as a social structure, the concept may provide acomprehensive insight into how power relations influence social rela-tions of production, and thus how poverty can be conceived as a resultof this complex set of interactions. This way of thinking –althoughtheoretically useful– is criticized by those who consider there is nosuch a thing as ‘a state’ or even a ‘modern state’ or ‘nation state’. Someof the main critics, while attacking the generality of the concept, drawheavily on the notion of ‘forms of state’: an umbrella concept that caninclude a number of historically specific social structures, such as the“pluralist state”, the “predatory state”, the “welfare state” or the “nightwatchman state” (Caporaso 1996: 31; Cox 1986: 213-214). Adoptingthis approach, we can think of the state as the outcome of specificsocial formations supported by a constellation of diverse interests thatrest on a changing context of relative power relations. In this way, wecan think of poverty as a feature of historically specific structures,including, and particularly, the state. The state can therefore be seenas a fundamental part of the problem. But it can also become a part ofthe solution depending on the changing dynamics of power relationsbetween opposing social coalitions and interests.

In this context, our book must also address a certain paradox.While the role of the state appears on the one hand to have becomeincreasingly weak and impoverished, the state appears nonetheless to

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be increasingly implicated in processes that exacerbate rather thanalleviate poverty and social inequality.

The book results from an international workshop on ‘The Roleof the state in the Struggle against Poverty’ organized by the LatinAmerican Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), the ComparativeResearch Programme on Poverty of the International Social ScienceCouncil (CROP) and the Fundacão Joaquim Nabuco (FJN), which washeld in Recife, Brazil, in March 2003. When calling for contributionsthe workshop organizers circulated a background paper entitled‘“Anti-globalisation” and anti-statism: Emergent challenges to the roleof the state in poverty reduction’1. The substance of that paperremains as relevant now as it was when it was first written, and is sub-stantially reproduced as the first part of this introductory chapter. Inresponse to it, a wide range of papers was offered. In this book wehave included a carefully revised and edited selection of those thatwere accepted, presented and discussed in the course of the work-shop. In the second part of this chapter we then proceed to outline thestructure and content of the book. Finally, in the concluding part ofthe chapter we identify, discuss and briefly summarize a number ofthemes and issues that arose during the original workshop and whichare pursued in the various contributions to this book.

THE BACKGROUND: ANTI-GLOBALISATION AND ANTI-STATISM

At a time when global awareness of poverty would seem to beincreasing, and the cause of poverty eradication is moving up theglobal political agenda (albeit principally at the level of rhetoric),there are two trends that tend to marginalize or question the role ofthe state in poverty reduction. The first of these is the inherent anti-statism that attends the neo-liberal, managerialist and communitari-an agendas, each of which in their way is influencing currentapproaches to poverty alleviation (e.g. Deacon 1997, 2000). The sec-ond stems from an assortment of radical and critical ideas associatedwith the ‘anti-globalisation’ movement: a complex alliance of dis-parate factions that challenge the global ascendancy of capitalism,liberal democracy, Western culture and neo-liberal welfare theories(e.g. Amin 1997; Burbach et al. 1997). Although ‘anti-globalisation’ is

1 Initially drafted jointly by Hartley Dean and Einar Braathen. The editors are gratefulto Einar Braathen for allowing them to make use of that text.

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a contested and problematic term, its very ambiguity captures somekey controversies. The movement encompasses political and culturalas well as economic concerns. It has attracted not only those whofear that economic globalisation is implicated in the weakening ofwelfare state provision, but also those who recognize that it has inother respects augmented the power of the nation states of the devel-oped world, while often stimulating exploitative or corrupt practicesof state elites in the developing world. There are elements or variantsof ‘anti-globalisation’ and anti-statism which, though ostensibly ideo-logically opposed, are each skeptical of, if not hostile to, the role ofthe state in poverty reduction.

This book will seek to address both these trends, ‘anti-globalisa-tion’ and anti-statism, at each of three different levels of analysis –thei n t e r n a t i o n a l, the n a t i o n a l and the s u b - n a t i o n a l– generating six interlock-ing sub-themes that together provide an extensive framework for debate.

THE GLOBAL OR INTERNATIONAL LEVEL

Anti-statism is implicit within the approach of the principal interna-tional bodies concerned with poverty alleviation programmes. Forexample: the UNDP on the one hand pays lip service to the idea thateconomic, social and cultural rights should henceforward be given asmuch attention as civil and political rights (UNDP 2000).

But on the other hand, the enforceability of rights, it isassumed, requires mechanisms akin to those who govern global trade.

The UNDP’s demands are couched in the language of depoliti-cized, evidence based policy-making, and the processes by which theachievement of human rights can be managed invoke such ‘business’oriented techniques as self-assessment, benchmarking, culture change–all drawn from the repertoires of new managerialist doctrine (Dean2002). The World Bank, in spite of its well-established preference for asafety net approach to poverty alleviation with a minimal direct rolefor the state, has in some recent publications (Narayan et al 2000;World Bank 2001) ostensibly embraced an approach premised onprinciples of ‘good practice’ in social policy.

Good practice in the eyes of the World Bank and theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF), however, most probably entails apluralist approach that gives precedence to non-governmental organi-sations and communitarian ideology (e.g. Braathen 2000).

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The whole agenda is unfolding within the context of the contin-ued attempts on the part of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to‘liberalize’ the provision of essential public services. The emergentglobal orthodoxy appears to combine technocratic economic liberal-ism with a new brand of social conservatism that remains hostile touniversal forms of state welfare (cf. Jordan 1998; Dean 1999).

