Social protection responses by states and international organisations to the COVID-19 crisis in the global South: Stopgap or new departure?

Abstract

Macro events like the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Second World War have triggered new departures in social policy. What about the COVID-19 pandemic and the attendant socio-economic crisis? This article analyses the social protection measures taken by governments in the global South in response to the crisis, the social protection concepts developed by international organisations, and the overall strategies of the organisations in view of future shocks. The finding is that while the measures taken by governments expectedly have just been stopgap measures of a transitory nature, international organisations are aspiring to future-oriented policies and present a range of concepts for the time after the crisis. However, these are old concepts from pre-COVID-19 times, and the main strategy is to expand rather than reform the old models, even though the international organisations themselves identify new forms of poverty and structural inequalities. Moreover, the organisations do not provide conclusive evidence of their strategy’s viability; the strategy rather reflects a belief in social progress. All in all, the crisis has hardly been used as a window of opportunity for generating new ideas of social protection. Rather, the crisis has revealed the flimsy nature of widespread thinking about building social protection in the global South. Conceptually, the article draws on world society theory, conceiving of the pandemic as a global macro event.

Social Policy Responses to Covid-19 in the Global South: Evidence from 36 Countries

“…Relatedly, they argue that most social policy responses have aimed at stabilising rather than fundamentally changing the existing economic order-representing a kind of 'emergency Keynesianism'. Leisering (2021) argues that governments' social policy responses have been mostly 'stopgap measures' but suggests that international organisations have been more 'future-oriented', already developing 'normative models [ : : : ] designed for the time after the crisis'. Yet, most scholars seem to agree that the Covid-19 pandemic has not (yet) turned out to be a 'critical juncture' for welfare state development (see Gronbach and Seekings, 2021).…”

“…Social policy scholars across the world have responded quickly and begun to analyse governments' and international organizations' social policy responses to the pandemic (e.g. Béland et al, 2021a;Cook and Ulriksen, 2021;Leisering, 2021). Broadly speaking, differences in countries' social policy responses are rooted in the variable impact of the pandemic across countries as well as different political and economic contexts.…”

Path dependence or steps for major reforms? Pandemic-related social protection measures in ten OECD countries

“…Although that could be an option, especially when changes are happening as path-breaking. It is more or less likely that a crisis like a global pandemic, which affects the lives of many and poses severe threats to societies, may induce a rethinking of the principles and institutions of social protection that change current social security instruments (Capoccia & Kelemen, 2007;Leisering, 2021;Van de Ven et al, 1999).…”

Providing social assistance and humanitarian relief: The case for embracing uncertainty

“…Responses to COVID‐19, for example, have provided social protection for a great many people through new programmes with significant funding. However, many of these have been stop‐gap measures that have not recast the way such programmes respond to uncertainties (Leisering, 2021). Especially when external funds dry up, there is a significant mismatch between risk‐based prediction—and the resulting plans and programmes—and the outcomes on the ground.…”