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This themed issue, guest‐edited by Jurgen De Wispelaere and Troy Henderson, is devoted to examining, first, whether the widespread use of immediate and unconditional cash transfers as a policy response to the socioeconomic impacts of the COVID‐19 crisis has provided a boost to cash transfer programmes generally and to emergency basic income (EBI) policies more specifically. The set of articles then charts the reception of EBI‐type policies as a pandemic response in specific country or regional contexts, and reflects on their relevance for the future development of universal social protection and, especially, universal basic income (UBI). While the contribution to be made by basic income to realizing resilient and agile social protection policy responses merits serious consideration, in particular in a context where existing social protection systems are patchy and fragmented, important questions remain as to how to evaluate the time‐limited EBI crisis response in light of the more durable needs which a permanent UBI purports to address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic led to widespread social and economic policy experimentation as governments sought to protect household finances while locking down economies. Cash transfers emerged as one of the most popular policy measures, leading many to reflect on new possibilities for enacting universal basic income through temporary or emergency interventions. We take Australia's pandemic response, and particularly its Coronavirus Supplement, as an example of this broader experimentation. We analyse the Supplement through the lens of an emergency basic income, arguing the measure reflected existing institutional structures and norms, forms of national and international policy learning, and vulnerabilities in Australia's liberalized housing and labour markets. While temporary, we consider how its apparent success might suggest ongoing policy relevance, either as a form of capitalist "crisis management" or as an alternative pathway for implementing forms of basic income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The response to the global COVID‐19 pandemic has prompted a surge in short‐term universal cash transfer programmes around the world. Notably, East Asian high‐income economies have been at the forefront of these initiatives. While the innovative nature of these universal cash injections has been emphasized, there is limited documentation regarding their characteristics, prospects, and underlying motivations. This article sheds light on the domestic political and institutional processes that led to the implementation and design of universal cash transfers in Hong Kong (China), Japan, Republic of Korea, Singapore and Taiwan (China). Overall, the analysis reveals that, within the framework of universality, a nuanced, diverse and dynamic set of operational choices emerge. A range of factors shaped the adoption and evolution of these programmes, including, for example, political pressures stemming from political party competition and efforts to maintain political legitimacy. In general, design parameters are not only defined in technocratic terms, but are negotiated politically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada responded to the COVID‐19 pandemic with a series of supports, including direct payments to workers displaced by public health measures. While not a true basic income, the experience highlighted a number of issues including challenges with implementation and intergovernmental relations that affected public opinion and must be dealt with by basic income advocates. The operation of the Canadian social‐liberal welfare state informed pandemic policy making and exhibited the path dependence of a deserving/undeserving binary that resulted in conditionality. The income supports associated with the pandemic represent a pragmatic response to an exogenous shock that highlights the inadequacies of existing policy and offers the possibility of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, cities in the United States of America developed more that 100 basic income pilots. This article examines the heretofore hidden impact of the pandemic on the future extension of basic income programmes at the sub‐national level. While the super‐majoritarian requirements of United States federal policy making keep the possibility of national‐level basic income remote, several features of basic income, including unconditional cash transfers and broad programme eligibility, have emerged as viable tools in state and local policy. Drawing on an inventory of basic income pilots and interviews with policy entrepreneurs, this article defines and then examines the phenomenon of "viral cash" and assesses the probability that the wave of basic income pilots will continue to grow after the pandemic. Conventional approaches to evaluating the diffusion of policies across jurisdictions focus squarely on policy. Appraising viral cash's future requires a shift to following the advocacy networks who move, adapt and combine basic income with other programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the connection between two related but distinct models of basic income proposals in the context of a pandemic emergency. While COVID‐19 appears to have increased interest in basic income, this often ended up taking the form of a temporary emergency basic income (EBI) instead of a permanent universal basic income (UBI). In this article we argue that the "dial up/dial down" model of basic income allows us to link EBI and UBI in a way that offers both a practical response to important implementation challenges in emergency policy making and a strategic argument in favour of UBI as a pandemic policy instrument. We illustrate our argument by contrasting the Renda Básica de Cidadania (RBC) in the municipality of Maricá, Brazil, with two comparable programmes in the same region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses news media discourse analysis to investigate