Poverty Reduction, Education, and the Global Diffusion of Conditional Cash Transfers
Abstract
This book explores Conditional Cash Transfers programs within the context of education policy over the past several decades. Conditional Cash Transfer programs (CCTs) provide cash to poor families upon the fulfillment of conditions related to the education and health of their children. Even though CCTs aim to improve educational attainment, it is not clear whether Departments or Ministries of Education have internalized CCTs into their own sets of policies and whether that has had an impact on the quality of education being offered to low income students. Equally intriguing is the question of how conditional cash transfer programs have been politically sustained in so many countries, some of them having existed for over ten years. In order to explore that, this book will build upon a comparative study of three programs across the Americas: Opportunity NYC, Subsidios Condicionados a la Asistencia Escolar (Bogota, Colombia), and Bolsa Famila (Brazil). The book presents a detailed and non-official account on the NYC and Bogota programs and will analyze CCTs from both a political and education policy perspective.
Chapters (8)
Chapter 1 begins by presenting the international rise of the poverty reduction agenda in the broader development framework and how education was related to it. Then it moves to presenting the meaning of Conditional Cash Transfer programs, when and where they were first created, telling the story of how they became internationally popular in the wake of the poverty reduction agenda.
Chapter 2 brings a new and updated appraisal of all ever-existing conditional cash transfers (CCTs) with education-related conditions. It points to how they diffused over time and space, gradually being adopted by an increasing number of counties. The chapter lays down an overview of the most common characteristics of CCTs across the globe, looking at variables such as source of funding, education-related conditionalities, and program duration. The chapter also presents alternative theories that may help to explain CCT’s worldwide diffusion.
Paves the way for the study of specific conditional cash transfer (CCT) cases, where the interest lies mainly in analyzing how CCTs and education policy have interrelated. The chapter briefly introduces the theories and concepts that framed the study of cases. It also explains the methodology used in the comparative study, so as to establish the credibility of its results.
Chapter 4 brings a complete account of the design, implementation, and frustrating results of Opportunity NYC, a conditional cash transfer program that was experimented in New York, supposedly following the example of the Mexican conditional cash transfers (CCT). It tells how Opportunity NYC had a rationale that was distinct from any other CCT in the world, how it was financed only with private money, and how it was terminated after only three years of implementation. Finally, the chapter looks into the policy diffusion processes involving the program, revealing how it was not really the result of emulation from Mexico and how, even before its evaluation was completed, the program was being used as an international example.
Chapter 5 brings up the story of a not so prominent and yet very promising conditional cash transfer: the Subsidios program. It was adopted by Bogota’s city government and, throughout its short life, combined characteristics that, from an educational perspective, make it a very interesting case. The chapter also reveals how the political dynamics between Bogota’s government and Colombia’s national government restricted the international promotion of the program, even by the international development bank that had lent the money for its creation.
Chapter 6 is about the Brazilian Bolsa Familia, the largest conditional cash transfer program in the world. Bolsa Familia currently reaches 14 million families, including 17 million students. It has been one of the main contributors to the stark reduction of extreme poverty and to the elimination of hunger in Brazil over recent years. The chapter gives an account of how the program was created, how it currently works, and how it relates to education policies and practices in Brazil. The chapter also raises questions about the program’s political survival, given the recent and abrupt changes in Brazil’s political system.
Chapter 7 contrasts case-specific findings, pointing out what they reveal in terms of conditional cash transfers (CCTs) linkage (or absence of) to educational policies and practices. Some suggested inputs to existing theories are provided, along with the presentation of some lessons learned. The findings are meant to inspire the large array of stakeholders that have somehow got involved in the CCT debate and expansion throughout the world. It speaks especially to those who have high hopes of CCTs having deeper impacts on the educational indicators of developing countries and points out the challenges that need to be surmounted if those hopes are to become true. Lastly, the chapter is also dedicated to looking at CCT’s long program lives. It argues that when funding is not an issue, most of these programs have been able to survive for long periods of time. Bolsa Familia has existed since 2004 in Brazil and the same long life story applies to the multiplicity of CCTs in Latin America, such as in Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay, and even the national Colombian CCT.
Chapter 8raises questions about CCTs’ future. As the political thermometer changes from progressive to conservative in various countries, one cannot but wonder what will happen to the international poverty reduction agenda, which brings us back to the discussions presented in the beginning of the book. As conservative governments come to power—whether legitimately or illegitimately—and as national budgets become tighter, it is not too clear if the poverty-reduction agenda, which made room for the creation and diffusion of CCTs, will remain as a top international developmental priority.
... Nevertheless, its role as a foreign policy (FP) instrument or, more broadly, in the national strategies of international insertion, has been greatly neglected (Faria 2012). Studies on international development cooperation, South-South cooperation and soft power are partial exceptions, as it is usual that the sharing, exportation or importation of policy experiences are emphasised, even if not always in dialogue with the policy diffusion literature (Chatin 2016;Lima 2015;Milani & Duarte 2015;Milani & Lopes 2014;Milhorance 2013Milhorance , 2019Osorio Gonnet et al. 2020;Pomeroy et al. 2019;Santarelli & Pomeroy 2017;Silva 2017). Be that as it may, those studies usually fail to grasp the full meaning of policy diffusion as a foreign policy tool and to stress the role played by foreign policy as a driver for policy diffusion. ...
... It is clear, furthermore, that policy exportation, for instance, may also be quite relevant at the domestic level, for example helping to legitimise policies that are controversial at home or helping to increase or consolidate the popularity of a president. We may suggest, for example, that in Brazil the transformation of Bolsa Família -the conditional cash transfer program inaugurated by Lula in 2004 -into an internationally acclaimed 'best practice' to be emulated by other developing countries (Silva 2017) contributed both to the domestic legitimacy of redistribution and the president's high levels of popularity, as well as his electoral victories (for an appraisal of how Bolsa Família helped Lula to be re-elected in 2006, see Hunter & Power 2007. See also Zucco Jr. 2013). ...
