IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/devchg/v53y2022i3p551-575.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cash Transfers, International Finance and Neoliberal Debt Relations: The Case of Post‐apartheid South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Shaukat Ansari

Abstract

This article situates South Africa's cash transfer programme within the country's financialized neoliberal regime. The adoption of economic liberalization by the African National Congress in the aftermath of the democratic transition has raised the profile of international investors in the domestic bond market. It is argued that this development, in the context of rising public debt and stagnating economic growth, has facilitated the financialization of the post‐apartheid state and has linked the sustainability of fiscal policy, and hence state‐led redistributive measures, to deepening debt relations with global asset managers. Additionally, a cluster of orthodox economic measures, such as inflation targeting and reserve accumulation, have served to thwart the potential for industrial upgrading. Moreover, it is posited that financial liberalization has further strengthened the influence of the Treasury over heterodox bureaucratic centres such as the Department of Trade and Industry, thereby serving to lock in the post‐transition neoliberal programme. Finally, the article argues that the integration of cash transfer recipients into the circuits of debt and finance is an outgrowth of the limitations of the social welfare programme and the broader financialization of the state. Overall, the analysis offered here serves as a counter‐argument to the notion that South Africa's cash transfer programme could offer a progressive alternative to market orthodoxy.

Suggested Citation

  • Shaukat Ansari, 2022. "Cash Transfers, International Finance and Neoliberal Debt Relations: The Case of Post‐apartheid South Africa," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 53(3), pages 551-575, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:53:y:2022:i:3:p:551-575
    DOI: 10.1111/dech.12710
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12710
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/dech.12710?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hager, Sandy Brian, 2015. "Corporate Ownership of the Public Debt: Mapping the New Aristocracy of Finance," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 13(3), pages 505-523.
    2. Graham Bird & Ramkishen Rajan, 2003. "Too Much of a Good Thing? The Adequacy of International Reserves in the Aftermath of Crises," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(6), pages 873-891, June.
    3. Dani Rodrik, 2006. "The social cost of foreign exchange reserves," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 253-266.
    4. Martin Grandes & Nicolas Pinaud, 2004. "Which Policies Can Reduce the Cost of Capital in Southern Africa ?," OECD Development Centre Policy Briefs 25, OECD Publishing.
    5. Ilias Alami, 2019. "Taming Foreign Exchange Derivatives Markets? Speculative Finance and Class Relations in Brazil," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 50(5), pages 1310-1341, September.
    6. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2010. "Growth in a Time of Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 573-578, May.
    7. Susanne Soederberg, 2013. "Universalising Financial Inclusion and the Securitisation of Development," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 593-612.
    8. Hager, Sandy Brian, 2015. "Public Debt as Corporate Power: Mapping the New Aristocracy of Finance," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2015/01, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    9. Pedro Mendes Loureiro, 2020. "Class inequality and capital accumulation in Brazil, 1992–2013," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 44(1), pages 181-206.
    10. Paula Armstrong & Cobus Burger, 2009. "Poverty, Inequality and the Role of Social Grants: An Analysis using Decomposition Techniques," Working Papers 15/2009, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    11. Pablo G. Bortz & Annina Kaltenbrunner, 2018. "The International Dimension of Financialization in Developing and Emerging Economies," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(2), pages 375-393, March.
    12. Emma Dowling, 2017. "In the wake of austerity: social impact bonds and the financialisation of the welfare state in Britain," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(3), pages 294-310, May.
    13. Maxine Molyneux & With Nicola Jones & Fiona Samuels, 2016. "Can Cash Transfer Programmes Have ‘Transformative’ Effects?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(8), pages 1087-1098, August.
    14. Suzanne J. Konzelmann, 2014. "The political economics of austerity," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 38(4), pages 701-741.
    15. Oecd, 2009. "Employment and Social Protection," OECD Journal on Development, OECD Publishing, vol. 9(4), pages 7-54.
    16. James, Deborah, 2017. "Deductions and counter-deductions in South Africa," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 85975, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Amit Bhaduri, 2011. "A contribution to the theory of financial fragility and crisis," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 35(6), pages 995-1014.
