Social development and social protection: New opportunities and challenges

Abstract

The growing interest in social protection in the interdisciplinary field of development studies presents new challenges and opportunities. However, to respond effectively, development scholars should be cognisant of the extensive research that has been undertaken over many years in the interdisciplinary field of social policy into what is known as ‘social security’. They have hitherto neglected this research, but it can make a significant contribution to their own work. At the same time, they have a rare opportunity to inform social policy research, which has historically relied on a Eurocentric ‘welfare state’ approach that is of limited relevance to the developing world. By forging closer links between these two fields, we can address the challenges facing social protection more effectively.

Keywords:

• development studies
• policy learning
• social development
• social policy
• social protection
• social security

1. Introduction

The growing interest in social protection and social security in social development studies and development studies more generally is welcome but somewhat surprising. Although social development emerged in the 1950s as a distinct subfield of development studies concerned with what is often referred to as the ‘social’ aspects of development, neither practitioners nor scholars working in the field have previously paid much attention to social protection and social security, which have been associated with consumption rather than developmental activities and are generally viewed in development circles as better suited to the Western countries.

As is well known, the situation has changed. The creation of conditional cash transfer schemes in Brazil, Mexico and other Latin American countries, the redesign and expansion of social assistance in South Africa, the introduction of universal old-age pensions in Botswana, Lesotho and Namibia and the launching of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in India have all contributed to the new interest in social protection in development circles. Although a rapidly burgeoning descriptive literature on social protection by social development scholars is now available, there is a need to reflect on wider meta-theoretical issues that focus, for example, on defining, conceptualising, measuring and theorising social protection. This is not an irrelevant academic exercise but an essential part of formulating successful policy interventions and enhancing the programmatic effectiveness of social protection policies.

In this article I provide a broad introduction to the papers in this special issue by contrasting the recent interest in social protection in social development with the more established body of social security literature in social policy. This literature has evolved over many decades and has generally but not exclusively focused on statutory income maintenance in the Western world. I suggest that social development scholars concerned with social protection today have much to learn from this work. I also suggest that those studying social security from the social policy perspective have much to learn from the research into social protection that is being undertaken by social development scholars. Unfortunately, there has been relatively little exchange of research findings, conceptual ideas and policy lessons between those working in these two fields. Social policy scholars remain largely ignorant of the work being done on social protection in development studies, and similarly, social development scholars make surprisingly few references to the social policy literature. Nevertheless, there are fruitful opportunities for closer collaboration as well as possibilities to address significant challenges.

I begin by discussing research into social security in the field of social policy. I then contrast the social policy approach with the emerging work being done on social protection in social development, which, as noted earlier, forms a special area within the wider field of development studies. I then discuss a number of issues and concerns that provide opportunities for reciprocal policy learning. Finally, I consider the prospect of fostering closer collaboration and forging a comprehensive unified perspective on social protection.

2. The academic study of social protection

Systematic scholarly work in social protection and social security is a fairly recent trend dating back to the early decades of the 20th century. This work is associated with the introduction of statutory income maintenance programmes in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and with the creation of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1919. One early example of an academic study of social protection is Beatrice and Sidney Webb's history of the English Poor Law, which was published in two volumes in 1927 and 1929 (Webb & Webb, 1927, 1929). Another example is a pioneering book by Barbara Armstrong (1932), a Berkeley law professor, which reported on European social insurance and other innovations such as minimum wages and statutory employer mandates. Her work helped to shape the retirement insurance provisions of the 1935 Social Security Act in the US. Another important early publication was Karl de Schweinitz's (1943) extensive historical review of English social security measures, which included both the Poor Law and developments in social insurance. These and other early publications transcended earlier polemical tracts that either advocated or deprecated the provision of government assistance to those in need. They also laid the foundation for a plethora of subsequent studies of social security in the latter half of the 20th century.

