A new collection edited by Armando Barrientos, Matthew Carnes, Huck-Ju Kwon, Herbert Obinger, Leila Patel, and Carina Schmitt provides a thorough examination of social policy developments in the Global South.
Social policy dynamics in the Global South have long been considered more basic, contingent, and fragile than those of ‘welfare state’ countries in the North. However, a sustained expansion of social policies in countries in the Global South is currently underway, with economic and societal developments facilitating the evolution of policies beyond the public transfers in cash and in kind that have traditionally supported the welfare of populations.
Understanding how social policy institutions, practices, and research are shifting is vital for comprehending structural change in the Global South, as well as how the majority of the world’s population lives today. The expansion path of social policies in the Global South signals new directions and approaches to address poverty, inequality, and economic security.
Policy development and innovation have blurred the boundaries of social policy interventions, such as those between transfers in kind or basic services and transfers in cash or social protection. Meanwhile, innovations and expansion in social policies have been reinforced by advances in research methods and data collection.
Responding to the magnitude and breadth of these shifts, The Oxford Handbook of Social Policies in the Global South offers a comprehensive up-to-date assessment of social policies and institutions in place outside the advanced capitalist countries. Co-edited by GDI’s Emeritus Professor Armando Barrientos, it is the outcome of a multinational collaboration guided by a belief such overview of social policies in the Global South is overdue.
Consisting of 46 chapters written by regional and country specialists, the book identifies gaps and unevenness in current research both in terms of geographic scope and specific policies and institutions.
The research presented in this handbook demonstrates the diversity of developmental paths followed social policies by the countries in the Global South. Diversity frames comparative research. The Handbook makes a significant contribution to comparative research on social policies and to their influence on social, economic, and political change in the Global South, revealing knowledge gaps and fresh avenues for research.
Collectively, the contributions consider three main research questions: what are the main social policies and institutions in place in the developing regions? What is their current level of development? And what are the key factors influencing social policy in the Global South?
If you would like to read the book, it is available online on the Oxford University Press website.
Photo by Mikhail Nilov.
Note: This article gives the views of the author/academic featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the Global Development Institute as a whole.
Please feel free to use this post under the following Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Full information is available here.