‘Anti-globalisation’ drew attention to itself as a movementthrough the spectacular public demonstrations mounted in oppositionto the WTO summit in Seattle in 1999, and since then through anassortment of subsequent anti-capitalist demonstrations, the Jubilee2000 campaign for the reduction of ‘third world’ debt, and the bur-geoning of organisations like the Association for the Taxation ofFinancial Transactions in Aid of Citizens (AT TAC) and the World SocialForum. The movement gave new expression to what has been a rela-tively long-standing critical intellectual tradition, and some of its semi-nal thinkers have expressed diffidence about the ‘anti-globalisation’tag. Susan George (2001: 1), for example, has argued that “[t]his com-bat is really between those who want inclusive globalisation based onco-operation and solidarity and those who want the market to make allthe decisions”. Globalisation remains a deeply contested phenomenon,and it is important to distinguish between economic accounts that seeglobalisation in terms of the ascendancy of corporate capitalism, polit-ical accounts that regard it in terms of the reconfiguration of globalgovernance, and cultural accounts that regard it in terms of an acceler-ating inter-permeability of human life-styles and values (e.g. Held et al.1999). ‘Anti-globalisation’ is not necessarily a Luddite rejection ofmodernity or of internationalism, but may take on very different tim-bres depending on the priority accorded to the political and culturaldimensions of globalisation. It may embrace ideas of global citizenshipand humane governance (e.g. Falk 1994; 1995) or of cosmopolitan citi-zenship and democratic autonomy (e.g. Held 1995). What ‘anti-globali-sation’ analyses have in common is that they oppose the hegemony offree-market forces because of their social and political costs, but thisleaves open a range of questions concerning the basis of citizenshipand the role (if any) of international bodies.

THE NATIONAL LEVEL

Anti-statism is most evident in political discourses premised on theassumption that globalisation creates irresistible pressures that

demand a new post-Keynesian economic orthodoxy and a transitionfrom ‘passive’ protectionist welfare to ‘active’ enabling forms of wel-fare. This orthodoxy rests, in fact, on a largely discredited assumption.The sovereignty of nation states has been reconstituted, rather thandiminished (e.g. Hirst and Thompson 1996). In particular, somewould argue, the power of states in developed capitalist nations –inrelation both to the control of their own subjects and to developingnation states– may in reality be greater than ever before (e.g. Mann1997). Despite this, neo-liberal or New Right thinking has sought tosideline the nation-state in favor of private welfare provision, whilecommunitarian or ‘Third Way’ thinking –as we shall see below– hasbeen seeking to promote sub-national, decentralized, community-based or micro-level welfare initiatives, based on highly managerial-ist, rather than collective, notions of partnership and participation.

There is little evidence that these participatory, ‘civil society’ and‘private-public partnership’ based strategies do enhance anti-povertyperformance at the national level. At the same time, considerableemphasis is also placed at the national level on promoting forms ofelectoral democracy that fail to empower oppressed communities orto give a direct voice to those who are most disadvantaged. In theabsence of clear evidence that liberal democracies are better at pro-poor governance than non-democracies, the UNDP (2000) continuesto promote multi-party electoral democracy as the basis for securingthe legitimacy of national governance. We believe democracy is essen-tial for effective and enduring poverty eradication; but there are manykinds of democratic participation, and ‘hollowed out’ state adminis-trations accountable through a purely procedural democratic processmay be less inclusive, less authoritative, and have less impact onpoverty reduction than governments that are responsive to thosesocial movements, trade unions and grassroots networks that harnessmore direct and immediate forms of democratic participation (e.g.Braathen and Palmero 2001).

‘Anti-globalisation’ thinking extends to those writers that chal-lenge the assumption that the dominant social welfare regimes thatcharacterize the different kinds of western capitalism (Esping-Andersen 1990; 1996; 1999) can necessarily provide the models bywhich to interpret or inform social development in the developingworld. Wood (2004), for example, has argued that established welfareregime typologies rely on two key assumptions –a legitimated stateand a pervasive labor market– that simply do not apply in, for exam-

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ple, parts of sub-Saharan Africa and the South Asian sub-continent.There are parts of the ‘developing’ world –such as East Asia and LatinAmerica– where the state and the market have emerged in ways thatmake it possible analytically to apply welfare regime typologies, albeitin ways that must accommodate quite different historical and culturalconditions. But there are others where it is necessary to acknowledgethat economic activity remains embedded in social relations; wherethe formalization process or ‘great transformation’ (Polanyi 1944) thathas characterized the process of economic development has notoccurred in any functional sense; and where informal communitybased social networks and movements still in practice have primacyas determinants of human welfare over institutions such as the stateor the market. Under these conditions entitlement to welfare maystem largely from ‘rights of adverse incorporation’: that is to say, fromcodes of fairness negotiated under the rule of war lords, chieftains,mafia bosses, corrupt state bureaucrats and/or benign aid officials.

THE SUB-NATIONAL OR LOCAL LEVEL

Anti-statism, as suggested above, is axiomatic to the new public man-agerialism that has been informing the local governance initiatives ofthe international aid agencies (Kettl 1999). In part this has been influ-enced by communitarian notions of ‘social capital’ and a revitalizednormative interest in the role of civil society and social networks –as asphere that is conceptually distinct from state or the market– in whichs e l f - s u fficiency may be fostered and welfare guaranteed withoutrecourse to formal systems (Putnam 1993, 2000; Etzioni 1993;Woolcock 1998). In part it is informed by neo-liberal assumptionsabout the inherent efficacy of entrepreneurial motivation and busi-ness methods. An example here would be the World Bank’s SocialFunds initiative, which is deliberately bypassing government agenciesin order to give small capital grants to local communities (see Tendler2000; Braathen et al. 2001).

‘ A n t i - g l o b a l i s a t i o n ’ is an implicit element to a number of local-ized resistance strategies across the developing world. At the simplestlevel we find the kind of peasant resistance strategies that, throughcovert acts of petty sabotage and other means, subvert dysfunctionalstate and market institutions (e.g. Scott 1985, 1990). At a more sophis-ticated or creative level, we find the kind of systematic informal eco-nomic activities that made possible the production, distribution and

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exchange of necessary goods and services in contravention of the con-straints imposed by the ‘group areas’ restrictions in apartheid SouthAfrica and central planning restrictions in the former Soviet Union(see Jordan 1998: 164-5). At a policy level, there are examples of radi-cal rather than managerial participatory strategies –espoused by cer-tain local state administrations in Brazil and India– that explicitlychallenge the sclerotic, corrupt and anti-poor state bureaucracies ofnational government. At a more intellectual level, we have a range ofgreen-anarchist and civil society socialist critiques of d i r i g i s t e s t a t ebureaucracies and, for example, demands for the kind of counter-hegemonic globalisation process envisaged by de Sousa Santos(2001). De Sousa Santos has argued that we should be reinterpreting‘native languages of emancipation’ in order to provide the basis for a‘bottom up’, cosmopolitan and progressive form of multiculturalismdriven from the local level by a wide range of indigenous peoples,groups or organisations, and by movements from the periphery ofestablished national and international systems. One example of a sub-national movement that since 1994 has arguably managed to combineseveral elements of an anti-globalisation strategy is the Zapatistamovement in Mexico (Kagarlitsky 2000).