The article argues that international policy diffusion should also be understood as one of the many foreign policy instruments, and that it is a rather versatile one, as it can be coupled to most or perhaps all traditional foreign policy instruments: political, economic, cultural, and military. It also proposes that the exportation of Brazilian policy innovations may be regarded as the backbone of Lula da Silva’s foreign policy (2003-2010), as it was central to: (a) the manufacturing of a renewed international identity for the country; (b) the promotion of post-liberal regionalism in Latin America; (c) the defence of new or expanded roles for international organizations, which was a central priority for Brazilian foreign policy in that period; (d) the revitalisation of the South-South coalition; (e) the presidential diplomacy; and (f) the promotion of systematic bilateral cooperation with Latin American and African countries.
... This contrasts with the philosophy of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which has made "sustainability" a catchword in the global fight against poverty, injustice, and widespread inequalities. As observed by Owusu-Addo et al. (2018b) and many others (Angeles et al., 2017;Bastagli et al., 2016;Courtin et al., 2018;Davis et al., 2016;Fiszbein, 2009;Sá e Silva, 2017;Zembe-Mkabile et al., 2018), CTs can play a key role in realizing most of the SDGs, including SDG 1 (no poverty-i.e. CTs' impact on poverty reduction), SDG 2 (zero hunger-CTs' impact on food security and nutrition), SDG 3 (good health and well-being-CTs' impact on health services utilization), SDG 4 (quality education-CTs' impact on school enrollment and attendance), SDG 5 (gender equality-CTs' impact on adolescent empowerment), SDG 8 (child labor-CTs' impact on child labor reduction), and SDG 16 (justice-CTs' impact on birth registration). ...
Cash transfers (CTs) are increasingly high on the agenda of governments and development partners in low‐and middle‐income countries (LMICs). While CTs have shown to be one of the most potent social policies to reduce poverty and improve human capital, concerns have been raised about their sustainability. This paper examines the mechanisms of, enablers of, and barriers to CT sustainability. Realist qualitative methods were employed to interview policymakers, development partners, and program managers ( N = 32), as well as program beneficiaries ( N = 93) in Ghana. The data were analyzed using a thematic framework approach. The findings show that enablers of CT sustainability include program institutionalization, availability of a functional exit strategy, and networking of social programs around beneficiary households. CTs' mechanisms of sustainability were shared vision and formalization of roles of service providers, program acceptability and buy‐in, and productive inclusion. Key barriers to CT sustainability were political prioritization and ownership of the program, and weak intersectoral collaboration. From the analyses, we propose a conceptual framework which can be used to plan for CT sustainability.
... Quando Bolsonaro assumiu a presidência, em 1 o de janeiro de 2019, ele herdou uma máquina federal robusta, profissional e bem estabelecida. O Estado federal brasileiro foi capaz de, por exemplo, estabelecer o Bolsa Família, o maior programa de transferência de renda condicionada do mundo, atingindo 14 milhões de famílias pobres (Morais, 2017 Saúde (SUS), que torna a saúde pública e gratuita acessível a todo cidadão, em qualquer parte do país, incluindo ampla imunização. O Brasil tem uma rede de 69 universidades federais, que oferecem acesso à graduação e à pós-graduação de elevada qualidade e com gratuidade. ...
... Quando Bolsonaro assumiu a presidência, em 1 o de janeiro de 2019, ele herdou uma máquina federal robusta, profissional e bem estabelecida. O Estado federal brasileiro foi capaz de, por exemplo, estabelecer o Bolsa Família, o maior programa de transferência de renda condicionada do mundo, atingindo 14 milhões de famílias pobres (Morais, 2017 Saúde (SUS), que torna a saúde pública e gratuita acessível a todo cidadão, em qualquer parte do país, incluindo ampla imunização. O Brasil tem uma rede de 69 universidades federais, que oferecem acesso à graduação e à pós-graduação de elevada qualidade e com gratuidade. ...
Este livro traz os principais achados de um projeto de pesquisa realizado em parceria entre a Diretoria de Estudos e Políticas do Estado, das Instituições e da Democracia do Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (Diest/Ipea) e o Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia em Políticas Públicas, Estratégias e Desenvolvimento (INCT/PPED), com o objetivo de analisar processos de mudanças de políticas federais brasileiras em vários setores entre 2016 e 2022.
Mudanças e transformações em programas, projetos e ações governamentais estão entre os principais temas de pesquisa em políticas públicas. Entre os tipos de mudanças analisadas encontra-se o policy dismantling, ou desmonte de políticas, caracterizado pela redução, diminuição ou remoção de objetivos, instrumentos ou capacidades administrativas existentes para sua implementação. Da mesma maneira, estudos sobre retrocesso democrático e populismo autoritário ou reacionário se intensificaram em tempos recentes. Contudo, a literatura existente não trabalha com mudanças de políticas públicas sob ambientes de retrocesso democrático e populismo reacionário. Esta é uma lacuna que o projeto veio preencher. O projeto de pesquisa teve como objetivo responder perguntas sobre os tipos de mudança que sofreram as políticas estudadas no período em questão, como se deram tais processos, quais foram as motivações para o desmonte ou a reconfiguração das políticas analisadas, o que caracteriza os processos de
desmonte no caso brasileiro em relação aos casos apresentados pela literatura internacional e quais fatores explicam a maior ou menor resiliência das políticas analisadas. O trabalho se apoiou em estudos de caso apresentados pelos pesquisadores do projeto a partir de suas áreas de especialização e interesse. Os casos estudados compreenderam setores de política diversos, tais como assistência social, meio ambiente, infraestrutura, cultura, ciência, tecnologia e inovação (CT&I), mulheres e igualdade de gênero, agricultura familiar, entre outros
... Some of these are abstract, such as ideas, ideologies, principles, discourses, paradigms and so on, while others are more concrete, such as policy models and designs, laws and constitutions, administrative arrangements, forms of government, policy instruments, institutions, etc. To mention just a few examples, scholars have dedicated their research to understand transfer, diffusion, and circulation of the following objects: democratic institutions and participatory democracy (Huntington, 1993;Porto de Oliveira, 2017;Simmons et al., 2010), regulatory agencies (Levi-Faur and Jordana, 2005), pensions (Brooks, 2005), migration policies (Braz, 2018;Channac, 2006;Infantino, 2019), social policies (Kuhlmann et al., 2020;Weyland, 2006), conditional cash transfers (Howlett et al., 2018;Leisering, 2019; Morais de Sá e Silva, 2017;Osorio Gonnet, 2019), transport policies (Ardila, 2020;Mejía-Dugand et al., 2013;Montero, 2017;Wood, 2015b), disaster reduction (Soremi, 2019), rule of law (Dezalay and Garth, 2002), evidence-based health agencies (Hassenteufel et al., 2017), microfinance (Oikawa Cordeiro, 2019), harm reduction (Baker et al., 2020), and administrative capacities (Hadjiisky, 2017), amongst other "objects". An important feature of policy transfer dynamics is that, as will be discussed later, public policies are not transplanted, and don't necessarily displace, as a monolithic block, but instead different policy instruments and components, coming from different origins, are combined and translated to meet the demands in the context and expectations of transfer agents. ...
