National and International Drivers of the Spread of Social Cash Transfers

Abstract

This chapter seeks to explain the remarkable spread of social cash transfer programmes in the countries of the global South. General explanatory models of social policy development are discussed, and then specified and tested for social pensions, using multivariate quantitative analysis (event history analysis, 1971–2011). Theories familiar from explaining the historical rise of Northern welfare states have to be modified and extended to accommodate development contexts. Three major groups of drivers of the spread of social pensions are found: socio-economic modernization and political regime type; global norms; and pension reform events. By way of qualitative analysis, three mechanisms are identified, by which global ideas and norms influence domestic policies: cultural linkages, theorization, and quantification. These mechanisms also help to explain the diffusion of new ideas within transnational communities and within domestic political arenas.