OUTLINE OF THE BOOK

The contributions to this book approach the topics outlined above atd i fferent levels of analysis, and using different methods and theoreti-cal perspectives. Following this introduction, the chapters of the bookare arranged in three sections. The first is broadly concerned withissues at the global level or else with theoretical arguments about therole of the nation state in the prevailing global context. The seconddeals more specifically with social policy issues at the national level.The third is concerned with issues at the local level and with the prac-tical implications of recent social development initiatives. Inevitably,however, there is a considerable amount of overlap between these sec-tions, because theoretical considerations can never be kept separatefrom policy matters and policy can never be considered in isolationfrom its effects at the level of everyday local reality.

THEORETICAL AND GLOBAL DIMENSIONS

Chapters two and three, by Hartley Dean and Anete Brito Leal respec-tively, illustrate in different ways the extent to which the global threat

to the power and responsibilities of the nation state is reflected in avery particular challenge to the status of the social rights of citizen-ship. In chapter two it is argued, in general terms, that globalisationhas entailed the triumph of a liberal-individualist interpretation ofhuman rights over more solidaristic kinds of interpretation. It is aninterpretation that serves a managerially inspired human develop-ment agenda, while marginalizing local or vernacular understandingsof human need. The chapter explores alternative interpretations ofrights premised both on a politics of capabilities (in the senseespoused by Amartya Sen) and a politics of needs interpretation (inthe sense espoused by Nancy Fraser), under the auspices of an ‘ethicalstate’ (a possibility once hinted at by Antonio Gramsci). The argumentin chapter three, while more specifically addressed to the LatinAmerican region, considers a paradox of global provenance: while theneed to combat poverty is a matter of global consensus, there is anunderlying contradiction. The ascendant strategies, which prioritizeeither market or civil society based solutions to poverty, entail a shiftaway from social protection based on rights and correlative collectiveresponsibilities. As in chapter two, it is argued that we must seek analternative approach that accords responsibility to the state.

In chapter four, Paulo Martins addresses the issues from a ‘post-development’ perspective, and in particular from the stance adoptedby the Anti-utilitarian Movement in the Social Sciences (MAUSS). It isa stance that may be identified with the anti-globalisation movement.The post-development perspective regards the process of humandevelopment, as currently envisaged by international institutions, asmerely an extension of colonialism, and any anti-poverty strategy thataccords a role to the capitalist state is fatally flawed. The problem isthat in practice the existing ‘hybridized’ form of international politics(involving international institutions, transnational corporations[TNCs], non government organisations [NGOs] and nation states) willneither regulate the power of global capital nor control the world’sgreatest military power, namely the United States. None the less, it isrecognized that some role for the state must necessarily be preservedalbeit that it must be mobilized around new social forms and, to thisextent, the challenge Martins identifies is in fact by no means dissimi-lar to that outlined in the preceding chapters.

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POLICY AND NATIONAL DIMENSIONS

Next, the book presents a number of country specific studies.Chapters five and six, by Virgilio Alvarez and Nelson Arteaga respec-tively, examine the experiences of two American countries: Guatemalaand Mexico. chapter five charts the history of Guatemala and demon-strates how the continuing exploitation of indigenous peoples, theenervating effects of military dictatorship and the dislocations result-ing from armed struggle have resulted in chronic poverty and sociali n e q u a l i t y. Recent peace accords have included provision for aStrategy of Poverty Reduction that has yet to be fully or eff e c t i v e l yimplemented. However, a central plank of that strategy relates to theextension and development of education, and the chapter addressesthe ambiguity of a strategy premised on human capital theory. Whileeducation can and should provide the means to promote democraticideals and a new basis for social cohesion and development, theapproach adopted is more narrowly focused on the reproduction ofdominant culture and the production of the basic skills required tomeet strictly economic objectives. Similar conclusions are drawn inchapter six, which traces the different ways in which discourses of orabout poverty have been applied to justify policies that have consis-tently failed to address poverty and inequality in Mexico. The chapterdemonstrates how terms such as ‘exclusion’, ‘underclass’ and ‘margin-alization’ have been construed as different ways to exempt the statefrom responsibility for poverty and to blame the victims of povertyinstead. Recent policies, informed once again by assumptions fromhuman capital theory, lay emphasis on creating opportunities for thep o o r, but without taking account of the structural constraints bywhich poverty is being perpetuated.

Chapters seven and eight, by Graziano da Silva, Belik andTakagi, and de Araújo and Alves de Lima, refer to experiences inBrazil. chapter seven describes the background to and implementa-tion of Brazil’s much-vaunted Zero Hunger Programme, set within adiscussion of the economics of income distribution. It defends theparticular model adopted by the Zero Hunger Programme –based onthe distribution of food cards to poor families– on the grounds that itis administratively flexible and efficient; that it benefits not only directrecipients but also small scale local agricultural producers who arealso vulnerable to poverty; and that it is non-stigmatizing and subjectto local democratic control.

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Chapter eight focuses on the array of labor market and trainingprogrammes recently introduced in Brazil. The argument is set in thecontext of a historical account of the structural causes of poverty andinequality in Brazil, and the chapter contends that the new pro-grammes cannot by themselves generate economic growth, that theyhave tended to benefit big business more than local enterprise, andthat their potential for contributing to social sustainability throughcivil society participation has not been fully realized. The approach isundermined by the economic and fiscal constraints to which thecountry is subject, and there is a case for allowing the state greaterrein, not less, in the fight against poverty.

