Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/190083 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2018/34
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Social assistance programmes proliferated and expanded across much of the global South from the mid-1990s. Within Africa there has been enormous variation in this trend: some governments expanded coverage dramatically while others resisted this. The existing literature on social assistance, or social protection more broadly, offers little in explanation of this variation. Drawing on the literature on political settlements and democratic politics, we argue that variation results from the political contestation and negotiation between political elites, voters, bureaucrats, and transnational actors. The forms of politics that matter at each of these inter-related sites of negotiation include struggles over ideas as well as material interests, and reflect the ways in which social assistance is being used to advance certain political as well as developmental projects in sub-Saharan Africa.
Subjects: 
social assistance
politics
sub-Saharan Africa
international development organizations
JEL: 
H53
I38
N37
O55
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9256-476-6
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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