the highly contentious process of pension privatization retrenchment in Lithuania. In 2016, Lithuania began debating reforms on restructuring its poorly performing "second pillar" pension scheme – statutory funded individually defined contribution plans managed by the private sector. Pension reform is here conceptualized as a process of discursive contestation of the orthodox neoliberal consensus that prevailed in designing and introducing a private pension system in the early 2000s. By 2018, when a new Law on Pensions institutionalized a subsidized "nudge‐type" private retirement saving scheme, this process was legitimized by a newly prominent libertarian paternalistic ideology. Impacts of the discursive framing of pension reforms on their outcomes are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effective implementation of social protection interventions is key for achieving positive change. The existing literature mainly focuses on issues related to programme design and impact, rather than the factors that influence the emergence, expansion and provision of these programmes. This article builds on the recent literature that indicates that the quality of institutions and people's preferences play an important role in the implementation of social protection. It does so by using Ethiopia and its Productive Safety Net Programme – one of the largest social protection programmes in sub‐Saharan Africa – as a case study, thereby contributing to debates on how to implement social protection more effectively, particularly in settings of widespread poverty and relatively low levels of institutional capacity. Based on primary qualitative data, the article finds that greater institutional quality at the local level is associated with the more effective provision of social protection. The ability of community members and social protection clients to voice preferences can lead to adaptations in implementation, although the extent to which this occurs is highly gendered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the inception of the European Employment Strategy in 1997, individualized employment support has been a key priority of the European Union and its Member States. Nevertheless, empirical research on the delivery of individualized services for the unemployed is still underdeveloped. In this article, we explore how local employment agencies in three European cities tailor counselling and services to jobseekers' individual needs. We find that limited service budgets and underdeveloped organizational interfaces with social service providers tend to constrain the substantive individualization of services in practice, which works in the disfavour of vulnerable jobseekers. Individualized counselling is more widespread, at least for selected target groups. However, organizational capacities for offering individualized problem assessment and advice vary considerably across "worlds of individualization" in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To increase the chances of integrating youth into labour markets in contemporary European knowledge societies, many policy schemes are geared towards investing in youth's human capital. Since apprenticeship systems are assumed to ease school‐to‐work transitions, this seems a particularly promising avenue. However, research highlights that social policies often do not reach the most disadvantaged members of society. The aim of this article is to shed light on the reasons and mechanisms causing this phenomenon, called the Matthew effect, through a single, embedded case study of a vocational education and training programme for disadvantaged youth in Switzerland. The findings highlight cream‐skimming practices as a coping strategy enabling frontline workers to satisfy strict assessment criteria. A budgetary allocation driven politico‐administrative logic promotes such practices as a means to generate solid results, so as to safeguard political – and thus financial – support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom, as an exemplar liberal welfare state, has been characterized as in the vanguard of "work‐first" activation – deploying high levels of compulsion and standardized employability services that seek to move people from welfare to work as quickly as possible. However, despite the extension of welfare conditionality to excluded groups such as lone parents, government‐led, work‐first employability programmes have often proved ineffective at assisting the most vulnerable to escape poverty or even just to progress in the labour market. We argue that alternative approaches, defined by co‐production and social innovation, have the potential to be more successful. We draw on a study of local services targeting lone parents led by third sector–public sector partnerships in five localities in Scotland. Our research identifies a link between programme governance and management (defined by co‐governance and collaborative partnership‐working) and co‐produced street‐level services that deliver benefits in terms of social innovation and employability. We draw on 90 interviews with lone parents, and more than 100 interviews with delivery stakeholders and street‐level workers, to identify factors associated with positive social and employability outcomes. The article concludes by identifying potential lessons for the governance and delivery of future services targeting vulnerable groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although policy‐makers and scholars have directed increasing attention towards collaborative innovation and knowledge development between frontline agencies and workers and other stakeholders such as citizens and researchers, empirical research has not focused on the (varying) assessment of collaborators regarding what knowledge is "appropriate" to develop. In this article, we examine such knowledge assessments by drawing on a comparative case study of two local innovation projects conducted by the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) in a four‐year service innovation