Chapter nine is concerned with the very different kind of strug-gle against poverty that has been experienced in Cuba. FollowingCuba’s socialist revolution, the country sought to achieve social equal-ity through centralized state planning and control. Inequality was dra-matically reduced by the socialist regime. After the 1980s crisis and thereforms that followed, social inequalities have increased, both in termsof the polarization of household incomes and in terms of increasingspatial inequalities between different regions or territories. However,these inequalities are still smaller than in Latin America as a whole,which is the most unequal region in the world. The chapter argues thatuniversal state provision need not imply social homogeneity, but mustnone the less recognize and respond to social diversity; that social andeconomic development requires that territories acquire some measureof local autonomy; and that ways must be found to generate more sus-tainable jobs. The argument draws upon recent research that has criti-cally examined Cuban social policy and the model of socio-economicchange followed during the socialist transition. The critical insightselicited are, according to the author, essential for any attempt at self-reform. The chapter contends that the ideal social policy and povertyalleviation strategy -a strategy that survives as a component of the cur-rent economic reforms- fits what might be called an ‘equality model’ or‘ethical model’.

For chapter ten by Huyla Dagdeviren, we leave Latin Americafor South Asia and an account of the effects of privatizing state ownedenterprises in Bangladesh. The lessons to be learned are of relevancefor all developing countries. The chapter demonstrates that privatisa-tion does not necessarily lead to poverty reduction, especially if theprocess leads to labor market retrenchment and minimal revenue gen-eration and efficiency gains. The case for the potential public benefits

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of state owned enterprise in the struggle against poverty has not nec-essarily been disproved.

PRACTICAL AND LOCAL DIMENSIONS

Finally, the book includes some locally based studies.Chapters eleven and twelve, by Rowan Ireland and John

McNeish respectively, consider the contribution that participatoryplanning and local democratic processes have made in the struggleagainst poverty in two countries: Brazil and Bolivia. chapter eleven isbased on a longitudinal study of a Commisão da Te r r a in a Sao Paulof a v e l a and presents the findings as a potential object lesson for thenew theory of development. The C o m m i s ã o had in one sense super-seded a ‘politics of demand’ in its struggle to achieve a functioningcivil society, and through its successes and failures it demonstratedthe need for synergy between social movements, NGOs and the state.H o w e v e r, the cautious optimism of chapter eleven is brought intoquestion by chapter twelve, which is concerned with the local imple-mentation of pro-poor policies in one of Latin America’s poorest coun-tries, Bolivia. Bolivia’s pro-poor policies centre on laws that areintended to promote popular participation and decentralized adminis-tration. Research suggests that such initiatives have resulted in disap-pointment and suspicion at the local level, and that local people maybe disempowered rather than empowered through co-option into newprocesses of governance which shift responsibility for poverty by‘sleight of hand’, as it were, from the state to the poor themselves.

Finally for chapter thirteen, by Einar Braathen, we again leaveLatin America, this time for Africa and an account of research into thelocal effects of decentralization policies and the administration atlocal level of World Bank ‘Social Funds’ in Tanzania and Zambia.Although the findings in Tanzania and Zambia differed, the argumentof this chapter resonates with that of chapter twelve, in that it demon-strates that this type of ‘pro-poor governance’ can be double-edged. Itcan function, as in the case of Tanzania, as a technocratic, new man-agerialist approach that effectively marginalizes the state in ways thatmay potentially reinforce neo-patrimonial and clientelistic relations ofpower at the local level. Reassuringly, however, the Zambian experi-ence suggests it is possible for more radically minded technocrats tomake some difference at the local level.


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THEMES AND ISSUES

Much of, but by no means all, the context for the substantive argu-ment and illustrative narratives provided by this book comes fromLatin America. With this in mind we shall now turn to consider theparticular significance as well as the generic relevance of the LatinAmerican context.

Following from this, we shall invert the pattern we have so faradopted. Instead of progressing from global to national to local con-siderations, the argument will proceed the other way around. Weshall seek to draw out the lessons that we think can be learnt, first inrelation to local experiences of participatory planning mechanismsas a mode of governance; second, in relation to the hegemonicimpact of human capital theory on social policies that are beingwidely pursued at the national level; and third, in relation to the pos-sibility that we might yet re-conceptualize the role of the state in thestruggle against poverty.

THE LATIN AMERICAN CONTEXT

Latin America’s economic and social history had its highs and lowsduring the last century. In 1900, 70 million people lived in this part ofthe world. In 2000, that number has risen sevenfold to reach around500 million. Three-quarters of the population lived in the countrysidein 1900, but now two-thirds live in the cities. At the beginning of thetwentieth century, three-quarters of the population were illiterate, butnow seven out of eight adults can read and write. Average lifeexpectancy increased from 40 to 70 years. As has been pointed out byThorp (1998), in the course of four generations, life changed dramati-cally for ordinary people. Despite these achievements, income distri-bution worsened: it was probably the worst in the world by the 1960s,and deteriorated even further during the economic adjustment of the1980s. (Thorp 1998: 1-3)

At the start of the twenty-first century, Latin America has morethan 43% of its population living in poverty, and almost 19% are livingin conditions of extreme poverty. These worrisome figures from 2002have at the time of writing remained almost unchanged and haveaccompanied a period of economic stagnation (CEPAL 2003: 2-3).

Latin America has reached these dramatic levels of poverty andinequality despite declarations of intent and policy change. Social poli-cy was accorded an important place on the political agenda in several

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countries of the region. Between 1990 and 2000, nine countriesreformed their health system, fourteen made significant changes intheir education system, and eleven restructured their pension andretirement systems. At the same time, many countries adopted socialdevelopment programmes to reduce both chronic and specific (i.e.caused by economic crises and natural disasters) poverty, and housingpolicy received more attention than in the recent past (Grindle 2001).Once again, it is possible to clearly see the ineffectiveness of stateaction to deal with one of the most (if not the most) important topic onthe declared political agenda of almost all the countries of the region.

Governments relatively more pro-active in social policy havefailed to demonstrate the kind of tangible results in terms of povertyreduction that had been expected. And, in many cases, governmentalaction is counterproductive for reasons intrinsic to the policy and/orthe strategy. That is the case when the state spends more in servicesthat benefit those who are in better economic and social positionsinstead of investing in the services most needed by the poor. An exam-ple of this is the per capita expenditure in basic education, which ismuch less than what’s spent on secondary or upper levels of educa-tion. Something similar can be observed in public investment inhealth, housing, etc. (ibid).

