Social Policy in the Global South

Catalog description

This course offers an overview of the structure and politics of social policy in the Global South. It addresses commonalities and differences in social policies across middle-income countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and examines scholarly explanations for social policy adoption, policy design, and social policy change. The course's approach is comparative, focusing on different regions and country cases in the Global South, but pays special attention to the evolution of social protection in Latin America, where welfare systems are relatively broader in scope and have been the subject of more scholarly research. The course explores the types of protections states extend to different groups, particularly focusing on the divide between insiders-meaning formal-sector workers with labor contracts-and outsiders-informal, unemployed, and rural workers. It also examines the political dynamics (electoral competition, protest), institutions (e.g. political regimes), and actors (social and labor movements, political parties) that shape social policy. Finally, it explores the role of policy legacies, ideas, and economic factors in shaping social protection in the Global South.