2.1 The social policy perspective

The rapid expansion of statutory social services in a number of Western countries during the middle decades of the 20th century focused academic interest on government social security schemes, which were at the core of these ‘welfare state’ innovations. As scholars in disciplines as varied as history, economics, law, government and sociology documented and studied these innovations, interdisciplinary collaboration increased and more books and specialist journal articles on social security were published. This development was bolstered by the ILO and the International Social Security Association, which encouraged the publication of research into social security.

Another development was the creation in a number of universities in Britain and other English-speaking countries of interdisciplinary academic departments concerned with the study of social policy. One of the most important was the Department of Social Science and Administration at the London School of Economics, which was established in 1950 with Richard Titmuss as its first professorial head. Similar departments were created at other universities in Britain, notably at Liverpool and Birmingham. There were comparable developments in other English-speaking countries such as Australia and Canada, although in the US the study of social policy emerged within professional postgraduate schools of public policy and social work. Since then, the academic study of social policy has evolved steadily and is today pursued at universities in many parts of the world.

Initially, the subject of social policy was concerned with training administrators who would manage social services, but its vocational commitment was transcended by attempts to address wider policy issues, enhance the quality and rigour of research and articulate broad theoretical perspectives. Titmuss himself was not much concerned with the technical aspects of social service management and focused instead on the conceptual and normative issues that legitimated collective welfare provision. Perhaps his most significant contribution was to formulate a paradigmatic normative approach based on social democratic beliefs that continues to influence the way social policies are investigated and interpreted today (Midgley, 2009). Since those formative years, social policy has attained a commendable level of theoretical sophistication that is revealed in the construction of numerous typologies of welfare systems, the formulation of explanatory theories and analyses of prevailing normative perspectives on social security.

The social policy approach to the study of social security has a number of distinctive features. These include a concern with statutory provisions, and chiefly with social insurance and social assistance, which are widely regarded as the core components of the social security system. Universal tax funded child benefit and pension schemes have also featured prominently, but less attention has been given to employer mandates and income subsidies through the fiscal system. However, there is growing interest in these provisions and in the role of statutory mandated retirement accounts managed by commercial providers.

The preoccupation with statutory social security exhibited by scholars working within the social policy tradition is also the result of the adoption of international treaties and human rights instruments. Among the most important of these are the ILO's Social Security Minimum Standards Convention of 1952, the UN's Universal Declaration on Human Rights of 1948 and the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966. These and similar instruments reflect a view of social security as a collective rather than individual responsibility based on notions of social rights, redistribution and social solidarity. They have inspired a widely accepted definition of social security as involving the provision of resources by the state to maintain or supplement peoples' incomes that have been interrupted, terminated or reduced by contingencies such as sickness, unemployment, disability, retirement, maternity or the death of the household's primary wage earner.

Because of their concern with government provision, those who study social security from a social policy perspective have generally paid little attention to non-statutory income maintenance and support programmes, or to familial and community social support networks and the role of non-profit and faith-based organisations. The rapidly expanding commercial sector, which is not always viewed positively in social policy circles, has also received limited attention – except of course from those who oppose social security privatisation.

A related feature of the social policy approach is its macro-focus on the nation state and particularly the so-called ‘welfare state’. International comparisons of social security policies and programmes have generally used the nation state as a unit of analysis, and social protection activities at the household or community level have received relatively little attention. Also, when undertaking international comparative research, social policy scholars have focused largely, although not exclusively, on the Western countries. Although comparative research in the field was already well developed by the 1980s, it was primarily concerned with Europe and North America, and initially little attention was paid to the developing countries of the Global South. Formative academic publications dealing with social security in the developing world by MacPherson (1982), Midgley (1984) and Ahmad et al. (1991) were usually regarded as exotic and of marginal relevance. Although the situation has changed as more studies of social security policies and programmes in Asia and Latin America and to some extent Africa have been published, these generally conform to social policy's macro and the Eurocentric ‘welfare state’ approach.