The recent Latin American experience shows that economic re-structuring in the context of neo-liberal oriented reforms has beeni n e fficient and ineffective in its attempts to deal either with the ‘oldpoverty or with the ‘new poverty’ created by the reform process itself.It can be argued that a substantial reform of the state is therefore stillneeded. Logically, such reform should go well beyond formal policies,and must address the reorganisation of those social and institutionalarrangements that are guaranteed by the state or through democraticprocesses in a way that makes economic growth and the distributionof wealth both possible and sustainable. In other words, there is aneed to reform the structural incentives to poverty creation and, at thesame time, to articulate substantial measures of political economy–using economic, social and fiscal policy instruments– to distributewealth in a context of sustainable development. There is a growingconsensus in several Latin American countries that something alongthese lines has to be done. Social policy continues to be declared a pri-ority in most of these countries although there are certain inconsis-tencies within current economic and fiscal policies. However, theunacceptable facts and figures of poverty and extreme poverty we

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mentioned at the beginning of this introduction represent a brutalreality that casts a shadow over the discourses and good intentionsdeclared both at the national and the international level, such as inthe Millennium Development Goals announced by the UNDP (2003).

PARTICIPATORY PLANNING AS A MODE OF GOVERNANCE

Several chapters in this book -particularly chapters eleven, Twelve andThirteen– discuss the development of local participation in processesof social development. The issue that should be highlighted is thepotential ambiguity of such initiatives. They represent on the onehand a means by which it may be possible to democratically ‘reclaimthe state’ (cf. Wainwright 2003), and on the other a mechanism thatmarginalizes the state and its political processes in favor of civil socie-t y. There is something in the nature of a G e s t a l t switch about thisa m b i g u i t y. Perceived from one perspective, participatory planningempowers local people in the struggle against the poverty to whichthey are subject; it enables them to achieve control over stateresources and institutions; it gives a voice to the voiceless. But fromanother perspective, it appears as a device for ensnaring the poor; forforcing them to help themselves; for foisting responsibility uponthem, but without real power and without adequate resources.

At their best, initiatives such as the participatory budget makingprocess that has been developing since 1989 in Porto Alegre, Brazil(Bairlie 2003) have been hugely successful in reconciling diff e r e n tkinds of political authority, so that the municipal administration isheld to account not only on the basis of its electoral mandate, butthrough a continuing process of popular participation based on peo-p l e ’s plenaries and an open budget council. While such processes arenecessarily sustained by the most vocal or militant members of localcommunities and do not necessarily tap into the ‘hidden transcripts’(Scott 1990) of the most impoverished, they represent none the lessthe most concerted attempt to date at democratizing the social state.Following the Workers’ Party (PT) victory in the 2002 PresidentialElection, the hope is that such an approach can be built upon andeven extended in time to the federal level. But so long as ‘Lula’ daSilva’s government remains constrained by conditions imposed by theI M F, back in Porto Alegre there remains a danger that, inWa i n w r i g h t ’s words (2003: 61), “the popular administration itselfcould become unintentionally complicit in imposing on local commu-

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nities the burden of clearing up the unregulated market’s social mess”.Vital services may be provided, not on the basis that they represent auniversal right, but to the extent that local people can manage the sac-rifices that may be necessary to develop and administer them.

In another guise, therefore, participatory planning initiativescan be construed as a form of community capacity building initiativethat is entirely commensurate with neo-liberal policies and with newmanagerialist techniques of governance that have been pioneered inthe context of urban renewal initiatives in developed countries (e.g.Geddes and Benington 2001) as much as in the developing world. Inchapter twelve it is suggested that this involves a ‘sleight of hand’ onthe part of the governments that promote participatory planning,though it may just as well be understood in terms of the “immanentlogic” (Foucault 1979: ch. 2) of the relations of power that areentailed. Globalisation does not necessarily rob the state of its admin-istrative power (cf. Hirst and Thompson 1996), but it provides achanging context in which increasingly sophisticated forms of disci-plinary technology emerge: in which communities and individualsmay be enjoined, or may seek, to manage their own lives subject onlyto arms-length intervention by the state (Roger 2000).

TH E H E G E M O N Y O F H U M A N C A P I TA L T H E O RY A N D I T S P O L I C YCONSEQUENCES

This brings us back inexorably to such problematic concepts as ‘socialcapital’ and ‘human capital’, which have become common currencywithin the dominant thinking on social development. While the for-mer is connected with ideas about participatory planning and therevival of civil society as an alternative to the state, the latter accordsrecognition to the productive potential of the individual and to theideals of self-development and personal empowerment (e.g. Becker1993). While such concepts clearly have an application within criticalsociological analysis (e.g. Bourdieu 1997), as a metaphor in policy dis-course, the term ‘human capital’ constitutes the individual as an eco-nomic rather than a social actor, and as a competitive individualrather than a co-operative social being.

Human capital theory has been one of the driving forces in thebid throughout the developing world to expand educational provision(Hall and Midgley 2004). It also represents a central assumption ineconomic and labor market policy thinking, in which the new post-

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Keynesian orthodoxy rejects the use of state power to manipulateaggregate demand but favors ‘supply-side’ intervention: by promotingthe human capital of individual subjects, it is possible to raise skillsand labor force participation, increase productivity, attract inwardinvestment and generally enhance economic growth. The global trendis away from the ‘Keynesian Welfare National state’, towards a‘Schumpeterian Workfare Postnational state’ (Jessop 2002) or a formof ‘new paternalism’ (Standing 2002) whose priority is to maximizelabor force participation and promote the skills, behavior and atti-tudes appropriate to a global economy in the information age. Thistrend is illustrated in different ways throughout the book, but particu-larly in chapters five, six and eight.

