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Introduction: the Political Consequences of Non-state Social Welfare in the Global South

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Abstract

Throughout the Global South, diverse non-state actors have historically played critical roles in enabling populations to meet their basic needs, whether by providing or mediating access to social benefits and programs. To date, little research explores non-state social welfare, particularly in the Global South, and existing studies tend to focus on technical and administrative concerns while neglecting the potential political ramifications. This introductory essay aims to conceptualize and theorize the politics of non-state social welfare. We highlight three dimensions of the political consequences of non-state social welfare, including the implications for state capacity, equity of access to social welfare, and experiences of citizenship. Based on this framework as well as the findings of the empirical contributions to the special issue, the essay concludes that non-state provision may pose more political challenges than proponents recognize, but its effects are ultimately contingent on the types of relationships between state and non-state providers.

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Notes

  1. One exception in the educational sector is Adelabu and Rose (2004) and Rose (2007) that considers the consequences of non-state provision for equity of access to services and certain aspects of state capacity.

  2. We choose not to use the concepts of “well-being” (Gough and Wood 2004) or “social security” (Hirtz 1995; von Benda Beckmann et al. 1988) and prefer to use “social welfare” in order to facilitate a dialogue with other scholars working on the welfare state and to clarify that we are addressing social services beyond income support for the aged also known as “social security” in the USA.

  3. For example, pensions exist minimally in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire for a small fraction of civil servants but are much more substantial and inclusive in a small number of countries with greater state capacity such as Chile (Brooks 2009).

  4. Salamon and Sokolowski (1999) find that non-profits in 26 countries around the world receive nearly 39% of their total revenues from public sector payments.

  5. We distinguish between the qualitative experience of gaining access highlighted here and the actual quality of the benefit itself. The latter dimension is increasingly emphasized in the literature and merits more systematic empirical investigation than is highlighted in these special issue papers (MacLean 2010; Tooley and Dixon 2006; Prata et al. 2005).

  6. An exception is Kitschelt and Wilkinson (2007), who incorporate additional factors such as levels of economic development and ethnocultural cleavages in the analysis of the dynamics of clientelism.

  7. See also the work by Auyero (2001) on the importance of political patronage for the survival of the poor in Argentina.

  8. Hirtz (1995) also challenges these myths in his work on family systems in the Philippines. See also von Benda Beckmann et al. (1988), Hyden (2006; 72–93), and Scott (1977).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Melani Claire Cammett

  2. Department of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Lauren M. MacLean

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  1. Melani Claire Cammett
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Correspondence to Melani Claire Cammett.

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We thank the participants in the conference on the Politics of Non-State Social Welfare Providers sponsored by the Academy Scholars Program at the Weatherhead Center at Harvard University. We would also like to thank Hillel Soiffer as well as two anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier drafts. We are grateful for the research assistance of Andrea Dillon and Sophia Manuel. All errors are our own.

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Cammett, M.C., MacLean, L.M. Introduction: the Political Consequences of Non-state Social Welfare in the Global South. St Comp Int Dev 46, 1–21 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-010-9083-7

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