... The internationalisation process of Brazilian social policies is not new and has involved municipal initiatives since the 1970s (Justo 2009, Porto de Oliveira 2016), such as Curitiba's transport model and the Participatory Budgeting (PB) of Porto Alegre. In this century, the process attained a new level, with screening by international organisations such as the UN and the World Bank (PNUD/RDH 2014; Nações Unidas Brasil 2011;Wetzel 2013), which began to recommend Brazilian models of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs and family farming programs (Milhorance 2013;Porto de Oliveira, 2016, 2019Morais de Sá and Silva 2017). ...
This article discusses the complex relationship between the World Bank and the Brazilian government regarding the implementation of the Bolsa Família Program (Family Allowance Program) from 2004 onwards. The hypothesis is that there was an alignment of the agendas for combating hunger and poverty among the entities. This made it possible to transfer Brazilian instruments and experiences to the world through World Bank. Based on a triangulation technique, it argues that the development of state capacity for the implementation of the program took place on a more cooperative basis than an imposition on the part of the World Bank, in a positive-sum game. Brazil gained the World Bank’s seal of approval as a model of policy transfer to the world and the international organisation found new experience of best practices, which renewed the Bank’s portfolio of policy instruments. As a result, in the last years of Lula’s second term, Brazil became an export platform for social policies in an international context, specifically concerning conditional cash transfer and poverty reduction policies.
... The poverty alleviation efforts have made great progress in the world, and the poverty situation has been better in many places. However, the poverty alleviation effect is poor and the quality of life is still low in many areas [57]. A reason lies in the difficulty to know who the extremely poor are, where they live, which is a difficult problem to solve requiring more targeted and highly effective solutions [58]. ...
A prerequisite for eliminating poverty is to accurately identify and target the households in poverty. While some factors such as asset holdings are well recognized as relevant for assessing and predicting poverty, a priori selected indicators are not sufficient conditions for poverty and the key factors may vary from one case to another. Researchers have begun to apply machine learning algorithms to predict poor households. This paper uses the accuracy of prediction as the standard to study the application of machine learning algorithms. Using the DHS data of 8040 households in Kyrgyzstan, we apply a state-of-the-art algorithm (XGBoost) to explore the full dataset, profiting from the algorithm's ability in handling many variables, and compare the results with the a priori selected variables. We also compare XGBoost with generalized linear model (GLM), the latter being viewed as an approach in between traditional models and modern machine learning algorithms. The results imply that the inclusion of more variables is not necessarily preferable for prediction; a few important variables selected by the algorithms may also perform well. Different algorithms may select different variables as the important ones for prediction. XGBoost performs better than GLM in most cases, and machine learning is useful for variable selection. Additionally, XGBoost is particularly preferable when using a priori variables.
... Given that a considerable proportion of child deaths are related to poverty and result from health issues that can be treated and prevented easily and economically [1,4], income redistribution initiatives have been a successful strategy for the improvement of child survival, especially in low-and middle-income countries [5][6][7][8][9]. Among such strategies are conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs, created with the purpose of breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty by transferring cash to low-income families as long as they comply with the conditions of investing in their children's health and education [10]. Almost all countries in Latin America have CCT programs, and they are also present in countries including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nigeria, Malawi, and Turkey [11,12], sparking interest even in high-income countries, given their impact on social development [13]. ...
Background
Brazil has made great progress in reducing child mortality over the past decades, and a parcel of this achievement has been credited to the Bolsa Família program (BFP). We examined the association between being a BFP beneficiary and child mortality (1–4 years of age), also examining how this association differs by maternal race/skin color, gestational age at birth (term versus preterm), municipality income level, and index of quality of BFP management.
Methods and findings
This is a cross-sectional analysis nested within the 100 Million Brazilian Cohort, a population-based cohort primarily built from Brazil’s Unified Registry for Social Programs (Cadastro Único). We analyzed data from 6,309,366 children under 5 years of age whose families enrolled between 2006 and 2015. Through deterministic linkage with the BFP payroll datasets, and similarity linkage with the Brazilian Mortality Information System, 4,858,253 children were identified as beneficiaries (77%) and 1,451,113 (23%) were not. Our analysis consisted of a combination of kernel matching and weighted logistic regressions. After kernel matching, 5,308,989 (84.1%) children were included in the final weighted logistic analysis, with 4,107,920 (77.4%) of those being beneficiaries and 1,201,069 (22.6%) not, with a total of 14,897 linked deaths. Overall, BFP participation was associated with a reduction in child mortality (weighted odds ratio [OR] = 0.83; 95% CI: 0.79 to 0.88; p < 0.001). This association was stronger for preterm children (weighted OR = 0.78; 95% CI: 0.68 to 0.90; p < 0.001), children of Black mothers (weighted OR = 0.74; 95% CI: 0.57 to 0.97; p < 0.001), children living in municipalities in the lowest income quintile (first quintile of municipal income: weighted OR = 0.72; 95% CI: 0.62 to 0.82; p < 0.001), and municipalities with better index of BFP management (5th quintile of the Decentralized Management Index: weighted OR = 0.76; 95% CI: 0.66 to 0.88; p < 0.001). The main limitation of our methodology is that our propensity score approach does not account for possible unmeasured confounders. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis showed that loss of nameless death records before linkage may have resulted in overestimation of the associations between BFP participation and mortality, with loss of statistical significance in municipalities with greater losses of data and change in the direction of the association in municipalities with no losses.