In policy terms it is a trend often characterized as a ‘Third Way’philosophy; a complex hybrid of neo-liberal economic policy and con-servative communitarian social policy that seems to have originatedwith the ‘New’ Democrats under Clinton in the United States, taken onby ‘New’ Labor under Blair in Britain, and with influence in the devel-opment of a ‘new middle’ and of ‘purple coalitions’ across Europe(Bonoli and Powell 2002; Lewis and Surender 2004). Central elementsof Third Way philosophy may be found within parts of the UN (espe-cially, for example, UNDP 2003), and there have certainly been admin-istrations in developing countries that have explicitly identified withthe philosophy, including the 1994-2002 Cardoso administration inBrazil (Wainwright 2003: 43). In chapter six it is suggested that recentadministrations in Mexico have tended to assimilate issues of povertyand inequality under the rubric of terms like ‘social exclusion’, andthis too reflects elements of Third Way conceptual orthodoxy. Giddens(1998: 102-3), for example, claims that “[t]he new politics [of theThird Way] defines equality as inclusion and inequality as exclusion”.The most critical form of inclusion, however, is labor market inclu-sion, and the task of government within this philosophy is to promoteopportunities for labor market inclusion. While we might embraceelements of such a strategy (CLACSO, CROP and CEDLA 2004), thereare underlying dangers should it become the only strategy, and if itmeans that the poor are then blamed for their own exclusion. Policiesto combat poverty are increasingly framed in the language of socialexclusion, not of inequality; and of opportunities, not rights. Theemphasis that is placed on education is therefore highly instrumentaland not emancipatory, in the way that Freire (1972) would havedemanded. The emphasis that is placed on human capital is far nar-

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rower than the emphasis that Sen (1999), for example, would place onhuman capabilities.

RECONCEPTUALIZING THE STATE

How then is it be possible to re-conceptualize the state? The editors ofthis book tend to adhere to the critical theory approach to historicalforms of the state mentioned at the beginning of this introductory chap-t e r. Several of the later chapters in this book serve to remind us that con-ventional welfare regime theory does not necessarily help us understandthe processes that are occurring in developing countries. chapter five, forexample, suggests that while many Latin American countries have expe-rienced something amounting to a conservative-to-liberal welfare regimeshift (Barrinetos 2004), there are others, such as Guatemala, wherearmed conflict has in the recent past resulted in what might be describedas an ‘insecurity’ regime (Bevan 2004). For the moment, however, ourtask is not necessarily to engage with taxonomic analyses of the past, butwith debates about what might be possible in the future.

Although Richard Titmuss never liked the expression ‘welfarestate’, the concept to which the term has been applied was defendedby him in terms of the need under market capitalism to sustain ‘thegift relationship’ (1970). Drawing upon the social anthropology ofMauss and others, Titmuss argued that human beings need to be ableto engage in social transactions other than the bilateral forms ofexchange that characterize market relations. Social solidarity andhuman welfare depend on our capacity to make unilateral ‘gifts’, andin complex capitalist societies the welfare state provides us with a col-lective mechanism through which to give help not just to a narrow cir-cle of family, friends and neighbors, but to anonymous strangers andfellow citizens. In this respect, the welfare state is by no means inimi-cal to the anti-utilitarian demands of the post-development perspec-tive outlined in chapter three. The world has changed since the cre-ation of the welfare state described by Titmuss, but the social demo-cratic ideals that informed this kind of vision of a welfare state are notnecessarily exhausted, even if we are now confronted with a diff e r e n tset of practical realities (cf. Pierson 2001).

Such realities are daunting. Yet, Peter Townsend, for example,has made the case for an international welfare state requiring globalgovernmental institutions. As a precondition, he calls for a more rig-orous scientific understanding of the problems of poverty and the

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mobilization of new coalitions and alliances involving different coun-tries, agencies and movements that could work towards “measures forinternational taxation, regulation of transnational corporations andinternational agencies, reform of representation at the UN, and newguarantees of human rights, including minimal standards of income”( Townsend 2002: 19). Amongst those who seek to replace rather thanameliorate capitalism, there are some like Alex Callinicos (2003), whoin his Anti-Capitalist Manifesto envisages a transitional programmethat might incorporate such things as universal basic income, pro-gressive taxation, reduction of working hours and the defense of pub-lic services. This book doesn’t point to definitive answers, but we hopeit will help to open up a wealth of possibilities for debate and that itmay help achieve some measure of consensus that the state –whateverits past and present limitations– must after all play a critical role inthe struggle against poverty.

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Woolcock, M. (1998) “Social capital and economic development”, Theory andSociety, Vol. 27.

World Bank (2001) World Development Report 2000/2001, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Part I

Theoretical and global dimensions

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INTRODUCTION1

Human rights are essentially an ideological abstraction. This is not todiminish the concept. It is an acknowledgement that the notion of auniversally definable set of rights that are inherent to human beingsby virtue of their humanity is a socially constructed ideal. Humanrights are an expression neither of eternal verities on the one hand norof moral norms on the other, but of systemically derived ethical prin-ciples.

Hartley Dean*

The global human rights agendaand the (im)possibility

of the ethical state

* Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the London School of Economics and PoliticalScience (UK). Former Professor of Social Policy at the University of Luton. Earlier inhis career he worked for 12 years as a welfare rights worker in a multi-ethnic inner-London neighborhood.

1 Certain elements of this chapter have also been presented at the Second Conference ofthe European Union COST A15 Research Network, Globalisation and Welfare Reform,Oslo, 5-6 April 2002 and at the First Conference of the European Social Policy ResearchNetwork, Social Values, Social Policies, Tilburg, 29-31 August 2003, and also appear inchapters 1 and 10 of Dean, H. (ed.) The Ethics of Welfare: Human rights, dependency andresponsibility, Bristol: The Policy Press.

The common wisdom that informs much current debate aboutwelfare reform in the North and social development in the South2 i sthat economic globalisation signals the end of an imagined ‘golden age’of the capitalist welfare state (Esping-Andersen 1996). More particular-l y, it has been argued that the concept of social or welfare rights –as adistinctive component of citizenship within capitalist welfare states ofthe North– has been eclipsed, and that the development of social wel-fare on the global stage should now be conceptualized as the pursuitnot of social rights, but of the minimum social standards appropriateto any particular stage of economic development (Mishra 1999).

