Can social protection address both poverty and inequality in principle and practice?

Abstract

The recent expansion of social protection in the Global South has focused on practice (the how) and not on principles (the why). The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) endorse social protection as a means of addressing both poverty and inequality. In this article, which contributes to the Special Issue on ‘ The principles and practice of social protection’, we focus on the principles that (often implicitly) underlie four types of social protection responses to poverty and inequality. The analysis of moral, economic, political and social arguments shows a convergence on the need to alleviate poverty, but the principled agreement to tackle inequality is weaker as it requires a broader mandate and more extensive state intervention. Regardless of strong moral/social arguments, dominant economic/political arguments are less inclined to accept the type of social protection required to address inequalities.

A new era for social protection analysis in LMICs? A critical social policy perspective from the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA)

“…Moreover, attention to policy discourse is especially relevant in contexts where state institutions are weak: policy documents can act as powerful tools of decision-making (see Author 2009). In this sense, the paper agrees with international development academic and policy observers in that that consideration of the ethical and normative underpinnings of policy concepts in international development should be considered a necessary means of clarifying policy action on the ground (Holzman and Jorgensen, 2001;Barrientos, 2016;Plagerson and Ulriksen, 2016). In what follows, the key criteria by which the concept of social protection is analysed in this paper are explained.…”

A literature-based review on potentials and constraints in the implementation of the sustainable development goals

“…A review of potentials and constraints on the African continent. Plagerson and Ulriksen (2016) Can social protection address both poverty and inequality in principle and practice? Global Social Policy 2 Reed et al (2016) Integrated landscape approaches to managing social and environmental issues in the tropics: learning from the past to guide the future.…”

Forms of social assistance in the social protection system and their role in poverty reduction

“…The relevant problems have been studied by a number of domestic scholars and scientists, among whom are V. Buyashenko (Plagerson, 2016) [15] and others dedicated their works to the examination of issues related to different aspects of social protection. Monitoring of social policies, as well as evaluation of existing social programs, is a new direction in the development of Ukraine's economy today.…”

“…Russian scholars, such as M Buyanova, F. Dahaeva, M. Fedorova, K. Gusova, M. Lushnikova, A. Mitina, N. Scomorova, V. Tara sova, I. Tikeev, B. Topornina, V. Usenin, have also conducted comprehensive analyses of the same issues in the context of social care. Foreign scholars, such as George Marian Stefan (Stefan, 2015) [12], Stephen Devereux, A. McGregor (Devereux, McGregor, 2014) [13], Marianne S. Ulriksen [14], Sophie Plagerson (Plagerson, 2016) [15] and others dedicated their works to the examination of issues related to different aspects of social protection. Monitoring of social policies, as well as evaluation of existing social programs, is a new direction in the development of Ukraine's economy today.…”