International Cooperation: Rewriting the Social (Protection) Contract

• In Event: International Cooperation on Migration

Abstract

The boundaries of social protection are changing. People live aspects of their economic, social, and political lives across borders, but social welfare systems – where available – operate primarily within countries. Territorially based social rights are outdated not only for those who cross borders, but also for those who don’t. Both migrant-sending and migrant-receiving states depend on migration. Sending countries rely on remittances for development, and use emigration as a safety valve. Receiving countries depend on migrant workers to alleviate labor shortages, lower living costs, and support the welfare state despite aging populations. These forces perpetuate reliance on migration even in political contexts in which anti-immigrant sentiment is strong, which fuels perceptions of elite unresponsiveness to populist migration-restrictive demands.

Risk and uncertainty remain universal problems, but the social contract is changing as new welfare arrangements emerge. Migration functions as a strategy to manage risk and reduce certain types of uncertainty, but it also generates situations in which migrants and non-migrants face new risks and different kinds of vulnerability. These changes have resulted in a rethinking of the role of state institutions at home and abroad. In many ways, social protection is undergoing refamiliarization, deinstitutionalization, privatization, and marketization. Many place this retrenchment of the welfare state within a familiar, broader narrative about state decline. However, the reconfiguration of social protection clashes with that narrative precisely because the state is also undergoing supersizing. The changing functions of ever-expanding networks of embassies and consulates reflect the new demands of citizens and new responsibilities of country representatives abroad in providing not only legal, but also political and social support.

How are individuals with allegiances and memberships in more than one state protected and provided for? How and when do states cooperate on social protection for migrants? This paper uses resource environments as a heuristic tool to understand the ways in which the decoupling of social rights from citizenship has led to a reconfiguration of responsibility and a new division of labor among the actors engaged in risk management and welfare provision. Does international cooperation increase or decrease pressures on societies to rely on non-state alternatives and transnational social protection? Does pressure from above push governments in the direction of expanding social protection to non-citizens? What is the impact of migratory crises (and associated populism) on international commitments to establish a “social protection floor” as the International Labour Organization has recommended since 2012? This paper examines the official documents and political discourse surrounding attempts to transnationalize social protection. It studies the interactions between national and international level actors, and evaluates the contribution of international/supranational actors around the world (the EU, CARICOM, MERCOSUR, the Ibero-American Social Security Convention, ASEAN, Unasur etc.).

Author

• Ruxandra Paul, Amherst College