Conclusions
In this study, we observed a significant association between BFP participation and child mortality in children aged 1–4 years and found that this association was stronger for children living in municipalities in the lowest quintile of wealth, in municipalities with better index of program management, and also in preterm children and children of Black mothers. These findings reinforce the evidence that programs like BFP, already proven effective in poverty reduction, have a great potential to improve child health and survival. Subgroup analysis revealed heterogeneous results, useful for policy improvement and better targeting of BFP.
... The institution also endorsed the Brazilian model of CCTs, recommending it to various countries, publishing materials about the Family Allowance Program, encouraging field visits to Brazil, and funding projects to implement such policies elsewhere, as was the case with the Philippines, among others. In this regard, according to Howlett et al. (2018: 276) de Sá e Silva (2017), this was an important transnational arena for sharing knowledge about CCTs, where both experienced countries and newcomers met and discussed different features of such policies. In general, the World Bank was a proactive promoter of CCTs and according to Howlett et al. (2018), the reports presented the main experiences which were those of Mexico and Brazil. ...
The importation of foreign models is part of Brazil’s institution building story, owing to its Portuguese colonisation and the influence of European countries and the United States. After the transition to democracy and the Constitution of 1988, the scenario began to change. The country developed social policy innovations that rose to a national scale when the Workers’ Party took office. These innovations started to spread globally, and international organisations began to recommend Brazilian social policies. Examples of Brazilian policies that have been transferred are the Family Allowance and the National School Feeding Programs. How has Brazil moved from importing foreign institutions to becoming a Southern country reference in terms of social policies? The main argument here is that Brazil, while building itself into a rising power, has developed new patterns of policy transfers that have so far been overlooked by the field literature. Through a process-tracing analysis of Brazil’s social policy diffusion, we have been able to identify different forces that facilitate these transfers, such as a quest for international legitimacy, the role of “policy ambassadors,” the joint efforts of various national institutions, Brazilians occupying positions in international organisations, and the creation of institutions designed for these policy transfers.
... The programme offers regular cash benefits to targeted households, coupled with complementary health and educational services. It is funded from general state revenues, with support from DFID and the World Bank (Morais, 2017). ...
The purpose of this paper is to improve knowledge of the transnational diffusion of public policies. It argues that existing studies on the subject do not provide an adequate understanding of the mechanisms through which diffusion takes place, nor do they sufficiently address the roles specific organizations and individuals play in driving or determining the policy transfer process. We address these shortcomings by studying the diffusion of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes from Latin America to Ghana and the Philippines over the past decade. We use the concept of ‘instruments constituency’ to delineate and trace the various actors and channels involved in the diffusion of CCTs. The comparative case studies show that these constituencies, dedicated to the articulation, adoption, and expansion of particular policy instruments, are central players in transnational diffusion of policies. This finding has significant implications for the study of policy transfer and diffusion, identifying a heretofore neglected actor in these processes.
In Chile, a conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme was established by a left-wing government in 2004 and then re-established by a right-wing coalition in 2014. Despite some revisions and adjustments, Ingreso Ético Familiar maintained the core characteristics of its predecessor Chile Solidario. This reflected a wider trend of CCT adoption by an ideologically diverse group of governments. Against this background, it is obvious that the CCT policy model appeals to political decision-makers on a wide scale, or at least makes it acceptable to them. However, questions remain: how was this model embraced by the ideologically opposing coalitions in Chile? And more broadly: how do CCTs appeal to such a wide range of policymakers? The article explores the argumentation of Chilean Members of Parliament and examines how the ideological and political consensus around these programmes was discursively attained. Through this case, the article also sheds light on how domestic policy dynamics interact with global policy processes. The analysis revealed points of confluence, which serve to illustrate the CCT model’s capacity to convey different meanings to different people – allowing it to be interpreted to fit a variety of different perspectives. I define this quality as discursive malleability and argue that it is an important quality not only in explaining how a policy model can resonate among or appeal to such a wide range of policymakers, but also in the process where a global model is adopted in a country and becomes part of the domestic political debate.
Because conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) can address the deep roots of violence, many scholars and policymakers have assumed them to be an effective and innocuous tool to take on the issue. I argue that while CCTs may have positive economic effects, they can also trigger social discord, criminal predation, and political conflict and, in doing so, increase violence. To test this claim, I take advantage of the exogenous shock caused by the randomized expansion of Mexico’s flagship CCT, PROGRESA/Oportunidades. I find that that the experimental introduction of the program increased rather than decreased violence. Then, I analyze all the data compiled by LAPOP on the issue over the years. I find that, other things constant, Latin Americans are more exposed to violence and insecurity when they participate in CCTs than when they do not. These findings urge us to reconsider the effects of social programs on violence.
Most research in policy transfer studies focused on cases of policies originating from the ‘Global North’. However, recently countries of the ‘Global South’ became sources of models. With the exception of a few studies, literature has not considered these developments. This paper aims at contributing to this direction, by proposing an agenda drawn from policy transfer studies as well as from the observation of Brazil’s and China’s engagement in policy transfer. This exercise helps highlight a series of aspects overlooked by the literature. Understanding their motivations, their timing and other important aspects related to these processes can shed new light on policy transfer phenomena. New research questions are introduced and illustrated by examples from Brazil and China.
