The ‘Problem Represented To Be’ in the Social Protection Policy Regimes of Ethiopia

Abstract

Policy analysis needs to go beyond the conventional ‘problem solving’ approach to interrogating ‘problem representations’ within policy documents. Numerous studies on social protection in Ethiopia, and in sub-Saharan Africa at large have been confined to studying the impact of policy interventions. Studies that aimed to scrutinize policy documents for their ‘problematization’ of issues and ‘problem representations’ in the Foucauldian sense are in dearth. This study used document analysis as a method and Bacchi’s (2009a) ‘What is the Problem Represented to be’ (WPR) model as its analytic frame to interrogate the ‘problem representations’ of the Developmental Social Welfare Policy (DSWP) and the present Social Protection Policy of Ethiopia. The findings suggest that though there is improvement from the earlier to the current policy, ‘problem representations’ of both were limited in terms of what they could deliver, for they were framed by targeting theory, having the ‘resource scarcity’ excuse. This was mainly reflected in the policy regimes’ ‘problematization’ of issues and ‘subjectification’ of beneficiaries.

Keywords:

• Ethiopia
• social protection policy
• problematization
• subjectification
• contestations

AUTHORS

Melisew Dejene Lemma (PhD) is Assistant Professor of Policy & Development Studies; Journalism & Communication, Hawassa University. His research interest and experience include: food and livelihood security, social Protection & social Policy, Gender & Development, Communication & Development, and Education & Development.

Tesfaye Semela (PhD) is Professor of Sociology of Education and Educational Psychology, and Director of Institute of Policy and Development, Hawassa University, Ethiopia.His research interests include social policy, sociology of education and gender and education.