Three contrasting approaches to ‘global social policy’ outlined here:

1. Global regime analysis

2. Role of supranational agencies – see also seminar 15

3. Gender, feminism and transnational social policy

1.  Global Regime Analysis: Mapping Social Policies Across The Global South

Gough & Therborn (2010) analysed 65 nation-states, excluding the rich OECD states, micro-states with a population less than 3m, and states for which data is not available or adequate. This means that many populous states are not included, most notably perhaps Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Egypt, Iraq and Vietnam. The parameters are: Aid per capita/GNI; Workers’ remittances/ GNI; Public spending on health and education/GDP; Social contributions/total revenue; School enrolment – secondary and girls; Immunization against measles (% of children under 12); Life expectancy at birth; Illiteracy rate (% aged 15-24).

This generates 8 country clusters for the year 2000, labelled A to H.

p.711 “Countries in cluster A, and only these, exhibit some characteristics of Western welfare states and may be labelled proto-welfare states. These countries share in common relatively extensive state commitments to welfare provision and relatively [p713] effective delivery of services plus moderately extensive social security programmes and superior welfare outcomes (by the standards of the non-OECD world). Apart from Israel and Costa Rica, this cluster comprises two distinct geographical zones and historical antecedents: the countries of the former Soviet Union and its bloc members and the relatively industrialized countries of southern South America. Both developed European-style forms of social protection policies in the middle of the 20thC, and both suffered degradation of these through the external imposition of neo-liberal programmes”. In the post-communist era male life expectancy in Russia and Ukraine fell from 62 to 59, “though the central European countries admitted to the EU have fared much better.”

“Cluster B exhibits the second-best level of welfare outcomes and social service outputs, yet with low levels of state social spending (and low reliance on external flows of aid and remittances). This interesting combination suggests that insecurity and illfare are mitigated by fast-growing average incomes and/or by other domestic, non-state institutions. This combination is found in three major world regions:

(1)  China and most countries in East Asia from Korea to Malaysia (except Indonesia which dropped out of this group in 2000 having suffered most from the 1997 crisis)

(2)  The remaining countries of South and Central America not in cluster A