The policy dismantling framework was developed to account for processes involving the reduction or termination of existing policies, especially in the so-called advanced democracies. However, is the model proposed by policy dismantling scholars applicable to contexts of democratic backsliding such as Bolsonaro’s Brazil? Do those contexts offer new elements to their analytical model? This article addresses those questions by analyzing the case of Brazil under President Jair Bolsonaro. Departing from research on policy dismantling recently conducted in Brazil and based on data collected with federal civil servants from 2019 to 2021, it will be argued that the mechanics of policy dismantling in Brazil involve not only the reduction and elimination of past policies but also the manipulation of policy capacities. At the individual policy capacity level, that process has involved mistrust and contempt for career civil servants, fear, and bureaucratic reshuffling, whereby bureaucrats were either removed from their original positions or resorted to exit in fear of persecution. The intimidation and disarrangement of the federal bureaucracy in Brazil appears to be an integral part of capacity manipulation, shedding light into what policy dismantling looks like in contexts of democratic backsliding.
Cash transfers have become popular for relieving poverty in the global south. Many programmes are conditional on beneficiaries complying with medical check‐ups, nutritional assessments and vaccinations. Such conditions may improve the health of beneficiaries, above all the health their young children. But often public health provision is strained: might the increased attention to those getting the transfers reduce health services to non‐beneficiaries, and especially those on low incomes who cannot afford private medicine? What are the impacts of the largest and longest‐lived conditional cash transfer programme in the world, Brazil's Bolsa Família (BF), on the health of non‐beneficiaries living in poverty? Does the health of non‐beneficiaries suffer when BF requirements come into place? Do the health requirements of BF lead to increased administrative costs for local health centres? Do they squeeze remaining resources for health care? Surveys from before and after the creation of BF are used to model the probability of death for infants born into poor households, comparing those enrolled in BF to those not included. The impacts of the BF programme on local health budgets are modelled through regression analysis. The analysis takes advantage of the varying degree of coverage of BF at the level of municipalities across Brazil. Implementation of BF led to lower risk of death of infants from beneficiary families than predicted by trends before BF, while infants from impoverished non‐beneficiary families developed a higher‐than‐expected risk of death. The benefits to the former group were larger than the harm to the latter group, which explains why in aggregate BF appears to reduce infant and child mortality. The expansion of BF depressed local spending on primary health care: above all, more of the health budget and staff time was spent on monitoring compliance with health conditionalities. The harmful spillovers from BF to the health of low‐income households who were not included in the programme pose questions about the conditions that often accompany cash transfer programmes. In cases like Brazil, where budgets for public health care are limited, unconditional transfers might be preferable. Either that, or if health conditions are applied to cash transfer beneficiaries, then extra resources needed to be granted to health centres to allow them to deal with the increased demand from beneficiaries for services.
Contemporary policymaking has been characterized by both a progressive state involvement in the internationalization of domestic policies and the intensification of influence of global agendas which demand that states implement new practices posed by multilateral agencies. Policy transfer literature has focused on different aspects of actors’ agency, but there is lack of knowledge about the microdynamics of state capacities that enable policy transfer. At the same time, the capacity literature has paid little attention to the transnationalization of public action. This paper undertakes a theoretical discussion engaging the two literatures and proposes an analytical model to examine policy transfer capacity.
Contemporary policymaking has been characterized by both a progressive state involvement in the internationalization of domestic policies and the intensification of influence of global agendas which demand that states implement new practices posed by multilateral agencies. Policy transfer literature has focused on different aspects of actors’ agency, but there is lack of knowledge about the microdynamics of state capacities that enable policy transfer. At the same time, the capacity literature has paid little attention to the transnationalization of public action. This paper undertakes a theoretical discussion engaging the two literatures and proposes an analytical model to examine policy transfer capacity.
This chapter focuses on Brazilian South–South Cooperation (SSC) as a vector for policy transfer and circulation between Brazil and Africa. It argues that during the first decades of the new century, Brazilian policies in the fields of agriculture, health and social protection have travelled to Africa through SSC, embedded in a broader circulation of development-related policy knowledge and technology from Brazil to the developing world. This resulted from strong state activism and the mobilisation of policy-winning coalitions. This circulation has been deeply connected to the attractiveness of Brazilian policy solutions to actors outside Brazil (international organisations and partner governments) and their eagerness to learn from Brazilian experiences. The circulation has also been shaped by Brazil’s authority and capacity to inspire and share. Engaging with questions of policy change and the time factor in policy travel, the chapter further argues that the simultaneous contraction in Brazilian state activism in SSC, since the mid-2010s, and the persistent efforts to consolidate SSC as a policy field in Brazil, have implications on the ways the policy travels through development cooperation and affects the politics of Brazilian policy diffusion in Africa. In particular, it posits the importance of a new set of dynamics, namely: (i) Brazilian flagship public actors and institutions resistant to policy sharing; (ii) ‘trilateralisation’ of the Brazilian SSC and policy circulation through United Nations agencies and (iii) the increased focus on hands-on technical SSC exchanges to pilot Brazilian policy solutions, instruments and programmes in Africa.
As it is widely recognized, countries employ various distinct strategies and instruments in order to accomplish their foreign policy objectives. That means there are several kinds of foreign policy (FP) instruments or tools. A typology of FP instruments should arguably include the following categories: (1) political, (2) economic, (3) cultural, and (4) military instruments. Political instruments (1) encompass the various sorts of diplomacy; the building of international coalitions or alliances; the creation of international organizations or the instrumentalization of existing ones; and the promotion of international regimes. The economic instruments (2) of foreign policy comprise foreign aid; economic and trade policies; and economic sanctions. There are at least three kinds of (3) cultural instruments: the establishment and promotion of a national identity; the search for improving the country reputation abroad through so-called “nation branding”; and knowledge and values promotion. The military instruments (4) of foreign policy are persuasion via military threat or pressure and the use of plain force, i.e. the making of war. After presenting the distinct drivers for international policy diffusion, the chapter contends that policy diffusion should be understood as a rather usual and important FP instrument. In order to demonstrate how frequently the promotion of policy diffusion (PD) has been used as a means to accomplish foreign policy objectives, the chapter discusses how PD may be associated with the several foreign policy instruments that were just presented. Afterwards we give examples from both Brazilian and Chinese experiences, past and present.