programme. Although they responded to the same call, the projects involved development of two very distinct types of knowledge; one dealt with practice‐based knowledge and the other with evidence‐based knowledge. We show that whereas the former knowledge type was contested and difficult to transform into practice, the latter prompted few (if any) challenges and was implemented on a relatively large scale. These two projects point to the possible existence of a hierarchy of knowledge in labour and welfare services, where evidence‐based forms of knowledge and methods are regarded as more legitimate and appropriate than forms of knowledge placed "lower" in the hierarchy. We discuss the reasons for and implications of this apparent hierarchy of knowledge for frontline labour and welfare services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This themed issue contributes to European research on the role of front‐line work in the implementation of welfare‐to‐work policies. A number of factors underline the relevance of such study. First, the focus on activating and disciplining the unemployed seen in many countries may on the surface look similar. However, a closer look at these policies and how they unfold in different contexts reveals many and interesting differences. While all contain a certain level of disciplining and coercive elements, they also to a varying degree contain elements that focus on the upgrading of skills, building human capital and providing other types of support in promoting labour‐market participation. In turn, these policies contain both people processing and people changing technologies that are used for different aspects of policy delivery. In addition, policy developments have gradually expanded the client group of these policies, including more hard‐to‐place unemployed, thus making the client group more heterogeneous. Finally, we have seen a strong political belief in the positive effects of using punitive sanctions. Research supports this belief when it comes to clients with high employability and limited problems besides unemployment, but the knowledge‐base is rather shaky when it comes to the hard‐to‐place clients with substantial problems. Using punitive sanctions or other disciplining or coercive measures in frontline work has caused controversy and resistance. In order to qualify our understanding of welfare‐to‐work policies, we need to take a step closer to where these policies are translated into reality for the target group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The introductory article of this special issue looks at the genesis, characteristics and challenges of social protection schemes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It argues that social protection policies in the MENA should be seen as a key ingredient of the social contract that governments offered to their citizens after independence. To compensate for the lack of political participation and accountability, free public health and education systems, generous food, energy and water subsidies, social insurance and assistance schemes and mass public‐sector employment were established. This was possible because MENA countries benefitted from substantial windfall profits (from the export of oil, gas and minerals; Suez Canal user fees), as well as from income from remittances from migrant workers and income from politically motivated aid. The decline of income from some of these sources and population growth has led MENA governments to focus more closely their social protection spending on strategically important social groups: typically, the urban upper middle class. As a result, social protection systems in MENA countries currently suffer from severe weaknesses in terms of social fairness, efficiency and sustainability. Although MENA countries still spend a very considerable share of gross domestic product on their social protection schemes, these have only very limited effects on the reduction of poverty, vulnerability and inequality – and some even exhibit perverse “bottom‐up” redistributive outcomes. The articles that comprise this special issue selectively spotlight a number of opportunities and challenges for the development of sustainable social protection in the MENA countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Youth unemployment is a major socio‐political issue in the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). However, active labour market programmes (ALMPs) in support of youth employment remain less prevalent and are generally outside the purview of social policies in the region's countries. This article addresses this inconsistency. The article provides an overview of such programmes and identifies the challenges to their inclusion as a central part of the region's social policy mix. Internationally, the article notes that successful models for the integration of ALMPs into social policies have been part of long‐term reforms targeting inclusive social security systems. This has not been the case in Arab countries where access to contributory social security systems is limited and where labour markets are characterized by large informal economies and a majority of workers are without social protection. Further contributing factors pertain to limited state budgets and a limited knowledge base about the effectiveness of ALMPs in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key normative principle of transformative social policy is that it is rights-based. This implies that it be universal, as a right extended categorically to all persons in a defined situation, or to all citizens, or, in its most radical form, as applicable to all residents regardless of citizenship status. To be transformative, social policy also needs to tackle the root causes of inequalities and social injustices. In the recent past, approaches emerged in a number of countries in Southeast Asia and South Asia that pointed in the direction of universal, rights-based social policy. These suggest that a 'social turn' took place - a shift to ideas and policies that