Global ideas of welfare and the narrowing scope of social policy

This paper documents contemporary trends within social policymaking. I illustrate how the scope of social policy has narrowed over time, with social assistance programmes nowadays being favoured over more comprehensive forms of social policy. I argue that, overall, social service delivery has been subject to privatisation with the ascendency of neo-liberalism. I moreover provide an overview of the relevant literature discussing the evolution of welfare states (and their retrenchment). With an initial focus on the European context, I survey theories according to which welfare states emerged as a consequence of industrialism, were the outcome of class struggles or a result of historical institutionalism and/or power relations. I then move on to review concepts and theories that account for social policy trajectories in countries of the Global South, and Africa in particular. Many of Africa’s post-colonial states sought to promote social policy as a way of facilitating social cohesion and nation-building and in order to create inclusive states. Still, the rise of neo-liberalism significantly shaped and influenced their particular practices. Finally, I introduce Ben Fine’s Systems of Provision (SoP) approach as the theoretical framework, which stands out amongst the various theories seeking to explain social policy trajectories. A crucial benefit of the SoP approach is that it encourages and facilitates a context- and system-specific analysis, helping to understand how contextual factors and structures determine consumption outcomes in a specific setting. Moreover, it takes account of both social dynamics and constructs as well as global trends, such as globalisation and neo-liberalisation, which impact processes and narratives as well as the meaning that participants within a system of provision attach to the consumption of a specific good and/or service.