Brazil emerged in the early 2000s as an important “Southern hub” in the new geographies of global policy circulation. The chapter analyses the rise and fall of Brazil as a “policy exporter” between 2003 and 2022. It unpacks the motives behind Brazilian state active promotion of a key set of development-related policies to other countries during this time and the shifting policy configurations that first enabled then constrained the country to play this role. Looking at almost two decades of circulation of Brazil-grown policy solutions through the combined lenses of foreign policy analysis and policy diffusion, the chapter contributes to understanding the actors, mechanisms and dynamics of change and continuity behind a major contemporary Southern policy innovation hub.
This chapter introduces the contents and objectives of the book. Starting from the observation that the diffusion of models from the Global North has been widely covered by the policy transfer literature, the chapter calls for a new perspective that studies diffusion from the Global South. After taking stock of a recent literature that has begun to analyse this phenomenon, and has shifted the attention of policy transfer research from the classic focus on Western countries to countries of the South, the chapter proposes to continue following this direction by choosing Brazil and China as two exemplary representatives of the Global South. These two countries have greatly contributed to the promotion of alternative approaches and policies to development and beyond, and constitute an interesting starting point for a comparative analysis of the role of countries of the Global South in the global offer of policy ideas and models. To pursue this heuristic goal, the chapter also proposes a research agenda and a framework of questions that will hopefully inspire new research. These focus specifically on the agents and objects, motivations and modalities, structures and time of policy transfers. This chapter also offers a general overview of the book, summarising the chapters and showing how they tie together.
This paper introduces the dossier entitled ‘Policy Transfer and South-South Cooperation’. Very often development cooperation programmes, particularly those labelled as part of South-South cooperation (SSC), use policy transfer as one of their key implementation tools. However, irrespective of cross-cutting dimensions and shared commonalities, both fields of practices have generated research traditions that have followed specific disciplinary (and sometimes interdisciplinary) trajectories which have seldom met. Policy transfer promoted by national and international, state and non-state agents of the Global South via development cooperation raises several questions that remain unexplored and overlooked by the scholarly literature. This dossier intends to promote a dialogue between these two fields, thus analysing how policy transfer through SSC may create new power relations, identities, world visions and practices. This introductory article presents a theoretical cartography and offers in the first section a brief literature review of both fields of research; in the second section it presents the historical background of SSC and Brazil’s changing roles in it; the third section outlines possible conversations between policy transfer and SSC; finally, in the concluding remarks we bring a few reflections about future research agendas.
Comparative policy analysis is at the heart of research that attempts to understand how policies travel. Most of the literature on policy transfer had been developed using the empirical background of policies migrating within the Global North or from there to developing countries. Studying policies that migrate within the Global South is relevant from a theoretical perspective, insofar as it allows us to identify new dynamics, agents and mechanisms involved in policy transfers. This article analyzes two Brazilian policies that have been diffused around the globe: The Family Allowance Program and the Food Purchase Program. This research explores how these policies have been internationalized and what conditions have facilitated this process. To explain this movement, we combine the study of individuals, domestic and international organizations, political structures and change. We argue that individuals have been fundamental to internationalizing Brazilian policies. They have benefitted from both national and international structures and organizations that have facilitated the diffusion of policies that they have promoted abroad. This study relies on field work carried out in Brazil, Chile and Italy. We use a process-tracing strategy to reconstruct the pathways of diffusion.
Neste artigo, relatamos o processo e os resultados do simpósio “Questões críticas: meio ambiente, direitos humanos e democracia no Brasil sob Bolsonaro”. O simpósio representou uma tentativa de se entender esse novo Brasil que tem intrigado observadores e acadêmicos em anos recentes. Os temas que emergiram como achados de nossas discussões incluem: 1) o surgimento de novas subjetividades e identidades políticas que tem formado e transformado o tecido social brasileiro; 2) processos de desmonte institucional e de políticas públicas em áreas cruciais para o desenvolvimento humano e sustentável no Brasil; e 3) tentativas de resistência a essas mudanças, algumas delas com mais sucesso do que outras. Finalmente, o artigo apresenta reflexões sobre o papel da comunidade acadêmica de Brasilianistas ao buscar entender e influenciar o presente e o futuro do país.
Globalisation has helped to intensify the international flow of people, information and policies. Following this process there has been increasing global concern regarding problems in areas such as immigration, health, poverty, among others. Various agents are transnationally engaged in common responses to these issues. The classic definition of public policies is related to actions undertaken by governments to solve the problems within their jurisdictions. However, often problems do not respect national boundaries. Sometimes, policies need to involve other nations. This article discusses the main issues, concepts and challenges in the study of global public policies.
First, the article presents a review of the existing literature. Second, it introduces the key agents and agendas of global public policy. The discussion section focuses on the latest challenges and opportunities for research in Global Public Policy studies. Finally, new avenues of research are introduced, such as the dimension of power, the impact of the far-right and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Latin America underwent two major transformations during the 2000s: the widespread election of left-leaning presidents (the so-called left turn) and the diffusion of conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs)—innovative social programs that award regular stipends to poor families on the condition that their children attend school. Combining cross-national quantitative research covering the entire region and in-depth case studies based on field research, Human Capital versus Basic Income: Ideology and Models for Anti-Poverty Programs in Latin America challenges the conventional wisdom that these two transformations were unrelated. In this book, author Fabián A. Borges demonstrates that this ideology greatly influenced both the adoption and design of CCTs.
Motivation
In recent years, conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes have become progressively popular in low and middle-income countries, although a recent attempt has been made to replicate this type of programme in the United States. Yet, the potential of CCTs to perform well under different settings and to address a broader range of challenges is not clear.
Purpose
The article aims is to identify the major differences in the structural design and outcomes of CCTs in three areas of the world.