prioritize social issues. In the cases under review (India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Thailand), the trends towards a universal, rights-based approach to social services and social transfers were in each case politically driven and a result of changes in government - the social turns were the outcome of contestation. At present, these countries are experiencing political backlashes, with democratic processes and civil society under severe attack. This article seeks to make two points. First, a rights-based, transformative policy approach and a social turn do not come automatically: it is always the result of contestation, be it from the electorate and their interests groups, or from competition between political parties. Second, acquired rights and moves towards transformation can be dismantled. In the current global political rollback, there is a need to defend and fight for transformative and rights-based social policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Care policies are high on the public policy agenda in Latin America. This is partly explained by the region's structural conditions, typical of middle-income countries, such as increasing life expectancy and women's relatively high participation in the labour market, but also by the politicization of care, derived from the recognition that the unequal distribution of care provision is a powerful driver of gender and income inequalities. Women's movements have positioned care policies high on their own agendas and, with varying degrees, States have progressed in the implementation of care policies, supported by a strong gender-equality agenda which is framed within a rights-based approach to social protection. This article presents the Uruguayan and Costa Rican 'care systems' as examples of Latin America's rights-based approach to care policies. It succinctly explains their political and institutional evolution, and presents the main features of their legal frameworks. It pays particular attention to the actors that have mobilized to support and, eventually, shape them. It also identifies the dimensions that are singled out by other countries in the process of replicating and adapting these examples to build their own 'care systems' following a rights-based approach to care policies. The article closes with a focus on implementation challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With social security provisions in Kenya remaining under-reported in the more recent literature, this overview covers recent reforms in key areas of the country's social security system. In the health sector and in old-age pension provision social security is still mainly workerist (biased toward those in formal employment), and attempts to expand coverage have had limited effect only - cash transfer programmes, for instance, have been expanded but in practice they do not universally cover the entitled categories. Thus, although the Kenyan social security system now has a considerable pro-poor social assistance component it remains biased toward those in formal employment, to the benefit of the highest income quintile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1997 economic crisis, the Republic of Korea has seen considerable progress in its social security system along with relatively high economic growth. The social security system has been reformed to become more redistributive and comprehensive. Nevertheless, the country has experienced growing income inequality and poverty, raising future concerns about the sustainable growth of the national economy. The deterioration in welfare outcomes can be explained as a result of socioeconomic structural changes, including globalization, post-industrialization and an ageing society. Another important reason is that the social security system has not effectively addressed increasing income inequality reflecting the dualism of the labour market: there are many irregular and self-employed workers who are not covered by social security programmes. With the social security system faced with institutional difficulties in coping with increasing social risks driven by the impacts of socioeconomic and structural changes, reform is necessary to enhance social cohesion against growing labour market inequality. There is a need for 'Dynamic Social Security' to provide an institutional foundation which supports the virtuous circular relationship between economic growth and distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The West African States recognize the importance of social protection and its dual social and economic function; a perspective that coincides fully with the topic of this special issue on Dynamic Social Security. Between 2007 and 2013 theses States developed national social protection policies, strategies or action plans and are now engaged in their implementation. This article reviews these national social protection policies (or strategies) in ten countries in the sub-region ( Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d' Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Niger, Senegal and Togo) and presents their contents, revealing a similarity of approach in the development of policies. Specifically, after having carried out a diagnostic study of social protection in their respective countries, the States followed seven distinct stages: defining a national vision, defining precisely what is meant by social protection, laying down the principles on which policies were to be based and finally setting out the general objectives, key areas and mechanisms for implementing and financing their national social protection policies. Following these stages, this comparative study seeks to outline the main trends and key elements of the national social protection policies and bring out best practices to provide a basic structure and general guidelines for developing a national social protection policy, implementing a social protection floor and promoting access to higher levels of protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]