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Insights from the Political Economy of Cash Transfers in Bolivia (2005 – 2014)

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Insights from the Political Economy of Cash Transfers in Bolivia (2005 – 2014) Redistributing the Surplus: Insights from the Political Economy of Cash Transfers in Bolivia (2005 – 2014) A thesis submitted to University College London (UCL) for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Development Planning 2019 Thomas Aston 1 Acknowledgements First, I owe my thanks to my supervisors Jorge Fiori and Caren Levy. Jorge has been a great support from the beginning and Caren provided helpful feedback at key moments of the journey. Colin Marx also offered useful comments on later thesis drafts. I would also like to thank various members of the Development Planning Unit (DPU) at University College London (UCL). I owe my thanks to those in my PhD cohort, students, and faculty: Róbinson Rojas for his thoughts on structuralism, Giorgio Talocci on semiotics, Sigi Atteneder on post-colonial theory, Camila Cociña, Camilo Boano and Luz Navarro Eslava on discourse, Vicente Sandoval on vulnerability, Raphaëlle Bisiaux on behavioural economics, Julio Dávila, Nikhilesh Sinha and Hector Becerril on institutions, Daniel Oviedo on surveys, and Michael Casey-Gillman for helping me navigate the UCL bureaucracy. I am also grateful to Nicola Jones of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) from whom I learned more than anyone about social protection when I worked under her as a consultant (2012 – 2013). I owe my thanks to Gaia Gozzo of CARE International who allowed me the flexibility to phase my thesis alongside work, and indeed provided me the opportunity to participate in a study on cash transfers and women’s empowerment in the Andes, led by Maxine Molyneux (2010 – 2011). I must thank those that supported me while in La Paz. I thank Paola Rozo and Francesco Gatta for helping me to think through my scoping phase. I want to thank María Dolores Castro and José Rocabado Sánchez for offering helpful suggestions on the research scope and focus of primary data collection. María was also especially helpful in sharing the raw data from the aforementioned study, allowing me to more closely compare changes for programme beneficiaries between 2010 and 2014. I need also to thank Carolina Gutiérrez for support in understanding Bolivia’s macroeconomic data and making various connections with policy-makers, and Lykke Andersen for support in accessing survey data. I would also like to thank Ximena Echeverría and Alejandro Canelas with whom I had regular conversations while conducting my fieldwork. The thesis also benefited from the space afforded to me by different arms of the Bolivian state. I would like to offer my thanks, in particular, to Luis Salcedo Gutiérrez at Bolivia’s Central Bank who kindly invited me to present some of my preliminary findings and to Joel Mendizábal who was a discussant for that presentation and introduced me to other members of staff at Bolivia’s Social and Economic Policy Analysis Unit (UDAPE). In El Alto, little would 2 have been achieved without recommendations from Miguel Canasa on where to work, and less still were it not for the support of Eddy Yujra Ticona who helped me to gather survey data, or Janeth Casanova who kindly allowed me to conduct a focus group at the Centre for Information and Women’s Development (CIDEM). Finally, I owe my thanks to my parents Mark and Jenny and my brother Henry who were a great support in various ways throughout the process, chief among them the arduous proof- reading by my father. Declaration I, Thomas Aston, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. …………………………………..Thomas Aston 3 Impact Statement Some impacts from the thesis have already materialised inside academia. An earlier version of the thesis’ literature review was acknowledged as an important input into the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research’s (PASGR) book on the politics, public policy and social protection in Africa (see Awortwi, 2017). Likewise, primary and secondary data from the thesis informed Ayliffe et al’s (2018) literature review on the role of social accountability in social protection. Planning for data collection in El Alto also enabled the opportunity to test proxies for peri-urban vulnerability through Bolivia’s household survey. This materialised into a working paper on the subject with the Institute for Advanced Development Studies (INESAD) (Andersen, Aston and Cardona, 2014). In terms of future impact, the thesis’ analytical focus on discourse provides greater attention to the role of ideas in the policymaking of social protection in Bolivia. This focus remains underappreciated in the wider Latin American welfare state literature (see Weyland, 2006). Secondly, the thesis identifies critical gaps in connections