Permanent Emergency Welfare Regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa

The Exclusive Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

Alfio Cerami

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780230299795
• eBook ISBN: 9781137318213
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines the relationship between development economics, social protection and democratization in the specific context of Sub-Saharan Africa. Moving existing theories of transformation into a new terrain, it sheds light on the exclusive origins of dictatorship and democracy.

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Introduction: Permanent Emergency Welfare Regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa

Introduction

This book is about a journey – a journey into Africa and into its possibilities for modernization and democratization. It is also about individuals, their possibilities of survival and of getting ahead in the society. Hence, it is about defeats and hopes for a better life. More specifically, it investigates the relationship between development economics, social protection and democratization in the specific context of Sub-Saharan Africa.¹ It includes an analysis of systemic problems and structural challenges, as well as a more in-depth examination of modernization, democratization and consolidation of democratic institution-related issues. In doing so, it sheds light on the exclusive origins of dictatorship and democracy.

In writing a book on such complex topics, an important question that needs to be addressed is whether it is possible and meaningful to write about development economics without writing about social protection and democracy promotion. This is a particularly tricky question especially in the presence of weak, fragile (Naudé et al. 2011) or, sometimes even defined as, failed states (The Fund for Peace 2011). To provide a suitable response, the book adopts a comprehensive approach to study the system transformations occurring in this part of the world. These are understood as changes not simply in the political regime (see Merkel 2010a) but also, more broadly, in the political, economic, cultural and social environment (Kollmorgen et al. 2013; see Chapter 2). A central point put forward is that the interplay between development economics, social protection and democratization is crucial for the analysis of systemic change. In this way the book highlights not only the most recent and less recent economic and human development achievements in Sub-Saharan Africa, but also the shortcomings, inconsistencies and, more generally, inadequacies of the dominant economic development, social protection and democracy promotion approach. In this context, special attention is paid to those factors that have facilitated the implementation of unique, even though highly differentiated, African welfare regimes.

More than three decades after the publication of Esping-Andersen’s (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, very few attempts have been made to capture the real essence of these systems of social protection. Even the few exceptions have, more or less, centered the core of their analysis on the same patterns of production and allocation of resources in imperfect labor markets that have been suggested for the West, neglecting the system stabilizing and de-stabilizing functions, manifest or latent, of the existing formal and informal welfare institutions (see Chapter 2).

The permanent emergency character of most of the measures implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa is discussed, as this is an important element for obtaining a correct understanding of the prospects for future reforms. The following crucial areas of social protection are covered:

• access to the labor market;

• poverty relief;

• health;

• education;

• child protection;

• gender equality;

• food security and nutrition;

• access to safe water and sanitation facilities.

The importance of including several different areas that do not usually belong to the classical spheres of social protection depends on two interrelated reasons. On the one hand, it has to do with the necessity of providing the most comprehensive information about the human development challenges that the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa currently face. On the other, it depends on the fact that social protection policies are defined rather differently in developing countries. In the specific context of Sub-Saharan Africa, water sanitation and malnutrition must be included side by side with more familiar themes of social protection, such as health and education (Mkandawire 2011).

This book fills an important theoretical and empirical gap. Despite a genuine increasing interest in the destiny of the African continent, serious reflections on the limits and prospects of contemporary economic and social protection policies for the modernization, democratization and consolidation possibilities of African countries have, astonishingly, been absent from the international academic debate. Moreover, as the limited number of publications on this topic demonstrate,² scholarly attention to Sub-Saharan Africa has, up to now, been largely directed at providing recommendations on how to overcome urgent and dramatic outbreaks, neglecting, in most cases, the long-term efficacy of a coherent policy thinking. As a consequence of permanent emergency situations that the African continent faces, the economic and social protection approach adopted by the leading governments and international financial institutions has concentrated on designing systems of social protection able to provide at least ‘basic services and provisions’ to the populations in urgent need. As it will be argued in the course of the following chapters, this forced residual approach to economic and social policy making has resulted in the establishment of permanent emergency welfare regimes which have succeeded in providing coverage for only a few fortunate people, often attached to the dominant factions of the society and employed in the formal economy. The majority of the citizens active in the informal sector or not supported by the ruling elites have, in contrast, remained unprotected or reliant on basic social services. More often than not, these have taken the form of provisions capable of ensuring only short-term physical survival, such as those aimed at reducing extreme poverty, infant mortality and malnutrition. In this process of welfare clientelization and residualization, increasing informality, insecurity and exclusion have been the principal outcomes, with local communities, families, informal networks, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and donor agencies only in part succeeding in playing the necessary cushioning role. By being the last social safety nets available to people at risk of extreme poverty and deprivation, they have, however, managed to let some segments of the uncovered population escape from inevitable death, but only until the next social crisis materializes.

