South Africa's system of social cash transfers: Towards collective social responsibility?

South Africa has one of the most sophisticated systems of social cash transfers (SCT) in the global South. There are seven different types of so-called social grants. They are provided with a comprehensive budget and based on a Constitutional right. Population coverage is high. This makes the case attractive for a comparative analysis and typology of social cash transfer schemes in developing countries. How might South Africa be analysed and classified?

I start from two assumptions:

1. In particular in view of the issue of universalism, it is necessary to look not only at single transfer schemes but at the overall arrangement of SCT in a country.

2. The issue of universalism is part of the wider concept of “social” policy and particularly of “collective social responsibility” by Franz-Xaver Kaufmann. This concept is based on the assumption that social policies are rooted in normative and cultural patterns prevailing in a given country.

Against this background I will inquire into the following question:

To what degree are the SCT found in South Africa institutionalized in terms of collective social responsibility, i.e.

1.      in terms of constituting a collective social commitment? (Constitution, universal right and enforcement, benefit level, acceptance in society, government support)

2.      in terms of implementing the (supposed) social commitment? (organizational set-up, administrative capacity)

The results suggest that the South African SCT scheme generally shows a high degree of institutionalization in both dimensions – with one crucial exception: the exclusion of all able-bodied citizens at age 18-59. This coverage gap heavily contradicts the hypothesis of a high collective social responsibility.

I am finally going to discuss the results and the contradictions, explicitly referring to the Latin American context. For this purpose I will address the issues of universalism, conditionality, rights as well as the political context and the historical legacy.