Changes of Government and Cash Transfer Expansion in East and Southern Africa

• In Event: The Changing Landscape of Social Protection in Africa

Abstract

In the early 2000s, social cash transfers (SCTs) emerged as a popular response amongst global development policy makers for addressing extreme poverty and inequality, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Emerging evidence from the Global South demonstrates that higher levels of democracy are associated with an increased likelihood of national governments adopting any form of social cash transfer programs. Nonetheless, the existing evidence does not fully account for the contribution of electoral competition on the expansion of SCTs. Neither does it fully account for the contribution of alternation between national governments within countries and the adoption and expansion of SCTs. This paper contributes to filling these knowledge gaps. It interrogates the relationship between changes of government (including electoral alternation and presidential succession within a ruling coalition) and social protection reforms aimed at promoting the expansion of SCTs in 10 Anglophone East and Southern African countries. The paper uses quasi-statistics to establish the relationship between changes of government and five dimensions of SCT expansion for 53 cases of government administrations since 1990. The paper argues that in low and lower middle-income competitive democracies, changes of government were associated with the expansion of SCTs over time. By contrast, low and lower-middle income autocratic (or uncompetitive democracies) were less responsive to expanding SCTs while upper middle-income democracies were more likely to promote SCTs regardless of whether changes of government occurred or not.

Author

• Hangala Siachiwena, University of Cape Town