Methods and approach
The article looks at differences in the objectives, targeting mechanisms, incentives, conditionalities, cash-transfer systems and outcomes of Colombia’s Más Familias en Acción, India’s Janani Suraksha Yojana—although reference is made to other Indian CCTs—and the US Family Rewards.
Findings
The study found differences among the selected CCTs not only in terms of their objectives and cultural underpinnings, but also in their targeting effectiveness and ability to monitor compliance. These limitations were markedly present in the case of the implementation of CCTs in India where undue political interference also represents an issue of concern for the proper operation and evaluation of these programmes. Yet, despite their differences in structural design, the observed CCTs were able to provide several benefits to targeted populations.
Policy implications
The need for strong programme governance emerges as the main policy implication of this study.
This article examines regulatory policy transfer into a transitioning economy and explores the impact of corruption and weak state institutions on the resulting regulatory design and implementation. The study looks at an accreditation programme aimed at lifting the safety performance, compliance and business efficiency of truck operators in South Africa. In this case study a heavily state directed programme operating in Australia undergoes significant modification and redesign to achieve similar regulatory effect in the South African context. The case highlights how in transitioning settings the requirement to deal with local cultural and contextual issues such as corruption and weak state institutions, results in innovative regulatory design and delivery frameworks. While highlighting adaptation progressed through transfer, this study points to the important role industry can play independent of government in delivering the regulatory effect. The findings demonstrate the value transfer studies can bring to the analysis and understanding of policy and regulatory practice. This is a qualitative study drawing on interviews and participant observation with industry and government officials involved in the South African trucking industry.
The article seeks to contribute to the interdisciplinary literature on South–South cooperation (SSC) promoted by Brazil. By delving into both quantitative and qualitative data, the article presents an outlook on the last 20 years of Brazilian SSC projects and addresses the role of some domestic factors in this process. Data analysis reveals that presidential leadership and institutional-bureaucratic factors are important for a more comprehensive understanding of past and present trends. As indicated by the previous literature, Lula’s leadership was an important factor in the spike in SSC initiatives during the later years of his administration. Additionally, one should consider the role of federal institutions and their bureaucracies in sustaining momentum when the leadership driver is either absent or working against SSC, as is the case in the Bolsonaro administration.
In this chapter, we establish the historical context needed to understand the place of cash transfer in contemporary market-enhancing social policy. To this end we outline the circumstances that led to the establishment of the twentieth-century regime of “industrial citizenship,” to growing criticism of it, and finally to the rise to prominence of a competing model, labeled (largely by its opponents) as “market citizenship.” We pay considerable attention at each step to the social and philosophical debates that surrounded this evolution, trying to understand not just how one citizenship regime was challenged and partially replaced by another, but why.
This open access book asks whether cash-transfer programs for very low-income households promote social and economic citizenship and, if so, under what conditions. To this end, it brings together elements that are too often considered separately: the transformation of social and economic citizenship rights in a market-centered context, and the increasing popularity of cash transfer as an instrument both of social policy and humanitarian action. We link these by juxtaposing theoretical treatment of citizenship and inclusion with concrete policy case studies set in contemporary Turkey. Cases are taken both from domestic social policy and international relief efforts aimed at Syrian refugees. Theoretical discussion and case studies lead to the conclusion that cash transfer programs can promote economic and social inclusion – if deployed at an appropriate scale; if sufficient financial, technical, and social resources are available; and if program design and implementation promotes market inclusion of beneficiaries both as consumers and workers.
Ceren Ark-Yıldırım is Assistant Professor in the department of Political Science and Public Administration of Istanbul University, Turkey. Her research focuses on migration, cash transfer programs, and urban governance, and has appeared in journals such as Turkish Studies and South European Policy and Politics.
Marc Smyrl is Associate Professor in the department of Political Science at the University of Montpellier, France, where he directs the MA program in International Cooperation and Development. His research on comparative social policy has appeared in journals such as Governance and the Journal of Health Politics Policy and Law.
The aim of this Regional Issue is to generate new findings on social policy dynamics in the Global South and on the transnational factors that shape them. It suggests that the concept of causal mechanisms is particularly well suited for analyzing these dynamics. This introduction presents the concept of causal mechanisms, as well as different approaches to analyzing mechanisms in transnational social policy dynamics. It then summarizes the key findings of the individual articles, which utilize a plurality of mechanism‐based approaches to enable a fine‐grained analysis and explanation through in‐depth case studies, covering the fields of pensions, health, vocational education, long‐term care, immigrant welfare rights, and food subsidies. Finally, the introduction reflects on the implications of the findings for the study of transnational social policy dynamics, and how the study of causal mechanisms can enrich our understanding of these processes.
During the last three decades, the social security and health systems of the dual welfare regimes of Latin America (LA) have undergone thorough reforms, they have also developed numerous conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes and social pension schemes. The purpose of this work is to classify the reforms, showing which actors and paradigms were behind them, determining to what extent the reforms have had an effect on social well-being, and whether they have promoted or restricted the building up of rights and social citizenship. To accomplish such an objective, we analyze the impact of these reforms on five countries: Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela.
Social policies such as conditional cash transfer programmes (CCTs) have technical and measurable outcomes which are favourable for countries in the Global South, where development impact on health and education matters. This paper presents grounded narratives of women beneficiaries of the Philippines’ Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), and outlines how conditionalities have reconfigured beliefs and conduct among these women. Using the concept of governmentality, the process of meeting programme conditions presents itself as a form of exercising power to configure the habits and beliefs of the population. The paper contributes to the critical discourses, challenges and normative views on the impact of CCTs.
In this chapter, there is an exploration of the underlying assumptions for and against using the Wealth Creation Approach to poverty reduction. Marxist arguments against using the Wealth Creation Approach are based on the belief the private sector exploits workers who have little control over their own lives and need to be protected by governments, international organizations, and activists. The main argument for the use of the Wealth Creation Approach is based on the underlying assumption that the private sector creates jobs and other economic and social opportunities. The chapter includes examinations of ideas, theories, and public policies, such as mercantilism, economic freedom, redistribution, and the effect of free trade to either increase or decrease economic options available to individuals living in poverty.
