Readme for: The Negotiations of Zambia’s Welfare Regime - The Transformative Potential of Social Cash Transfers

This dissertation unravels this paradox by dismantling the complex relations and dynamics that reproduce poverty and provide limits to forces for change. This is done by offering a detailed examination of the political settlement process of Zambia’s welfare regime through a multilevel analysis of the policy process of Zambia’s first National Social Cash Transfer scheme. Theoretically, the dissertation advances a distinctive understanding of the development and settlement process based on a critical engagement with the welfare regime approach for developing countries and the constructivist institutionalist perspective.

The proposed theoretical framework goes beyond simplistic assumptions about change and takes account of the ideas and the institutional context which influence the evolving negotiations of welfare regimes and inexorably interplay with development and policy reform efforts. The application of this framework to the policy process around social protection in Zambia generates novel insights into the interactions between a range of actors situated in political and policy processes who have certain beliefs and power positions.

The analysis reveals how Zambia’s development practice and neopatrimonial dynamics depoliticised, overlooked, and resisted competing sets of beliefs in order to maintain prevailing power relations. It argues that precisely the lack of politicisation and problematisation entrenches poverty and adversity for women and children in Zambia. The analysis suggests that exposing the clashes of beliefs, and the power relations between actors are key requirements to sustain progressive efforts and transform poverty.