As a result, this book provides the theoretical and empirical basis for moving beyond a simple basic services and provisions approach, emphasizing the important role that welfare institutions can play in economic and human development as well as in the modernization, democratization and consolidation of democratic institutions. What have been the repercussions of the most recent economic, political and social changes for the human development of these populations? What is the role that welfare institutions can play in modernizing, democratizing and consolidating emerging democracies? And what is their role in preventing future social conflicts and civil wars? These are the key questions that this book aims to address. The main argument put forward is that welfare institutions are far from secondary instruments in economic and human development, but are in fact fundamental tools for achieving vital modernizing, democratizing and consolidating objectives.

Africa development’s problems, challenges and responses

Africa is a continent whose beauty can remain impressed in the minds of people for decades after their departure. The Mal d’Afrique, as the French call the feeling of emptiness that materializes when leaving the continent and finally going back to the ‘civilized’ world, is, however, only one of the several diseases – in this case a positive one – related to this part of the hemisphere. Slow economic development, ever-increasing poverty, deterioration of the health situation, aggravation of environmental hazards, pandemic outbreaks, wars, political instability, genocides, famine, hunger and thirst are only a few, but notable, examples of a long list that could continue for pages. Africa’s main development problems are rooted in a long-lasting colonial past, with associated negative political, economic, cultural and socio-structural legacies. Yet, this does not mean that the path of extrication from this developmental trap is already, once and for all, decided. Beside human development shortcomings, there are other systemic problems and structural challenges that must be addressed before suitable way outs can be found (see Chapter 4).

These are the basis for the existing human development problems and challenges which currently hinder the functionings, capabilities and agency (Sen 1999) possibilities of the African populations.

The main challenges ahead for national governments, and for the international community as a whole, concern, in this case, the ways in which to promote economic growth and foster human development, while ensuring peace and stability. This dilemma of simultaneity goes beyond the same dilemma that post-communist countries faced more than two decades ago, since it includes a more pressing conflict-prevention and a conflictresolution variable. In the immediate aftermath of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe faced, in fact, a dilemma of simultaneity, which consisted of the simultaneous introduction of a democratic political system and the institutions of a market economy (Offe 1991). This took place in a context of relatively internal peace and absence of clear threats from neighboring countries. For the majority of observers, the collapse of the Berlin Wall was supposed to bring peace and stability in Europe and, at that point, turning back was no longer possible. Transition toward democracy was the only possible pathway (Lequesne and Rupnik 2011). Moreover, transition to a democratic system based on market economic principles also occurred in a context of advanced post-industrial economies, even though serious shortcomings and developmental challenges were present even in that case (EBRD 2008). In the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, the existence of serious human development problems, associated with ever-increasing vertical and horizontal inequalities – that is, inequalities existing among individuals and households, and existing among social groups (ethnic, religious, etc.) (see Stewart 2008; Langer et al. 2011) – and unresolved territorial and ethnic disputes make the problem of the simultaneous transition to a democratic system based on market economic principles even more difficult.

Possible responses to address these complex issues exist, though their implementation may seem difficult. Increasing economic growth represents a necessary precondition for human development, but certainly not the only one. An emerging consensus now suggests that the economic and social modernization of a society cannot be measured only in terms of national economic productivity – that is, in terms of the growth of gross domestic product (GDP), – since this approach ignores a range of negative externalities. Instead, there is a need to take into account the multifaceted aspects that lead to an enhancement of well-being, in individuals, households, groups and communities, and whole societies. Economic growth represents, in this context, the achievement of ‘gross progress’ but has often been inefficient in terms of producing benefits for society at large (Cerami and Stubbs 2010, p. 5). A focus on well-being redirects attention to ‘net progress’, which, in contrast, increases the capacity of societies and polities to control the costs associated with negative externalities (Offe 2009). To achieve these objectives, a redefinition of the leading development priorities, as well as a democratization of the modes in which resources are acquired by the elites and redistributed to the population, is necessary.

Welfare regimes, human development and the reduction of inequalities

This book highlights the important role of welfare institutions in the reduction and reproduction of vertical and horizontal inequalities. In particular, it examines what kind of welfare regimes are present in Sub-Saharan Africa and how they differ from those in more developed nations. In doing so, it pays special attention to the key characteristics of these developing countries – those of informality, insecurity, differential inclusion and the permanent emergency. Special attention is also paid to the ways in which welfare regimes are organized in terms of collection and redistribution of resources and, in particular, whether there is state capture and how this influences the emergence of social conflicts and regime stability or change. In this account, a welfare regime is understood as ‘a particular constellation of social, political and economic arrangements which tend to nurture a particular welfare system, which in turn supports a particular pattern of stratification, and thus feeds back into its own stability [or instability]’ (Taylor-Gooby 1996, p. 200).

