International Organizations, Political Settlements, and Welfare Reform in the Contemporary Global South

• In Event: Political Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Organizational Politics (Table 8)

Abstract

Scholarship often links welfare expansion to democratization, yet recent research shows that many authoritarian and hybrid regimes have also adopted significant social policy reforms. This paper examines recent variation in social policies across upper- and lower- middle income countries. Using a transnational, longitudinal dataset covering social welfare reforms across developing countries over the past 30 years, the study analyzes moments of policy change in relation to domestic unrest, extra institutional political pressures, and the influence of international organizations. Relative to the postwar welfare states of Europe, contemporary emerging welfare regimes are distinguished by conditions that are less wealthy, less democratic, and more exposed to pressures from the global environment.
Drawing on political settlements theory and scholarship on globalization, the paper hypothesizes that international organizations—particularly the World Bank—have become integral actors shaping domestic welfare bargains in both industrializing democracies and autocracies. To better describe these dynamics, the paper proposes a typology of developing welfare regimes and illustrates one type through the case of Morocco. This type is characterized by governments shifting scarce resources between regime elites and social policy commitments, often in response to unrest, producing ad hoc and internationally influenced welfare reforms. The findings contribute to understanding of how extra-national actors and civil unrest shape welfare policy variation today.

Author

• Ian Wallace, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill