PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Reducing poverty has been an overriding concern of development politics from the beginnings. But in the early decades, this referred to the collective poverty of countries, to be overcome by macroeconomic policies to achieve economic growth and raise national income. Only from the 1990s did development politics zoom in on individual poverty. This new perspective led to the idea of tackling poverty also by way of individualized non-contributory welfare benefits to poor persons and households—a policy option that had been rejected by actors from all political leanings well into the 1990s. From the late 1990s, continuing till the present day, ‘social cash transfers’—regular non-contributory monetary public transfers to poor persons or households for general subsistence, mostly means-tested—have mushroomed in the global South and on agendas of international organizations. The article inquires: what ‘are’ social cash transfers, how wide-spread are they in the global South, how inclusive are they, what varieties can be identified, what effects do they have, and how does the new instrument transform poverty policy? We argue that the new instrument has individualized poverty policy, rooted in a new conception of the poor as agents of development and of their own lives.