In recent years the ‘welfare modeling business’ (Abrahamson 1999) has attracted increasing scholarly attention, being also always more often subjected to violent diatribes. The reasons are easy to understand. On the one hand, existing welfare regime typologies have been developed and specifically tailored to advanced capitalist economies which differ quite significantly from societies in developing countries. On the other, and in a highly globalized environment, African models of development have always, to a larger extent, been influenced by the advice of international institutions. These have succeeded in significantly altering the pre-existing, historically bounded institutional design of the welfare organization, including formal and informal institutions, in ways that were not always compatible with the socio-economic development aspirations of most countries.

In his well-known The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Esping-Andersen (1990) identifies three distinct models of welfare capitalism, each having a different performance in terms of de-commodification and social stratification. In this typology, the liberal welfare regime, which includes the United States, Canada, Australia and Great Britain, is dominated by a liberal work ethic and the market remains the main provider of welfare services. The conservative-corporatist regime, primarily involving France and Germany, aims, in contrast, to preserve status differentials, with rights and welfare entitlements that are the output of class, status and financial contributions. Finally, in the social-democratic welfare regime seen, for example, in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, welfare institutions do not play a subsidiary role, waiting until the market or the family capacity to promote social equality is exhausted, but are strongly committed to the preservation of social rights defined upon citizenship, rather than upon class status. From the date of this publication, several other welfare regime typologies have been added. The list includes the Southern European countries (Italy, Portugal and Spain) (Ferrera 1996), the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe (Cerami 2006; Bohle and Greskovits 2007; Nölke and Vliegenthart 2009) and of South Eastern Europe (Deacon and Stubbs 2007; Stambolieva and Dehnert 2011), the Russian Federation (Cook 2007) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (Aidukaite 2010; Myant and Drahokoupil 2010; Cerami and Stubbs 2011), Latin America (Haggard and Kaufman 2008), the Asian nations (Goodman et al. 1998; Rieger and Leibfried 2003; Gough 2004a) and also China as a sui generis welfare regime (Aspalter 2006). These classifications are, for the most part, Western-centric, having neglected, for more than a decade, the African continent. Gough et al. (2004) provide an alternative classification centered on the concept of security (instead of simply de-commodification and social stratification as proposed by Esping-Andersen), which better explains the peculiar socio-economic conditions of developing countries.

Gough et al.’s (2004) alternative typology is based on a distinction between welfare state regimes, informal security regimes and insecurity regimes. The welfare state regime typology applies, in principle, to the majority of industrialized Western nations and can, at the risk of some generalization, be subdivided into one or more of Esping-Andersen’s welfare regimes. In the welfare state regime typology, the dominant mode of production entails the key features of modern capitalism in which a continuous technological progress is associated with emerging new forms of market inequalities (Gough 2004b, Figure 1.3, p. 32). Informal security regimes involve, on the contrary, the systems of social protection of South Asia. In this model, the dominant mode of production is the one of peasant economies with peripheral capitalism that leads to uneven economic and social development. Social relationships are extremely variegated in which exclusion and domination regularly materialize (Gough 2004b, Figure 1.3, p. 32; see also Barrientos 2004; Gough 2004a). The third welfare regime typology, insecurity regimes, is the one that more specifically applies to Sub-Saharan Africa (see Bevan 2004). Predatory capitalism is the dominant mode of production which influences the leading social relationships. These are characterized by various forms of social segregation and exploitation. A portfolio of different sources of formal and informal revenue affects the living conditions of the populations subjected to this welfare regime with growing insecurity, often associated with extensive forms of patronage and clientelism, which, subsequently, lead to ongoing political conflicts (Gough 2004b, Figure 1.3, p. 32; see also Bevan 2004).

In a subsequent study, Wood and Gough (2006) refine this early classification and introduce new categories. These correspond to

• actual or potential welfare state regimes, including much of Central and Eastern Europe, the southern part of Latin America, Kenya, Algeria and Tunisia in Africa, and Thailand;

• more effective informal security regimes involving parts of Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, the remaining countries of Latin America and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Map of Africa
• 1. Introduction: Permanent Emergency Welfare Regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa
• 2. Theoretical Framework: Democracy, System Transformation and Welfare Regimes
• Part I: Key Issues and Parameters
• Part II: Social Protection
• Part III: Social Conflicts, Modernization and Democratization
• Concluding Remarks
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index