2.2 The social development perspective

Like social policy, the interdisciplinary field of development studies emerged in the years following World War II and also had a formative vocational commitment to train administrators who could implement the public policies of the newly independent developing countries. Many of these programmes grew out of older university based training courses designed to prepare officials for colonial service, but after the war they catered primarily for civil servants from the developing world. The British government played a major role in promoting and funding these training activities, but similar opportunities were provided at a number of universities in other Western countries. These activities gave rise to the first interdisciplinary development studies centres, which have played a significant role in research and policy formulation in the development field.

The involvement of scholars from different disciplines in development studies made a major contribution to the field's intellectual evolution. Although development studies retained a strong commitment to practical policy concerns, like social policy, this interdisciplinary field developed a research agenda and offered new conceptual frameworks for studying the development process. However, unlike social policy, which adopted a statist approach, diverse competing conceptual and normative interpretations soon emerged in the field. This is revealed in the very different ways development has been defined by scholars who used statist, populist, Marxist, feminist, market liberal and other interpretations. Similarly, development studies did not focus exclusively on the nation state. Unlike social policy – which neglected the role of households, communities and non-profit organisations in social welfare – development studies ranged simultaneously over these institutions to examine their diverse contribution to the development process.

This broader scope gave rise to specialised subfields such as social development, which, as Midgley (1995) documented, emerged in the 1950s. Social development had a strong practical bent and originally focused primarily on local community development projects in India and Africa. In the 1960s these activities were augmented by the introduction of social planning at the national level, which, it was argued, should complement economic planning. Leading development economists such as Myrdal (1957, 1970) and Seers (1969) promoted this idea, arguing that development policy should be concerned not only with economic growth but also with improvements in health, nutrition, education and standards of living. It was in this context that social development acquired greater significance within the field of development studies, and, with the support of the UN and other multilateral agencies, efforts to promote social development eventually resulted in the World Summit on Social Development of 1995 and the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000.

Today, social development's concern with the social dimensions of economic development finds expression in a variety of interventions. These operate at different levels and range from household-based microenterprises to community-based sanitary and water supply initiatives, as well as national level programmes such as literacy education and national social planning. As noted earlier, social protection was not previously considered to be an integral part of social development, but it has recently become a major topic of interest in development circles.

There are several reasons why social protection was neglected in social development's formative years. Income transfers were widely regarded as an expensive luxury that developing countries could not afford, and they were believed to detract from development priorities, which required investment rather than consumption expenditure. These programmes were also seen as a legacy of the colonial period that had little relevance to more appropriate interventions such as participatory community development and gender projects. Accordingly, as noted earlier, the handful of books on social security in the Global South that had been published by the 1980s attracted little attention. However, as social protection programmes in the Global South have expanded, and as innovations in Brazil, India, Mexico, South Africa and elsewhere have been documented, social protection is now regarded as an important social development intervention. These programmes are also important for challenging the market liberal, Washington Consensus perspective promoted by the IMF and the World Bank. Recent social protection innovations are also noteworthy for expanding coverage well beyond the limited safety net and social funds approaches previously adopted by these organisations (Hall & Midgley, 2004).

Because the study of social protection by social development academics is still of recent origin, it is perhaps premature to attempt a sketch of its key features. Nevertheless, some of these can be identified. First, with regard to nomenclature, social development scholars have adopted the term ‘social protection’ rather than the better known term ‘social security’. Although social protection has also been used from time to time in social policy circles, social security has generally been preferred. Reasons for the preference for social protection in development studies are obscure but it seems to serve as an umbrella term that covers a wider range of programmes than those associated with social security's income maintenance function, namely social insurance, social assistance and universal social allowances. As will be shown, these include food for work programmes, microfinance, cooperative benefit associations, faith-based initiatives and microinsurance. Second, the social protection approach transcends the statutory focus that dominates social policy inquiry into social security. Many social protection programmes in the developing world have been initiated by non-profit organisations often supported by international donors. However, this does not mean that governments are not involved – on the contrary, many social protection innovations have been introduced and are managed by governments. Third, as suggested earlier, the social protection approach is also distinctive in that it transcends the macro-focus of the social policy approach to focus on innovations at the household, neighbourhood and community levels. This is compatible with social development's historical interest in community-based interventions.

