Meeting emerging global policy challenges: What can social policy and international development studies learn from each other?

Transcription

1 Meeting emerging global policy challenges: What can social policy and international development studies learn from each other? A Development Studies Association (DSA) and Social Policy Association (SPA) Joint Conference Hosted by the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath, UK with the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at the University of York, UK April 2013 University of Bath Book of Abstracts

2 Income inequality and social policy Francesca Bastagli, Social Protection, ODI and CASE, London School of Economics This presentation focuses on income inequality and the distributional outcomes of social policy. It examines trends in income inequality over the last two decades. It then reviews the evidence on the distributional impact of social spending and taxation. It finds that within-country income inequality has increased in most high-income countries and in many developing countries over the last two decades. The large variation in average disposable income inequality across macro-regions is especially striking. It also finds that a significant proportion of the higher income inequality in developing economies, as compared to high-income economies, can be explained by the lower levels of taxation and public spending in developing economies, as well as their greater reliance on less progressive tax and spending instruments. The implications that arise from this review are then discussed both with respect to policy and to future research. New directions in social policy: Emerging economies and the construction of welfare regimes in the 21 st century Sarah Cook, UNRISD This presentation will raise and examine questions relating to the emergence of programmes, policies and possibly welfare systems in countries that are growing economies and in some cases rising powers. What are the implications of shifting power and changing policies in the global economy for universal, redistributive or transformative social policies? Many developing countries are placing increasing emphasis on expanding forms of social protection just as fiscal choices in developed economies shift towards austerity possibly undermining key principles as well as the fiscal and institutional basis for a transformative social policy. But are we seeing the rise of alternative or innovative forms of social policy in emerging economies, what drives these policies, and how are they addressing the challenges and risks of a changing global context? The presentation will examine the new challenges and risks facing 21 st century developing nations, and the role of social policy in such contexts. It reviews evidence of ways in which a number of countries, particularly in Asia and Latin America are expanding and strengthening social policies and systems in diverse ways in response to new challenges, while pointing to limitations of our knowledge, to research gaps and the need for new methodological approaches to analyse these changing regimes of welfare. Reducing Global Income Inequality as a Post-2015 Global Development Goal Charles Gore, University of Glasgow 2

3 This paper argues that reducing global income inequality should be a post-2015 global development goal. It summarizes recent data on the scale and nature of global income inequality, addresses arguments which conclude that international income inequality should not be considered a policy problem, examines the importance of inter-country income inequality, and makes suggestions for specifying targets for reducing global inequality within the context of a renewed post-2015 system of global development goals. Climate change, social policy and global governance Ian Gough, London School of Economics The two great challenges we face are overcoming poverty and managing climate change. If we fail on one, we will fail on the other (Lord Stern) Global human welfare, and all existing institutions and policies to improve it, are threatened by climate change. It is truly global in its impact, intergenerational, and deeply embedded in everyday material practices and the big structures of the global capitalist economy. This paper surveys this challenge and relates it to global social policy and development policy. The first part summarises Deacon s view of global social policy in recent years, distinguishing the policies and practices pursued (redistribution, regulation and rights) from the global roles and governance of significant global actors. The second part then repeats this for global climate change and its global governance. The conclusion is that, though progress has been made, neither the aggregate threat of climate change, nor the global allocation of responsibilities, has been effectively addressed thus far. The risks of a catastrophic failure are still high. Also, the North-South duality in global social policy is fundamentally qualified in the global politics of climate change, by a third world grouping between North and South, which I will call the East. In recent years the idea of green growth has emerged as the mainstream policy paradigm for tackling global climate change. Yet green growth itself is a floating signifier (Jessop), amenable to forming a broad consensus but hiding very different interpretations. In particular, it can hide big differences over the social aspects of climate change policy, the equity and justice implications, and its relationship to global social policy. This is the subject of the third part of the paper. I argue there are three stages of integrating social policy with climate change policy: compensation, co-benefits and integrated eco-social policies. I summarise recent reports on climate change by several IGOs and map the respective roles they envisage for social policy, social development and the social dimension. Most do not move beyond compensating losers ; the UNDP makes some references to policies to secure co-benefits to meet both social justice and sustainable goals. But advocates of more radical eco-social policies are found only in INGOs and social movements. There is thus a considerable danger that the paradigm shift to green economies will ignore or sideline or even worsen issues of equity and social justice. 3

