Contractualism and transnational welfare governance

Abstract

The global public policy agenda now resonates with terms such as ‘poverty reduction’ and ‘pro-poor growth’. Poverty, it seems, has been rediscovered by the global community, and the new social agenda differs from the previously dominant ‘Washington Consensus’ of market and trade liberalization. But — and this is at the heart of the thesis in this volume — poverty reduction and its social agenda, rather than being antagonistic or in opposition to the market, has become an important component of the economic reforms — neo liberalism — promoted by the Post-Washington Consensus (PWC). The new transnational governance of the social welfare agenda differs not only from the Washington Consensus, but also from the Basic Needs model which had recognisable Keynesian and social democratic elements (Higgott 1983).1 This, above all, provides an institutional framework for debate on a ‘social agenda’ where the terms of engagement are different from those of the social democratic project that informed the postwar welfare state as well as the earlier welfarist development priorities of international financial institutions. While this new framework arises from within the contours of the neo liberal market model that dominated politics and policy over the last two decades, it does create new alternatives for debating social issues — especially for various nongovernmental organizations — that might challenge some of the assumptions of the prevailing neo liberal model.