Although tax systems are devised and guaranteed by laws, they require a well-organized, flexibly-structured and modern revenue administration that can adapt to changes quickly for the purpose of attaining desired goals. In recent years there have been a number of changes in the organizational structure of the Turkish Revenue Administration, whose foundation dates back to the Ottoman Empire. Of all, the most important and influential change was made in the year of 2005. Among the most compelling reasons for this change is the problem surrounding the organizational structure. In general terms, these problems were as follows: provincial units were not directly linked to the central administration, direct and fast communication could not be realized among the units within the organization, resources could not be used productively and effectively, processes of assignment and procedure were disconnected from each other, there was a quality problem in taxpayer services, the existing system did not completely pave the way for a participatory and transparent administration style, the process of creating new tax policies were inadequate, and an objective system of performance evaluation to increase activity and productivity in the system was not adequately formed. Reform efforts in the organizational structure of the revenue administration started with a view to overcoming problems generally associated with traditional organizational structures, to deal with advancement in information technologies, changes in ways of approaching to taxpayers, and largely to keep up with new processes and procedures in revenue streams and administration and their structural reorganization in developed countries. Intended goals are set out in Law no. 5345 published in the Official Gazette dated 16 May 2005. Since then, innovative changes have followed especially towards a new organizational structure, new job descriptions and a new set of functions to create a more responsive and dynamic structure in the revenue administration at all levels including the units in desperate need of overhaul to keep pace with new international developments and challenges especially in the field of technology. The study examines the restructuring of the Turkish Revenue Administration in terms of its organization and management within a historical perspective and through stages in which the proposed changes occured. Within this framework, the study is divided into four main sections: the historical development of the revenue administration is visited briefly in the first place, then the administrative transformation of the Turkish Revenue Administration is studied in detail under the second heading within the framework of the years before and after 2005 when the most important step in transformation was realized, thirdly the paper will evaluate the results of the restructuring/transformation that took place, and finally, it will conclude by addressing the ensuing circumstances in the revenue administration with reference to particular challenges posed by its restructuring process.
We first provide a general overview of conditional cash transfers and then review in detail the available information on conditional cash transfers for education and conditional health benefits in Turkey. The program was primarily initiated to alleviate the effects of the Turkish 2000–2001 banking crisis on the poor. In addition, it was aimed at increasing the enrolment rate and duration of schooling for children living in a low-income family as well as ensuring that women during and after pregnancy, and children after birth benefit from basic healthcare and nutrition services. In fact, according to our study, Turkey has overall made significant progress in both health outcomes and access to education at all levels, and this observed improvement in education and health could be attributed to the implementation of conditional cash transfers. However, although the descriptive statistics suggest that there has been a gradual increase in the number of beneficiaries for both conditional cash transfers for education and conditional health benefits over a 16-year period (2003–2018), the total amount of resources allocated to conditional cash transfers in other social protection programs is still limited.
Latin American countries have for a long time been importers of public policies and institutions from the Global North. The colonial legacy and resulting patterns of international relations during the 20th century favoured a course of adoption and hybridization of political institutions. In recent decades, a new conjuncture has emerged in which Latin American policies have started to diffuse South-South and even South-North.
Led by Brazil with Participatory Budgeting and the Bolsa Familia program, other countries in the region soon followed. The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system and bicycle policies in Curitiba and Bogotá have also reached wide international recognition and circulation. And yet, despite Latin America’s new role as a policy "exporter", little is known about its dynamics, causes, and effects. Why have Latin American policies been diffused inside and outside the region? Which actors are involved? What driving forces affect these processes? This innovative collection offers a new perspective on the policy diffusion phenomena. Drawing on different examples from Latin American experiences in urban local policies and national social policies, experts present a new framework to study this phenomenon centered on the mobilization of ideas, interests and discourses for policy diffusion.
Latin America and Policy Diffusion will be of great interest to researchers, educators, advanced students and practitioners working in the fields of political science, public policy, international relations and Latin American Studies.
Link: https://www.crcpress.com/Latin-America-and-Policy-Diffusion-From-Import-to-Export/Oliveira-Gonnet-Montero-Leite/p/book/9781138333161
This article intends to analyze Universal Child Allowance (UCA)—a large-scale conditional cash transfer (CCT) program in Argentina—from a human rights and constitutional perspective. Conditions required in the UCA system—which covers informal and unemployed workers—are compared to those established in family allowances, the contributory program created for registered workers. These differences in treatment are analyzed in connection with the right to equal treatment, taking into account applicable legal materials, including caselaw and theoretical contributions. After describing CCT programs in general and the specific features of UCA, and outlining Argentina’s constitutional and human rights framework, the article describes the specific conditions—maximum income, nationality, maximum number of covered children—applied only to informal and unregistered workers included in the UCA program. Compared to family allowances beneficiaries, workers under UCA have a much lower maximum wage limit to be eligible, and their children must fulfill nationality or legal residence requirements not applicable under the family allowances system. UCA covers only up to five children per family, while family allowances are paid to every child in formal workers’ families, with no restrictions. The article concludes that these planned differences in treatment are not admissible under Argentina’s human rights obligations and constitutional setting. The article also advocates a human rights-based design for social policies, in order to ensure consistency with Argentina’s Constitution and international obligations.
Since the middle of the 1990s, Conditional Cash Transfer Programs (CCTs) have spread in Latin America as a result of a policy diffusion process. This article provides a proposal for a comparative analysis of the mechanisms of diffusion, distinguishing motivations and means, which is applied in Chile and Ecuador using process tracing methodology. Outcomes reveal that the variables with greater influence in the mechanisms of diffusion were both the existence of a regional epistemic community and the domestic technical capacities of the institutions. In that sense, countries with high technical capacity institutions adopt CCTs through learning mechanisms and those with weak ones capacities adopt them through coercion or emulation.
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