There have been growing calls to reframe social protection in terms of extending the ‘social contract’ to the poorest groups. This is often understood as relocating social protection within a broader project politics of rights and justice as opposed to patronage. However, it is important to consider the significant differences within social contract theory and between their related forms of social protection. ‘Contracts’ are not unproblematically progressive, and it seems unlikely that international development agencies could promote progressive social contracts around social protection without significant shifts in practice.
Although discussions within international development tend to treat social contract theory as a single, undifferentiated approach, it is important to distinguish between at least two main strands of social contract thinking – liberal and social. The social or rights-based approach tends to view social contracts in terms of individuals’ rights and obligations. The liberal or interest-based approach involves more merit-based conceptions of justice and society. There are also philosophical differences within each tendency – in the social approach, for example, defending ‘negative’ (actually existing) rights versus promoting ‘positive’ rights.
These different approaches have different implications for related forms of social protection. The liberal tendency would tend to favour targeted and conditional approaches to social protection, while the social approach would be more closely associated with universal and unconditional approaches.
A contractual approach to social protection can be problematic. The experience of social protection in Africa suggests that such approaches in practice may be regressive as well as progressive. The mechanism of the contract itself tends to exclude from participation the highly dependent people often targeted by social protection, and it fails to recognise the forms of care that they rely on most. In addition:
- There are other approaches to social protection that are arguably more progressive.
- Contractualist thinking on social justice, even at its most progressive, fails to encompass radical approaches seeking structural change to address the causes of vulnerability, poverty, exclusion and subordination.
- It is doubtful whether donor agencies are equipped to play a role in deepening social contracts in developing countries.
- Although there is not a systematic evidence that would enable policy actors to choose between the liberal and social approaches, a comparison of the contractual politics social protection in Botswana and South Africa suggests that there should be a preference for the social approach adopted in the latter rather than the more liberal approach of the former.
- In addition, it could be argued that promoting liberal contractarian forms of politics may help promote liberal individualism in contexts more suited to other forms of political exchange and relationship.
Thinking about social protection from a contractual perspective offers strong insights into the politics of how social protection is practiced in particular places, particularly in terms of the centrality of state-society relations. It can also help to identify the extent to which such contracts are progressive or not, and at which levels. However, seeking to actively support (in a modest way) the progressive development of the contractual politics of social protection would require donors to make a stronger commitment to ‘do no harm’, and to enable countries to take control of their own policy agendas.
A rights-based social contract approach seems better suited to a progressive politics of social protection. But for social protection to be effective in challenging the social relations that underpin poverty, more radical and relational approaches to social justice might be needed.
