Abstract
The Social Impact Bond (SIB) is a new funding mechanism for welfare programs. It is supposed to create savings for the public sector from which private returns can be deducted. Presented as a purely technical solution, SIBs discard their political morality. The Welfare Convention Approach (WCA) is designed for studying SIBs as disputed and versatile welfare apparatuses. It is claimed that elements from diverse historical welfare conventions (the philanthropic, communitarian, civic, market, full employment, entrepreneurial, financial, and behavioral) reveal the diverse institutional conflicts and compromises of SIBs at the time they are implemented. In so doing, the WCA informs comparative research on SIBs.
Notes
1. See https://sibdatabase.socialfinance.org.uk, accessed July 7, 2019.
2. See https://sibdatabase.socialfinance.org.uk, accessed May 10, 2019.
3. See https://sibdatabase.socialfinance.org.uk, accessed July 29, 2019.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Eve Chiapello
Eve Chiapello is Professor at EHESS (School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences), Paris, France, where she holds a chair in the “sociology of the transformations of capitalism”. Her present work is on the financialization of public policies.
Lisa Knoll works at the University of Hamburg and Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg in a research project funded by the German Research Council on risk practices in the financial sector and in politics.