Moritz von Gliszczynski
Global Discourses on Social Cash Transfers
The main aim of this research project is to analyse the global political discussion on social cash transfers (SCT) in the global south, i.e. welfare programmes comparable to social assistance or basic pensions in the global north. In 2005 SCT experienced a sudden rise in popularity after decades of being ignored as an option in development policy, and have since been endorsed by a multitude of international organisations. As yet, there has been no attempt to explain this unexpected career of an originally "western" policy idea on the global level. The project will combine the approaches of world society theory, global social policy and discourse analysis to describe and explain the global discussion on SCT within the last 20 years. Specifically, it will be examined how different variants of SCT are constructed from and legitimized by overarching discourses in world society. In addition, research will look for relevant groups of actors, such as policy communities, discourse coalitions or advocacy networks.