between social mobilisation, policy design, and oversight, which are necessary to substantiate claims related to rights-based social assistance (see McGuire, 2013; Ferguson, 2015; Postero, 2017). Dissemination of both these aspects may thus trigger further reflection and debate regarding the role of ideas, the causal significance of civil society pressure, and perceptions of entitlement. The contributions of the thesis outside academia are primarily related to public policy design and service delivery. Learning from shortcomings in Bolivia has informed the evaluation of “Community Reports” accountability mechanisms in the Dominican Republic’s Solidaridad Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) and the design of pilot social accountability mechanisms in Egypt’s Takaful and Karama CCT. Various questions from the thesis’ household survey were used in the accountability pilot in the governorates of Assuit and Giza. In Bolivia, preliminary findings were shared through a presentation at Bolivia’s Central Bank in 2014. This triggered discussion with UDAPE on targeting, vulnerability, administrative capacity and accountability mechanisms (see Mendizábal, 2014). 4 Abstract This thesis aims to explain the key political economy drivers for the introduction of universal cash transfer programmes in countries which rely on natural resources, considering how their introduction and expansion may strengthen or weaken citizen-state relations in this context. The thesis uses Bolivia as a case study, focusing on the period 2005 – 2014, with fieldwork undertaken in La Paz and El Alto. It employs a political economy analysis framework and uses process tracing and discourse analysis as primary methods, supported by surveys and interviews. We argue that in this context the introduction and scale up to universal cash transfers is primarily driven by shifts in the fiscal capture of natural resource rent, the salience of redistributive and egalitarian ideas in political discourse, and the combination of political linkage strategies employed by politicians to appeal to citizens. We posit that higher-level normative ideas are particularly important, especially if these are domestic in origin and arise from or relate to core political constituencies. Despite evidence of resource nationalist ideas and rights-based language, we find the role of civil society to be weak. Moreover, we assert that where programmes are strongly influenced by charismatic (populist) political linkage strategies and where mechanisms for citizen-state interface are weak, programmes are more likely to be perceived as patronage than rights. We argue that in this context, cash transfers do not constitute “rightful shares,” and ultimately do not strengthen rights- based citizen-state relations. Key words: Cash transfers, discourse, populism, citizen-state relations Final word count: 99,998 words (including annexes) 5 Acronyms ADB Asian Development Bank ADN Nationalist Democratic Action Party AFP Pension Fund Administrator ALP Adaptable Loan Programme ANAMBO National Association of Older Persons of Bolivia AUH Universal Child Allowance BDH Human Development Grant BIG Basic Income Grant BoA Bolivian Aviation CCT Conditional Cash Transfer CGD Center for Global Development CIDEM Centre for Information and Women’s Development CIDOB Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia CMP Child Money Programme (Mongolia) CNAMIB National Confederation of Indigenous Women of Bolivia COB Bolivian Workers Central Union COFADENA Armed Forces Corporation for National Development CONALCAM National Coordinator for Change CONAMAQ National Council of Ayllus and Maarkas of Qullasuyu CONAN National Food and Nutrition Council CONAPES National Council for Economic and Social Policy CONDEPA Nationhood Awareness Party CONAJUREB National Pensioners’ Confederation COR-El Alto Regional Labour Federation-El Alto CSO Civil Society Organisation CSUTCB Rural Workers Union Federation CT-OVC Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children Programme DAB Bolivian Customs Depots DFID Department for International Development DP Democratic Party (Mongolia) DSF Debt Sustainability Framework ECLAC United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America ENAF National Foundries Company ENDE National Electric Company 6 ENFE National Railways Company ENTEL National Telecommunications Company ESID Effective States and Inclusive Development EXTENSA National Programme for Health Coverage FAM Municipal Association Federation FCI Individual Capitalisation Fund FDI Foreign Direct Investment FEJUVE Federation of Neighbourhood Associations – El Alto FGD Focus Group Discussion FISP Farmer Input Support Programme FOB Freight on Board FONCOM Complementary Funds FOPEBA Basic Pensions Fund FRUV Universal Pension Fund FSE Social Emergency Fund FSI Social Investment Fund FSTMB
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