Investigating the Political Economy of Social Protection Expansion in Africa: At the Intersection of Transnational Ideas and Domestic Politics

Abstract

The growing literature on social protection in Africa has tended to focus on conceptual debates, policy design issues and impact evaluations. To date, there has been relatively little systematic analysis of the ways in which politics and political economy shape policy. This paper outlines a conceptual and methodological framework for investigating the politics of social protection, with a particular focus on explaining the variation in progress made by African countries in adopting and implementing social protection programmes. We propose that an adapted 'political settlements' framework that incorporates insights from the literatures on the politics of welfare state development and discursive institutionalism can help frame elite commitment to social protection as an outcome of the interaction of domestic political economy and transnational ideas. This approach has the advantage of situating social protection within a broader policy context, as well as highlighting the influence of underlying power relations in society. Finally, the paper suggests a research methodology that can be employed to operationalise this approach, with a particular focus on process tracing and comparative case study research.

Social Protection in an Aspiring 'Developmental State': The Political Drivers of Ethiopia's PSNP

“…As such, the findings of this CBHI case study largely fit the proposed hypotheses for this type of political settlement (see Lavers and Hickey 2015). These are that a dominant coalition political settlement is likely to adopt a long time horizon in its policymaking, with elite commitment to social protection linked to concerns about political legitimacy, while this type of ruling coalition is likely to have strong ideological commitments that influence the types of policies seen as acceptable.…”

The Politics of Promoting Social Cash Transfers in Uganda

“…The progress of SP in Uganda has been defined by the interplay of transnational factors and the country's domestic political economy (Lavers and Hickey 2015). More specifically, the increased commitment to SP identified here flowed from the decade-long and increasingly politicized efforts of a transnational policy coalition and the eventual convergence between this campaign and Uganda's shifting political settlement dynamics.…”

“…This process, described in more detail in Section 3, underlines the extent to which the advance of SP in Africa is a highly political affair that is primarily shaped by the dynamic interplay of transnational factors and the incentives and ideas generated within a country's specific 'political settlement' (Lavers and Hickey 2015). Defined here as 'the balance or distribution of power between contending social groups and social classes, on which any state is based.…”

“…Defined here as 'the balance or distribution of power between contending social groups and social classes, on which any state is based. ' (Di John and Putzel 2009: 4), the adapted political settlements analysis adopted here draws attention to how the changing balance of power within and around a ruling coalition shapes elite incentives and ideas in ways that develop commitment to particular policy agendas (Lavers and Hickey 2015). 1 Although it is too soon to predict whether SP will eventually come to form part of a deeper social contract in Uganda as opposed to becoming mired in the politics of patronage, our analysis does not suggest that the conditions for institutionalizing citizenship-based forms of SP will emerge in Uganda anytime soon.…”

Deals and Development

“…The political settlement that has emerged can be categorized as a 'strong dominant party', in the sense that factions excluded from the ruling coalition are relatively weak, as are lower-level factions within the ruling coalition itself. Some have explicitly classified the RPF government in this way (Lavers and Hickey, 2015), while others have not used the same language but view the government similarly Kelsall, 2013;Goodfellow, 2014).…”