Cash Transfers and Guaranteed Minimum Income Programs:
Research, Evaluation, and Policy
Prague, Czech Republic
September 9-10, 2024
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“Exploring the Democratic Consequences of Cash Transfer Programs”
Sarah Bruch, University of Delaware
As cash transfer programs proliferate in the US and globally, there is an increasing body of research examining their impacts with a primary focus on economic security and labor supply outcomes. However, providing cash unconditionally is motivated in part by the social citizenship ideas of decommodification, autonomy, social solidarity, and inclusion. In line with these broader concerns, a number of studies examine impacts on perceptions of agency, social and/or community connectedness or a sense of belonging, with many finding small, but positive impacts. Surprisingly, there has been very limited attention to the civic and political motivations and consequences of these programs. In this paper, we draw on policy feedback theory to derive a set of theoretical expectations connecting the program and policy design features and administration characteristics of unconditional cash transfer programs to civic and political outcomes. Using a synthesis of existing program and administrative designs, we identify a handful of features that are expected to shape participant perceptions and experiences and subsequent democratic consequences. We describe expectations for how resource effects might operate through the size and duration of the benefits received in these programs, and how interpretive effects might operate through the administration and messaging of the programs. For example, programs differ widely in how they are organized and administered (e.g. publicly or privately financed, delegated to nongovernment or community-based organization or administered by local government offices, etc.). These administrative differences along with the way programs are described to participants are expected to shape both the visibility and traceability of a program whereby if participants are able to attribute the program benefits to government, there is a strong expectation of positive civic impacts (positive civic status and increased civic and political engagement), similar to those demonstrated in research on universal, social insurance-based social transfer programs. This can be contrasted with the negative civic consequences expected from participation in conditional cash transfers whereby the lessons learned by participants are civically and politically marginalizing and associated with decreased engagement, lower levels of trust and belief in the legitimacy of government. Additionally, we draw on the social construction of target population theory to describe how these program designs features and expected policy feedbacks vary across programs with different eligibility criteria and target populations. Finally, we describe the research designs and considerations that future research should pursue to incorporate the examination of the democratic consequences of cash transfer programs including greater attention to both short-term, immediate impacts as well as longer-term impacts of participation, interpretive research approaches that capture the perceptions of participants, and the examination of a broad set of social, civic, and political outcomes associated with participation.