How the World Bank manages social risks: implementation of the Social Risk Mitigation Project in Turkey

Neoliberalism, governance, and the geographies of conditional cash transfers

“…Beginning with an overview of critical research on CCTs, emergent debates connecting CCTs to governance and neoliberalism, and contributions from geographers, I then move on to consider my case study from Ponta Fina and the geographic effects of Bolsa Família. My findings contribute to existing research linking CCTs with governmentality and neoliberalism (e.g., Corboz, 2013;Ferguson, 2010;Hossain, 2010;Peck, 2011;Peck and Theodore, 2010;Saad-Filho, 2015;Sener, 2015), yet what I also argue is that CCTs induce a host of differentiated effects that undermine State efforts to govern space, implement formalized economies, and create neoliberal citizen-subjects. By interrogating the relationships between CCTs, space, and governance, my hope is that this article opens new pathways for critical geographic research into State-led development initiatives (e.g., Andolina, Radcliffe, and Laurie, 2005;Bebbington & McCourt, 2007;Peck and Theodore, 2015;Roy, 2010Roy, , 2012.…”

“…The poor are formally educated in ways that orient their practices and desires towards development goals, in addition to submitting to the State's medical gaze and biopolitical strategies (e.g., registration and biometric capture, notification of household and residential change, reporting of income and school attendance, monthly visits to agencies to receive payment). Like other scholars drawing on Foucault (Luccisano, 2006;Meltzer, 2013;Sener, 2015), Hossain scrutinizes CCT programs not so much for their effectiveness at addressing poverty and reducing hunger, but rather for their governance and personal conduct objectives. In line with large-scale development projects (Li, 2007(Li, , 2009 and government welfare initiatives (Miller and Rose, 2008), CCTs appear designed to make more governable, compliant, and highly productive populations out of the poor.…”

Strategies of conditional cash transfers and the tactics of resistance

“…These critiques connect to broader debates concerning the ways governmentality underlies development initiatives (Gupta, 2012;Li, 2007), and more specifically the biopolitical implications of CCT conditionalities (Hickey, 2010;Meltzer, 2013;Sener, 2015).…”

“…Yet as researchers have observed elsewhere (Ballard, 2013;Standing, 2011), such regulations are by no means unique to Brazil: they are common to Conditional Cash Transfer programs (CCTs) like PBF, where social welfare for the poor comes with strings attached. On the one hand comes desperately needed income assistance, while on the other comes a host of obligations that must be fulfilled by program recipients (Cookson, 2016;Sener, 2015). Sam Hickey notes that although poverty reduction schemes like CCTs are crucial to reducing hunger, they also seek to induce specific and desired behaviors within poor populations through program conditionalities (2010).…”

“…While academic debates often investigate the biopolitical and neoliberal underpinnings of CCT programs (Corboz, 2013;Meltzer, 2013;Sener, 2015) …”