4 Public Health and Economic Development: The Case of the Tobacco Epidemic Chris Holden, University of York The spread of non-communicable diseases, especially those related to diet or the consumption of alcohol or tobacco, have sometimes been seen as problems for high-income countries rather than low or middle-income countries. However, this is no longer the case and many low and middleincome countries now have to contend simultaneously with a burden of disease related to both communicable and non-communicable diseases. Furthermore, what have been seen by some as primarily lifestyle diseases, predicated on individual choices, often have important structural and political roots. Not least of these are the roles that large transnational corporations play in the production and marketing of toxic substances and in influencing public health policies in and across countries and at the international level. This presentation explores these issues with reference to the global tobacco industry. It will show how the global burden of tobacco-related morbidity and mortality is increasingly shifting to low and middle-income countries and discuss the key role of transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) in bringing this about. It will analyse the activities of TTCs in seeking to open new markets in low and middle-income countries and the dilemmas that these countries face in balancing their economic and public health policies in relation to tobacco. An overview of the tactics and strategies used by TTCs to open new markets will be given and relevant policy dilemmas for low and middle-income countries will be discussed. It will be demonstrated how a fuller understanding of TTCs strategies for expansion globally can be derived by relating them to the economic development models of target countries. Of foremost importance, it will argue, is the need for governments to carefully balance economic and public health policies when considering liberalisation of tobacco markets. From Bretton Woods to the post-mdgs consultations: the evolving significance of social policy in the international development agenda Professor Naila Kabeer, School of Oriental and African Studies, London This presentation will use a number of key international conferences and policy documents to track the evolving significance given to the social within the development policy agenda from the early preoccupation with economic growth to the current focus on rising socio-economic inequalities. Progress has clearly not been linear, and there have been periods when the space for social policy within the mainstream agenda has contracted significantly but over time, there has been a growing acknowledgement of human beings in all their diverse social relations as central to the development process. The presentation will conclude with reflections on how this is playing out in the post-2015 consultations. 4

5 Is social protection good for your health? Evidence from low and middle income countries Peter Lloyd-Sherlock, University of East Anglia This presentation uses newly available evidence to assess the effectiveness of pension provision and health insurance in preventing ill health among older people in developing countries. It argues that, until recently, social protection agendas have devoted insufficient attention to risk prevention, instead focussing on the reduction of income poverty through cash transfers. The paper shows that there is little reliable evidence to indicate that providing older people with pension benefits enhances their health status and that these effects should not be taken for granted. The paper then focuses on the effect of inclusion in health insurance schemes on health outcomes for older people. Drawing on newly-available data from WHO for Ghana, Mexico and South Africa, it shows that older people with health insurance are marginally more likely to be aware of health conditions such as hypertension and more likely to have them under control. Nevertheless, the great majority of hypertensive older people, insured or uninsured, are not effectively treated. The main barriers to treatment are shown to be mainly related to awareness and service provision, rather than financial ones. Consequently, the capacity of pensions or health insurance to enhance health outcomes for older people in such countries is heavily contingent upon health education, screening and adequate service provision, including in rural areas. These interventions should be viewed as an integral element of mainstream social protection strategies, rather than adjuncts to them. Beyond subsistence and towards full citizenship: Applying the socially perceived necessities approach to poverty definition and measurement in a middle income developing country. Mike Noble, Oxford Institute of Social Policy, University of Oxford In middle income countries, poverty is typically measured using income thresholds based on subsistence definitions which are often linked to calorific intake required for survival. South Africa is no exception and most of the poverty measures continue to be based on minimalist thresholds of adequacy. The South African constitution is one of the few constitutions in the world that provides for a range of social rights of citizenship and some commentators have argued that these minimalistic poverty lines are inconsistent with a general commitment to inclusive citizenship. The socially perceived necessities or consensual approach to defining and measuring poverty is based on an assumption that it is possible to obtain a collective view from society on the necessities for an acceptable standard of living. The enforced lack of the necessities due typically to lack of resources can be regarded as poverty. Drawing on a nationally representative South African Socially Attitudes Survey this paper presents the findings and demonstrates that this democratic approach to defining poverty is not only consistent with the principles of the constitution but also resonates with the historical and ongoing quest for inclusive citizenship. The approach works well even in a context where there is widespread lack of the socially perceived necessities. 5