    18. Sandy Brian Hager, 2014. "What Happened to the Bondholding Class? Public Debt, Power and the Top One Per Cent," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 155-182, March.
    19. Torkelson, Erin, 2020. "Collateral damages: Cash transfer and debt transfer in South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    20. Moritz Cruz & Bernard Walters, 2008. "Is the accumulation of international reserves good for development?," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 32(5), pages 665-681, September.
    21. Habib, Adam & Padayachee, Vishnu, 2000. "Economic Policy and Power Relations in South Africa's Transition to Democracy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 245-263, February.
    22. Sara Hsu, 2012. "The Increasing Virulence of Man-Made Crises: Financial Crises and Global Instability," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(2), pages 491-498.
    23. Hager, Sandy Brian, 2014. "What Happened to the Bondholding Class? Public Debt, Power and the Top One Per Cent (Preprint)," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 19(2), pages 155-182.
    24. Patrick Bond, 2013. "Debt, Uneven Development and Capitalist Crisis in South Africa: from Moody’s macroeconomic monitoring to Marikana microfinance," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 569-592.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bichler, Shimshon & Nitzan, Jonathan, 2020. "Growing through Sabotage: Energizing Hierarchical Power," Review of Capital as Power, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism, vol. 1(5), pages 1-78.
    2. Nitzan, Jonathan & Bichler, Shimshon, 2018. "The CasP Project: Past, Present, Future," Review of Capital as Power, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism, vol. 1(3), pages 1-39.
    3. Carolina Alves, 2023. "Fictitious capital, the credit system, and the particular case of government bonds in Marx," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 398-415, May.
    4. Arbogast, Tobias, 2020. "Who are these bond vigilantes anyway? The political economy of sovereign debt ownership in the eurozone," MPIfG Discussion Paper 20/2, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    5. Costas Lapavitsas & Aylin Soydan, 2020. "Financialisation in developing countries: Approaches, concepts, and metrics," Working Papers 240, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    6. Moritz Cruz & Peter Kriesler, 2010. "International Reserves, Effective Demand and Growth," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 569-587.
    7. Jorge Garcia-Arias & Alan Cibils & Agostina Costantino & Vitor B. Fernandes & Eduardo Fernández-Huerga, 2021. "When Land Meets Finance in Latin America: Some Intersections between Financialization and Land Grabbing in Argentina and Brazil," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-37, July.
    8. Chung‐Hua Shen & Hsing‐Hua Hsu, 2022. "The determinants of Asian banking crises—Application of the panel threshold logit model," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 248-277, March.
    9. Joshua Aizenman & Brian Pinto, 2013. "Managing Financial Integration and Capital Mobility—Policy Lessons from the Past Two Decades," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 636-653, September.
    10. van Bavel, Bas, 2016. "The Invisible Hand?: How Market Economies have Emerged and Declined Since AD 500," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199608133.
    11. Kivisto, Hanna, 2016. "Capital as Power and the Corporatization of Education," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 1-17.
    12. Stephany Griffith-Jones & José Antonio Ocampo, 2009. "Sovereign Wealth Funds : a Developing Country Perspective," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 9(1), pages 241-254.
    13. Olivier Jeanne, 2007. "International Reserves in Emerging Market Countries: Too Much of a Good Thing?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 38(1), pages 1-80.
    14. Philipp Heimberger, 2021. "Do Higher Public Debt Levels Reduce Economic Growth?," wiiw Working Papers 211, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    15. Moritz Cruz & Bernard Walters, 2008. "Is the accumulation of international reserves good for development?," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 32(5), pages 665-681, September.
    16. Maurice Obstfeld & Jay C. Shambaugh & Alan M. Taylor, 2010. "Financial Stability, the Trilemma, and International Reserves," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 57-94, April.
    17. Hager, Sandy Brian, 2015. "Public Debt as Corporate Power: Mapping the New Aristocracy of Finance," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2015/01, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    18. Stephany Griffith Jones & José Antonio Ocampo, 2009. "Les fonds souverains du point de vue des pays en développement," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 9(1), pages 259-274.
    19. McMahon, James, 2018. "Is Hollywood a Risky Business? A Political Economic Analysis of Risk and Creativity," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Online Fi, pages 1-24.
    20. Hager, Sandy Brian, 2020. "Varieties of Top Incomes," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 18(4), pages 1175-1198.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:53:y:2022:i:3:p:551-575. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0012-155X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.