Cash Transfers and Changing Citizenship Boundaries in Pakistan

• In Event: The Politics of Social Welfare in Electoral Democracies in the Global South

Abstract

Can cash transfer programs provide new pathways for previously marginalized citizens to exercise greater citizenship rights in high poverty settings? What impacts do these poverty targeted cash transfers have for citizens who are engaging with state services for the first time? This paper seeks to address these questions by analyzing the citizenship consequences of Pakistan’s Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), one of the largest unconditional cash transfer programs targeted at women in the Global South. The paper uses a regression discontinuity identification strategy, to compare BISP beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries close to program’s eligibility cutoff. I use an original citizen survey of 2300 respondents in four districts in the provinces of Punjab and Sindh, as well as semi- structured interviews and focus groups with BISP beneficiaries. I find that despite the political naming of the program there is significant subnational variation in beneficiaries voting patterns over three national election cycles. Although women’s access to government services remains low in rural areas, BISP beneficiaries and their household members are more likely to obtain national identity cards and vote in national elections. While BISP’s design has been successful in undermining clientelism and forging direct relationships between the female citizens and the state, the program’s centralized implementation is less successful in fostering wider citizen-state interaction and claim making at the local level.

Author

• Rehan Rafay Jamil, Brown University