3. Policy exchanges and policy learning: Opportunities and challenges

Although social policy and social development researchers have much to share, exchanges between them have been limited. Nevertheless, it is clear that they have much to learn from each other. This will not only promote the helpful exchange of information but also foster mutual efforts to address the many challenges facing the field today. The following are just a few topics and issues that would benefit from a closer collaboration between those who study social security from a social policy perspective and those who study social protection from a social development perspective.

One topic that would benefit from mutual discussion is nomenclature. The term ‘social security’ is favoured by social policy scholars while the term ‘social protection’ has been widely adopted in social development circles. Of course, the latter term is also used in social policy, but a number of other terms such as income security, income protection, economic security, income transfers, social insurance, social assistance, cash transfers and tax funded universal benefits are also in circulation. Unfortunately, no standardised definition of social protection has emerged in the social development literature, and a wide variety of interventions are loosely described as comprising social protection schemes. Although this issue may be regarded as a semantic quibble, it has implications for research and for policy formulation. It is desirable that terminologies be standardised for research purposes and that politicians, government administrators, international donors and planners are not confused by imprecise terminologies when seeking to introduce or expand these programmes. Social development scholars would benefit from reviewing the way terminologies are used in social policy, where a significant degree of standardisation has been achieved largely through recourse to international instruments such as the ILO conventions.

An arguably more important topic for debate concerns the way that social security and social protection are conceptualised. Although much of the literature is descriptive, normative assumptions are often implicit in statements about the need for social protection, and these should be more systematically articulated and debated. Some social development scholars, including Sabates-Wheeler & Devereux (2007), have sought to analyse conceptual issues by identifying key normative preferences, but much more needs to done to clarify the normative assumptions that underpin the field and examine their relevance for policy.

Because of social development's engagement with households, communities and states, it is not surprising that very different normative perspectives can be identified in the social development literature. These differences are not as marked in the social policy literature where, as was noted earlier, most social policy scholars view social security as a collective means for maintaining income. In the social development literature, on the other hand, some authors suggest that social protection programmes should be designed primarily to help households manage risk while others believe that they should be concerned with poverty reduction. Yet others contend that these programmes should promote social rights, solidarity and equality. The latter view favours income transfers through the agency of the state, while the former encourages access to microfinance and microinsurance provided by non-governmental and commercial carriers.

The World Bank's risk management framework, which emerged in the late 1990s in the wake of its widely discussed book Averting the Old Age Crisis (1994), had an unmistakably individualistic focus that underpinned its social funds and social safety net approaches. Both shifted responsibility away from collective provisions through the state to households, communities and non-profit organisations. Since then, much of the social protection literature has focused on non-statutory provision and the way households manage risk. Today, studies by economists have largely viewed social protection through the lens of household risk management (Townsend, 1994; Dercon, 2005). Since these approaches are conducive to the promotion of market-based approaches and the increasing involvement of commercial providers in social protection, they should be critically reviewed in the light of alternative perspectives such as that advocated by Sabates-Wheeler & Devereux (2007). A dialogue with colleagues in social policy who have undertaken quite extensive theoretical work in the field would be mutually beneficial. Certainly, attempts to institutionalise an approach that affirms the role of collective provision, social rights and redistribution in social protection would benefit from a dialogue of this kind.

Another topic for debate is the affordability of social protection. Although this has not been viewed as a matter for concern in social development circles – partly because these programmes are often financed by international donors – funding may become a critical issue in the future. The replication of Latin American conditional cash transfers in Asian and African countries under the direction of the World Bank and the regional development banks involves loans that need to be repaid. The question of funding is certainly a major topic in social policy in Western countries today, where the affordability of social security schemes has been vigorously questioned. Market liberals and others who oppose government intervention argue that it is simply not possible for social security in these countries to meet the needs of the growing elderly population, unemployed people, families with children and other deserving groups without imposing unsustainable taxes and damaging the economy. This argument has resonated with politicians and increasingly with voters who have been persuaded that sacrifices are needed to promote economic growth. These arguments have become even more trenchant as many Western governments have imposed significant budget cuts in the wake of the recent Great Recession.

It is true that the expansion of statutory programmes in middle income countries experiencing economic growth such as Brazil, China, Mexico and South Africa involves comparatively modest costs. But it is likely that critical voices will more frequently be raised to question the economic wisdom of these expenditures. The question of affordability will also be raised as the populations of many developing countries age and as more elderly people need retirement income protection. This has already happened in China (Frazier, 2010). Sharing information on the issue of funding and more carefully assessing the costs of social protection, particularly with reference to creating an affordable social protection floor (Cichon & Hagemejer, 2007), would be mutually beneficial. Social policy researchers have a good deal of experience of this issue, which can be of benefit to social development scholars. At the same time, these scholars have experience of studying low-cost interventions that will be of interest and value to social policy scholars.

Another topic that would benefit from mutual discussion is the divergent focus of social security and social protection programmes. As noted earlier, social security schemes generally have a macro-focus while social protection programmes are often directed at households and local communities. Sharing views on this issue is important because it could promote the integration of the two approaches. It could also help to address the issues of limited coverage and social exclusion that characterise social security in many developing countries. As has been extensively documented, national social security schemes have largely provided coverage to workers in the formal sector of the economy and ignored the needs of the rural majority (Hall & Midgley, 2004; Van Ginneken, 2007, 2010). Those in the urban informal sector have also been excluded, as have women, who have derived few benefits from the formal social security system. Although it has long been argued that the formal system will gradually extend coverage as the modern economy expands, this has only been the case in a small number of countries. There is growing recognition that policy innovations that address the problem of exclusion are urgently needed. The experience of implementing social protection programmes in local communities and involving grassroots associations, women's groups and faith-based organisations can inform policymakers and promote the goal of extending coverage to all, a goal that is vigorously promoted by the ILO (Reynaud, 2002).

An important topic that will be of particular interest to social policy scholars is the role of social protection innovations that address the unique needs of people in the developing world. These may also have relevance to Western countries. For many years it was assumed that the developing countries would benefit from replicating policy innovations from the West. Today, innovations from the developing world are increasingly being examined for their wider international relevance, and some have been adopted in Western countries. By exchanging information about these and other social protection innovations, policymakers could enhance policy transfers and make more extensive and fruitful programmatic adaptations.

One obvious example is microfinance. The Grameen Bank and the activities of other microfinance organisations such as the Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA) and ACCION International have attracted a good deal of attention in the West, and some of these have sponsored operations in countries such as the US. Conditional cash transfers are also of interest. Following a visit to Mexico by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city introduced a demonstration project based on the Mexican Oportunidades programme known as Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards. Also relevant are social protection innovations that accommodate diverse cultural beliefs and practices. Although not widely reported in the literature, a number of Islamic countries have modified their conventional social security schemes to accommodate religious beliefs. Non-governmental Islamic associations have formalised the collection of zakat (alms) contributions in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and in Indonesia they have developed social protection measures based on Islamic teaching (Sirojudin & Midgley, 2011). Considering the challenges of providing income protection to culturally diverse immigrant communities, these innovations should be of interest to social policy scholars in Western countries. Another important innovation is microinsurance, which has become a major topic of interest in social development but has as yet attracted little attention from social security scholars in the West. The term refers to programmes operated by organisations that collect small regular premiums from poor people and pay benefits when certain contingencies arise (Loewe, 2006; Midgley, 2011). Disability and death benefits are among the most common, but microhealth insurance schemes have also been established. Opportunities for insurance-linked retirement savings are also being provided. These and other social protection innovations will be of interest and potential policy relevance to social policy scholars.