It has already been suggested in chapter one that we should beskeptical about the concept of globalisation. None the less, the gather-ing power of global capital and the palpable consequences of newcommunication technologies clearly have accelerated a number ofprocesses bearing upon the nature of the interdependency of peoplesand nations, not only at an economic level but at the political and cul-tural level as well. One effect has been the ascendancy of a particularhuman rights discourse (e.g. Held et al. 1999). Some enthusiasts nowspeak of a ‘third wave’ in the development of human rights that isclosely linked to globalisation (Klug 2000). Even the fiercest critics ofthe substantive gap between law and justice around the globeacknowledge the prevailing concept of human rights as “the new idealthat has triumphed on the world stage” (Douzinas 2000: 2). There is aparadox here. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a renaissance of interestin the concept of citizenship not only within Political Science andS o c i o l o g y, but also within academic Social Policy (e.g. Jordan 1989,Roche 1992, Twine 1994, Lister 1997, Dean 1999) –an interest thatsucceeded in pushing debate about rights and welfare beyond thebounds of the path-breaking theory of citizenship once espoused byT.H. Marshall (1950). However, the debate has entered a new and,p o t e n t i a l l y, quite different phase. The recent ascendancy of humanrights discourse paradoxically may displace, rather than enhance, ourunderstanding of citizenship; it may marginalize, rather than pro-mote, the cause of social welfare and the struggle against poverty.

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2 For the purposes of this chapter I shall adopt the convention that characterises‘ Western style regimes’/ ‘developed nations’ / the ‘First World’ by reference to theNorthern hemisphere or ‘the North’, and ‘developing nations’/ ‘the Third World’ by refer-ence to the Southern hemisphere or ‘the South’.

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Hartley Dean

S e l f - e v i d e n t l y, the concept of human rights is more global thanthat of citizenship in so far as it encompasses notions of entitlementthat transcend considerations of nationality (e.g. Turner 1993). TheUnited Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) of 1948 clearlyenvisaged that human rights should encompass not only the ‘first gen-eration’ of civil and political rights that had been forged during the cre-ation of modern Western democracies, but a ‘second generation’ ofsocial, economic and cultural rights as well. In practice, however, therealization of substantive social rights has always taken second placeto the support given by Western powers and international bodies to thepromotion of civil liberties and democratic freedoms (see Dean 1996and 2002; Bobbio 1996: ch.4; Deacon 1997). In the new world order,the language of rights in relation to the provision of social security andcollective welfare provision is giving way to an emphasis on socialresponsibility and self-provisioning (e.g. Jordan 1998; Standing 2002).

This chapter aims to examine the broader issues that flow fromthe distinctively liberal-individualist conception of human rights thatis associated with globalisation. I shall briefly discuss the historicaland conceptual background to human rights and human welfare. Ishall then explore the ways in which human rights discourse is enter-ing current debates about global social development. I shall draw outsome alternative interpretations of human rights and illustrate theways in which social rights are compromised, precisely because it is aparticular interpretation of human rights that is ascendant, as muchin the South as in the North. I shall conclude by discussing theprospects for restoring social rights –as a key component of humanrights and a central component in the struggle against poverty–through the promotion of an ethical state.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL RIGHTS

Concepts of citizenship rights may be traced back to antiquity and theAthenian city-state (from which, infamously, women and slaves wereexcluded), and more recently to the Western Enlightenment and theFrench and American Revolutions. The discourse of human rights, incontrast, is relatively new. It found its principal statement during thepost-Second World War period in the symbolically importantUNDHR. Though human rights are often regarded as a class of natu-ral or pre-legal rights, Clarke (1996: 119) points out that ‘human’ is noless a social and political construct than ‘citizen’ and, historically

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speaking, it is a term of more recent provenance. Citizen rights, Clarkecontends, provide the model for human rights and not the other wayround. The significance is that citizenship may be interpreted as aparticular and exclusive status, which does not necessarily bestowuniversal rights.

Nonetheless, any charter or declaration of rights assumes thatits signatory states –whether local, national or international– are, orwill at least potentially be, capable of guaranteeing such rights.Declarations of human rights characteristically contain a mixture ofrights that actually exist, in so far as they are universally enforceable,and rights that should exist, but that are not yet universally enforce-able (e.g. Bobbio 1996); what Feinberg has called ‘manifesto rights’(cited in Campbell 1983: 19). As I have already noted the UNDHRincorporates not only civil and political rights –to life, liberty, proper-t y, equality before the law, privacy, fair trial, religious freedom, freespeech and assembly, to participate in government, to political asylumand an absolute right not to be tortured– but also what it refers to as‘economic, social and cultural’ rights. This latter category may for ourpurposes be encompassed within a broad concept of ‘social’ rights; asrights to the means for human welfare, including rights to education,work and even leisure. Most particularly, Article 25 states:

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for thehealth and well being of himself and his family, including food, cloth-ing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and theright to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstancesbeyond his control.”

It is widely supposed that during the negotiations that led to theproclamation of the UNDHR provision for social rights was includedat the insistence of the Soviet bloc, reflecting the rights provisions ofthe Soviet constitution and a very different view of what freedomrequired (Goodwin 1987: 240; and see Bowring 2002). In the event,the Soviet bloc nations all abstained when the Declaration was even-tually adopted, and clearly there were other ideological forces at work.US President Roosevelt had famously signaled in an address in 1941that ‘freedom from want’ was one of the freedoms to be achieved inany post-war international order and, famously, that ‘necessitous menare not free men’ (see Eide 1997). I would argue that it is to the doc-trine of social liberalism rather than that of socialism that we owe thesocial rights provisions of the UNDHR.

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Hartley Dean

Inevitably, the idea that social rights may properly be conceivedas human rights was vigorously challenged by strict neo-liberals (e.g.Nozick 1974) and legal positivists (e.g. Cranston 1973). More insidi-ously, perhaps, the distinctively pluralistic version of liberal democra-cy (e.g. Dahl 1956) that came to characterize the US and to dominateglobal debate did not favor universal prescription and, although theinternational human rights regime provides for the monitoring andreporting of human rights abuses, it lacks effective means of enforce-ment (e.g. Held et al. 1999). Most significantly, however, when it cameto defining the substance of the principles outlined in the UNDHR, itis striking that in the 1960s the United Nations adopted two quite sep-arate Covenants –one on Civil and Political Rights and the other onEconomic, Social and Cultural Rights (van Genugten 1997)– implyingat the very least that there was a fundamental difference between civiland political freedoms on the one hand and substantive rights to workand welfare upon the other. Similar distinctions have tended toemerge in the various regional human rights instruments that havedeveloped around the world. The constitutional status of social rightsas a species of human rights remains at best weak (cf. Dean 1996;2002; and see Hunt 1996).