6 Market imperative and the Social Constitution of Wellbeing Theo Papadopoulos, University of Bath Wellbeing can act as a conceptual bridge between research in International development and in social policy both of which borrow from a variety of disciplinary perspectives to enrich their conceptual toolboxes. The literature on well-being is quite diverse, but often confusing; conflating different levels of analysis with what is often epistemologically incompatible propositions. Moreover, many traditional approaches often offer a static perspective to what is a dynamic and changing concept, one that individuals relate to differently at different times of their lives and in different circumstances. In some cases they represent wellbeing as an external and objective measure against which good or bad actions are to be judged or as a subjective experience - an outcome of contextual factors - rather than seeing the concept itself as a contested one; a process that is socially and politically shaped and constituted in social interaction. This paper argues that wellbeing has to be grounded and investigated in those embedded interactions and in relation to the changing demands placed upon people during the life course. Indeed key factors bearing upon wellbeing (e.g. 'social'/relational, organisational, economic, employment-related, medical, environmental) are regulated through a variety of social-economic policies & practices, thus they are politico-economically 'constituted' and governed. It is argued that the relational and experiential aspects of wellbeing need to be embedded into institutional/organisational contexts which are further 'framed' by policies and modes of governance (which involve a substantive/formal aspect and an operational aspect and are immersed in political discourse). This is of particular importance in cases where the market imperative becomes the dominant underpinning rationale of governance where commodification is aggressively displacing non-market rationales of socially constituting wellbeing across the lifecourse (e.g. reciprocity, redistribution). Economic and Social Development: The irresistible case for global social security Robert Walker, Oxford Institute of Social Policy, University of Oxford This paper argues that countries in a developing world cannot afford not to invest in social security. For too long welfare spending has been seen as a brake on economic growth and development. The reality is that sustainable growth requires a floor to livelihoods that not only provides a safety net but serves as a guarantor of human dignity and as a springboard for human productivity. While substantial challenges have to be overcome en route to establishing viable social security systems in every jurisdiction, the task is not insuperable; rather it is essential, and should be incorporated as a new Millennium Development goal post Global social security does not mean lucrative contracts for western consultants and the replication of systems in place in the global North. Rather, within a broad framework fundamental rights and basic principles, it demands an exercise in listening, amplifying the voices of the dispossessed to the volume of those of the most powerful voices and designing systems that work in situ to the benefit of communities, local, national and global. It is necessary to have dreams and to live them. The tools exist; we need to use them. 6

7 Beyond the Grumpy Rich Man and the Happy Peasant. Inner Wellbeing and Food Security in Rural India Sarah C. White, University of Bath While the case to go beyond GDP with broader measures of national progress is largely accepted, the use of subjective measures in policy remains controversial. A high volume of largely technical debate recognises significant challenges in the use of subjective measures as valid and reliable indicators of wellbeing. Advocates respond by seeking to authorise and standardise methodologies to promote comparability, as in the OECD Guidelines for Measuring Subjective Well-being, This paper argues for widening the field and shifting the focus from techniques to concepts. The attractions to policy of the dominant formula of Subjective Well-Being (SWB) lie in its promise to deliver a direct measure of utility. Other approaches to subjective dimensions of wellbeing, however, reflect alternative traditions of economic analysis, and bring different strengths to policy evaluation. Inner Wellbeing, a form of subjective assessment with affinities to Sen s Capabilities Approach, is introduced as one such alternative measure. Primary data from mixed method research in marginalised communities in rural India are used to assess the strengths and limitations of using Inner Wellbeing to evaluate the effects of food security policies at a community and individual level. Broader implications for the use of subjective measures of wellbeing in policy are then discussed. 7

8 Meeting emerging global policy challenges: What can social policy and international development studies learn from each other? A Development Studies Association (DSA) and Social Policy Association (SPA) Joint Conference Hosted by the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath, UK with the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at the University of York, UK 8