Social Policy Instruments in Motion. Conditional Cash Transfers from Mexico to Peru

Abstract

Social policy prescriptions for Latin America have shifted significantly over recent decades. This article tracks a process by which a conditional cash transfer (CCT) to mothers, begun in a Mexican programme with some pretensions to promoting gender equality, was standardized by international organizations, becoming a policy instrument characterized by gender sensitivity, but having little attention to equality. In addition to involving certification by international organizations, this standardization process framed the CCT as an instrument of social investment and was a decontextualization of the Mexican version that had been influenced by Beijing‐style international feminism. The third phase of this trajectory was take‐up of the standard model by Peruvian policymakers and employees of the Juntos programme who overlaid their long‐standing representations of their indigenous clientele onto a supposedly ‘modern’ social policy instrument, thereby rendering it both maternalist and neo‐colonial.

Beyond the National: How the EU, OECD, and World Bank Do Family Policy

“…CCTs emerged as a policy innovation in the 1980s in several Latin American countries but in 1997 Mexico created the CCT that we now associate with the social investment perspective. The World Bank quickly joined the CCT bandwagon, offering technical expertise and funding for the extension of these instruments across Latin America (Jenson & Nagels, 2018). While Bank technocrats continued to praise the Mexican CCT, primarily because it had been designed to provide reliable evaluation data, the version that was standardized and diffused owed more to the Brazilian Bolsa Família that imposed lighter conditions and used a less neoliberal discourse (Jenson, 2017a, p. 211).…”

Réformes fiscales et organisations internationales

“…6 Pour des exemples de cette tentative de généralisation, voir (Jenson, Nagels, 2018 ;Diaz, 2017). Soulignons toutefois que, dans les travaux mentionnés, le processus de standardisation concerne les transferts monétaires conditionnels qui sont déjà l'innovation choisie par Ancelovici et Jenson (2012) dans leur article initial.…”

Empowerment Through Poverty Policy: The Evolution of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs in Mexico

“…97 The basis for this structure is the belief that mothers are more likely to invest responsibly and equitably in the family than fathers, and thus the benefit will be put to better use in their hands. 98 Although some women reported feeling increased autonomy through the receipt of the Progresa/Oportunidades benefit, empowerment cannot be measured solely through a small increase in income. 99 The introduction of this income does not inherently imply a redistribution of power within the household or more broadly within society.…”