However ineffectual in terms of its substantive impact, theemergent human rights regime of the late twentieth century hadnonetheless played an important symbolic role in the complex andcontested process of ‘globalisation’. It is not only the economic powerof transnational capital that has weakened the power of nation states,but also the ideological challenge to national sovereignty representedby the ascendant discourse of human rights and its attendant appara-tuses. Habermas (2001: 119) goes so far as to argue that in the transi-tion from nation states to a cosmopolitan order “human rights pro-vide the sole recognized basis of legitimation for the politics of theinternational community”. In this context, human rights discourse,when it is primarily construed in terms of the values of liberal democ-r a c y, may not so much promote the development of social rights ashelp to constrain the capacity of nation states to adopt protectionistwelfare policies. It has contributed to the passing of the ‘golden age’ ofstate welfare (cf. Esping-Andersen 1996).

Optimistic –some would say utopian– commentators have dis-cussed the possibility that a form of ‘global citizenship’ might emerge,predicated on a global conception of human rights. Falk (1994), forexample, has suggested that, quite apart from the consequences of

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economic globalisation, there are several other intimately intercon-nected grounds upon which it is possible to conceive or advocateforms of global citizenship: the longstanding aspirational demands forglobal peace and justice; emergent modes of transnational politicalmobilization arising both from regional movements and new socialmovements; and the emerging ecological crisis.

From a more pessimistic –some might say realistic– perspective,h o w e v e r, Soysal (1994) has argued that two institutionalized princi-ples of inter-state relations in the post-Westphalian era –namely,national sovereignty and universal human rights– have collided (cf.Turner 1993). Soysal illustrates how one consequence of this is to beobserved in the rights that are begrudgingly afforded by developednations to migrant labor (cf. Morris 2001). None the less, to the extentthat it is the developed nation-states that assume responsibility formaintaining human rights, paradoxically this can also fortify theirauthority and even justify humanitarian or military intervention inother parts of the world. Soysal implies that as our concepts of rightsbecome globalized, they also become abstracted and detached fromour sense of local belonging or identity; from our capacity to regulateour own lives. Human rights discourse tends to be abstract, totalizingand ‘top-down’, rather than concrete, particular and ‘bottom-up’ innature. This I believe is a critical insight as far as the maintenance anddevelopment of social or welfare rights are concerned, and one towhich I shall return.

THE NEW HUMAN RIGHTS DISCOURSE

First, however, I wish to draw attention to the new ways in whichhuman rights are being invoked.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in itsHuman Development Report 2000 seeks to concert demands forhuman development with demands for human rights. Recognizingthat in the past “the rhetoric of human rights was reduced to aweapon in the propaganda for geopolitical interests” (UNDP 2000: 3),the end of the cold war, UNDP argues, has created a climate in whichit is possible to realize the common vision and common purpose thatinforms the respective concepts of human rights and human develop-ment. The former is concerned with basic human freedoms, the latterwith the enhancement of human capabilities. The language of theHuman Development Report is explicitly influenced by Amyarta Sen,

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who is in fact the author of the report’s first chapter. Sen’s contribu-tion to the report underlines the point that just because rights may notbe fulfilled, this doesn’t mean they do not exist. Sen’s argument –as Iread it– is that rights may be constituted through the aspirations anddemands of the dispossessed even when the powerful repudiate orneglect the duties that such rights would impose upon them. This,however, is not the reading that the UNDP would seem to adopt in therest of its report, in which Sen’s notion of human capabilities is subtlyappropriated as a malleable concept more akin to that of human orsocial capital (cf. Coleman 1988, Putnam 2000). Sen (1999: 296) him-self has remarked that the concept of ‘human capital’ has limitations“because human beings are not merely means of production, but alsothe end of the exercise”.

Within the prevailing discourse of international bodies, develop-ment is assumed self-evidently to require economic growth, and rightsto require liberal democracy. Both require a pluralistic and ostensiblynon-ideological social context in which NGOs and civil society groupscan play a role as much as government (though, conspicuously, tradeunions are never mentioned, in spite of the critical role that they canplay in developing rights). The enforceability of rights, it is assumed,requires mechanisms akin to those by which global trade is governed,and here, as it identifies the gaps that exist in the global order, theUNDP begins to draw upon managerialist expressions: it speaks of theneed for incentive structures, for regulatory jurisdiction and for ade-quate participation. It speaks of the need for poor countries to availthemselves of the opportunities that globalisation offers (UNDP 2000:9), but it does not recognize that while the powerful may interpret therisks of a globalized capitalist economy in terms of opportunity, thevulnerable may interpret them in terms of insecurity (cf. Vail 1999).

One can but welcome the UNDP’s demand that –in the pursuitof human development– economic, social and cultural rights shouldbe given as much attention as civil and political rights (2000: 13).None the less, the UNDP’s approach contains many hallmarks of whathas elsewhere been characterized as new managerialist doctrine (e.g.Hood 1991; Clarke and Newman 1997; and chapter 13 in this volume):its demands for better use of information are couched in the languageof depoliticized, evidence based, policy-making; the processes bywhich the achievement of human rights can be managed invoke suchrecognizable techniques as self-assessment, benchmarking, culturechange –drawn from the repertoire of new managerialism. Human

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rights have in a sense become colonized in the cause of a managerial-ist approach to human development. There is a danger that the causeof welfare rights may be eclipsed by the liberal individualism that pro-vides the unspoken ideological foundations of global managerialorthodoxy.

INTERPRETING HUMAN RIGHTS

Just as the discourse of citizenship with which academic Social Policyhas of late been preoccupied is fraught with contradiction, so too isthe new discourse of human rights. I have sought elsewhere (Dean1999; 2001) to develop the conventional theoretical dichotomybetween liberal and

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