A final topic that I discuss here is the set of developmental implications of social security and social protection. The question of the affordability of social security, which I mentioned earlier, has been linked to the argument that social security transfers have a negative effect on economic development. This argument is not new, but it has been widely accepted in recent years and has supported the claim that individuals and families need to make their own arrangements to meet their income protection needs. The continued expansion of statutory programmes will, it is argued, inevitably retard economic growth, with disastrous consequences. Although this argument has been countered by a number of social policy scholars who have drawn on empirical research to show that the expansion of statutory income protection programmes has not had a negative economic effect, this research has been largely ignored (Midgley, 2008).

Social development research into the economic impact of social protection has adopted a more proactive approach showing that, if properly configured, these programmes function as social investments that contribute positively to economic development. Originally, research of this kind focused on the way health, nutrition and education improved the productivity of the labour force, but more recent studies have shown that innovative social investment programmes such as conditional cash transfers have a direct impact on human capital formation and thus on economic development. For example, Rawlings (2005) has shown that conditional cash transfer schemes in several Latin American countries significantly increased school attendance. Similarly, studies of South Africa's social assistance grants (Patel & Triegaardt, 2008) reveal that these programmes improve nutritional standards and promote school attendance, contributing positively to human capital formation. Research conducted in South Africa also shows that social assistance benefits are often used to fund microenterprises and that the ‘pension days’ at which social assistance benefits are distributed are characterised by thriving markets at which a variety of locally produced commodities are bought and sold. Social policy scholars have much to learn from this research when formulating arguments to support their contention that social security is not a wasteful consumption expenditure but a positive investment that contributes to development.

4. Conclusion: Enhancing policy exchanges

In this paper I have argued that closer links should be forged between academics in the interdisciplinary field of social policy who have undertaken extensive research into what is known as ‘social security’ and those in the social development field who have focused on what is called ‘social protection’. Although they share a common commitment to enhancing the well-being of the world's peoples, reducing poverty and creating a more just and equal society, they differ on what policies and programmes might best achieve this. As I have shown, the social policy perspective is primarily concerned with statutory social security schemes in Western ‘welfare states’, while the social development perspective has given more priority to household and community-based interventions in the developing world.

Nevertheless, I contend that these two perspectives have much to learn from each other. Besides sharing common interests, they would find that there are a number of topics that present fruitful opportunities for policy learning as well as addressing challenges. I have discussed some of these in this paper and I have suggested that closer collaboration would have useful policy implications. Collaboration and mutual policy exchanges could also generate a unified ‘one world’ perspective that has global relevance and could be helpful to policymakers and practitioners working in very different economic, social and cultural environments. Although social protection has evolved in different ways in different societies, and should be suited to local conditions, efforts should be redoubled to foster a unitary perspective that transcends academic boundaries to produce concepts and principles of global relevance.

Because academics working in social policy and development studies have not collaborated extensively in the past, more opportunities for mutual exchanges should be created. Certainly both would benefit from becoming more aware of each other's work. As I have noted earlier, social policy scholars are largely unfamiliar with the social development literature and remain largely unaware of the now quite frequent publication of papers on social protection in mainstream development studies journals. Similarly, the sizable body of literature on social security in social policy is seldom cited by those working in the social development field. Efforts to enhance the awareness and ultimately the integration of this knowledge should be enhanced. More opportunities should also be created for joint research and publication.

Collaboration could also be fostered by increased academic visits and exchanges. Although these are well developed in social policy, international academic exchanges between scholars in the Western countries are much more common than exchanges between scholars in the developing world, or between those from high income and low income countries. Funding opportunities that foster exchanges of this kind should be more systematically explored. This could also promote joint research projects that could integrate knowledge from the two fields. Finally, international gatherings such as the symposium held at the University of Johannesburg in May 2011 should be convened with greater frequency. Events of this kind provide an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas, share research findings and address the many challenges of formulating effective social protection policies and programmes that will enhance the well-being of the world's people.