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Constructing new global models of social security: How international organizations defined the field of social cash transfers in the 2000s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2015

MORITZ VON GLISZCZYNSKI  and
LUTZ LEISERING
MORITZ VON GLISZCZYNSKI
Affiliation:
Community Development Association Lower Saxony (LAG Soziale Brennpunkte Niedersachsen), Hannover, Germany email: m.glisz@gmx.de
LUTZ LEISERING
Affiliation:
Bielefeld University, Faculty of Sociology, Germany email: lutz.leisering@uni-bielefeld.de
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Abstract

Social cash transfers to the poor have mushroomed in countries of the global South and on global agendas since the 2000s. Around 2000, there was no clear picture if social cash transfers would make it to global agendas. By the end of the 2000s, a repertoire of four models of social cash transfers had been codified by international organizations. Based on an in-depth analysis of all major documents by international organizations and applying a model of ideational change in global arenas, we trace the trajectories of the four models: who developed the models during the 2000s, how were they constructed, and what forces propelled the process? We find that the process was driven by an extension of the domains of international organizations (‘socialization of global politics’) and by an opening of global discourses and development policies to ‘social’ concerns. But organizational domains and global discourses, especially on development, also constrained the concept of social cash transfers, reducing it to four models that reflect a fragmented and incomplete universalism. We conclude that global social policy, conceived as ‘socialization of global politics’, is not a simple ‘uploading’ of ‘social’ ideas from European traditions, but an active process of social construction in global arenas.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , April 2016 , pp. 325 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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