Conclusion. Post-pandemic epilogue-the bad old contract, an even worse contract or a better social contract for informal workers?
- Alfers, Laura C, Chen, Martha A, Plagerson, Sophie
- Authors: Alfers, Laura C , Chen, Martha A , Plagerson, Sophie
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/478183 , vital:78162 , ISBN 9781839108068 , https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839108068.00017
- Description: Since we started working on this book, the world has changed profoundly, calling further into question the fairness and adequacy of current social contracts. For informal workers, the COVID-19 crisis has had devasting economic and social impacts: it has upended livelihoods, accentuated health risks, interrupted schooling and forced many households into deeper debt. Many informal workers live in crowded informal settlements with little or no access to water and sanitation, and limited access to health care. Because informal workers depend on their daily earnings to survive, they face the risk of falling into extreme poverty as a result of government-ordered lockdowns and other economic disruptions. Women informal workers face additional challenges because of their care and domestic responsibilities. The pandemic recession intensified workers’ existing vulnerabilities as many were not able to work indefinitely without any kind of social or financial protection to fall back upon.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Alfers, Laura C , Chen, Martha A , Plagerson, Sophie
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/478183 , vital:78162 , ISBN 9781839108068 , https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839108068.00017
- Description: Since we started working on this book, the world has changed profoundly, calling further into question the fairness and adequacy of current social contracts. For informal workers, the COVID-19 crisis has had devasting economic and social impacts: it has upended livelihoods, accentuated health risks, interrupted schooling and forced many households into deeper debt. Many informal workers live in crowded informal settlements with little or no access to water and sanitation, and limited access to health care. Because informal workers depend on their daily earnings to survive, they face the risk of falling into extreme poverty as a result of government-ordered lockdowns and other economic disruptions. Women informal workers face additional challenges because of their care and domestic responsibilities. The pandemic recession intensified workers’ existing vulnerabilities as many were not able to work indefinitely without any kind of social or financial protection to fall back upon.
- Full Text:
Social contracts and informal workers in the global south
- Alfers, Laura C, Chen, Martha A, Plagerson, Sophie
- Authors: Alfers, Laura C , Chen, Martha A , Plagerson, Sophie
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/478205 , vital:78164 , ISBN 9781839108068 , https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839108068
- Description: This is an open access work distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Unported (This is an open access work distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Unported (https://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Users can redistribute the work for non-commercial purposes, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, as detailed in the License. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd must be clearly credited as the owner of the original work. Any translation or adaptation of the original content requires the written authorization of Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.). Users can redistribute the work for non-commercial purposes, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, as detailed in the License. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd must be clearly credited as the rights holder for publication of the original work. Any translation or adaptation of the original content requires the written authorization of Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Alfers, Laura C , Chen, Martha A , Plagerson, Sophie
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/478205 , vital:78164 , ISBN 9781839108068 , https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839108068
- Description: This is an open access work distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Unported (This is an open access work distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Unported (https://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Users can redistribute the work for non-commercial purposes, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, as detailed in the License. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd must be clearly credited as the owner of the original work. Any translation or adaptation of the original content requires the written authorization of Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.). Users can redistribute the work for non-commercial purposes, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, as detailed in the License. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd must be clearly credited as the rights holder for publication of the original work. Any translation or adaptation of the original content requires the written authorization of Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.
- Full Text:
Taxation and the informal sector in the Global South: Strengthening the social contract without reciprocity
- Authors: Rogan, Michael
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/478029 , vital:78148 , ISBN 9781839108068 , https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839108068.00011
- Description: Among both international financial institutions and developing country governments, there is an enduring interest in including more informal sector workers within national and local tax nets. The motivation for taxing the informal economy is related, in large part, to the need for greater ‘revenue mobilisation’but there is also a claim that taxation can improve or restore the social contract through greater government accountability and civic engagement (Prichard 2010, Kundt 2017). Supported by emerging perspectives within the ‘new fiscal sociology’1 there is a growing consensus that taxation is the social contract and that negotiation and collective action around tax obligations are the key defining relationship between the state and society. However, others, most notably Kate Meagher (2016), have warned that these perspectives have a number of ‘blind spots’ in relation to developing countries, more broadly, and the informal sector2 in particular. These include: a ‘Euro-centric’conceptualisation of the social contract, a narrow focus on traditional (northern) forms of taxation and a tendency to understand the informal economy as a homogenous group of workers (Meagher 2016). With 61 per cent of the world’s workers informally employed, including 67 per cent of those in emerging economies and 90 per cent in developing countries (ILO 2018), these blind spots have a particular relevance for the social contract, political participation, governance and accountability, especially in the countries of the global South.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Rogan, Michael
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/478029 , vital:78148 , ISBN 9781839108068 , https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839108068.00011
- Description: Among both international financial institutions and developing country governments, there is an enduring interest in including more informal sector workers within national and local tax nets. The motivation for taxing the informal economy is related, in large part, to the need for greater ‘revenue mobilisation’but there is also a claim that taxation can improve or restore the social contract through greater government accountability and civic engagement (Prichard 2010, Kundt 2017). Supported by emerging perspectives within the ‘new fiscal sociology’1 there is a growing consensus that taxation is the social contract and that negotiation and collective action around tax obligations are the key defining relationship between the state and society. However, others, most notably Kate Meagher (2016), have warned that these perspectives have a number of ‘blind spots’ in relation to developing countries, more broadly, and the informal sector2 in particular. These include: a ‘Euro-centric’conceptualisation of the social contract, a narrow focus on traditional (northern) forms of taxation and a tendency to understand the informal economy as a homogenous group of workers (Meagher 2016). With 61 per cent of the world’s workers informally employed, including 67 per cent of those in emerging economies and 90 per cent in developing countries (ILO 2018), these blind spots have a particular relevance for the social contract, political participation, governance and accountability, especially in the countries of the global South.
- Full Text:
Towards a more inclusive social protection: informal workers and the struggle for a new social contract
- Alfers, Laura C, Moussié, Rachel
- Authors: Alfers, Laura C , Moussié, Rachel
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/478239 , vital:78167 , ISBN 9781839108068 , https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839108068.00012
- Description: The provision of social protection by the state in the form of social assistance, insurance and services is widely considered to be a key component of a social-justice-oriented social contract–the “implicit social agreement” which establishes the “guiding principles in building economic, social and political institutions”(Behrendt et al. 2019, Hickey 2011). The COVID-19 crisis revealed the extent to which informal workers remain unprotected by these provisions. Their exclusion significantly contributed to the severity of the economic crisis which accompanied the health crisis. At the same time the pandemic has also opened up the political space to (re) negotiate a social contract where protections hold a more central position. This chapter focuses on pre-COVID-19 attempts by organizations of informal workers to engage in dialogue and advocacy to shape such a social contract by transforming spaces for negotiation or creating new spaces for interactions with government at international, national and municipal levels. In doing so it emphasizes the idea of the social contract as less of a static entity than a shifting process of challenge and negotiation (Hickey 2011). The social contract, understood as a process, brings to the fore the question of power–who holds the power to shape the terms of engagement in such processes, who is considered a social actor worthy of having a seat at the table, to what extent do different actors hold the expertise and knowledge necessary to make change.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Alfers, Laura C , Moussié, Rachel
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/478239 , vital:78167 , ISBN 9781839108068 , https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839108068.00012
- Description: The provision of social protection by the state in the form of social assistance, insurance and services is widely considered to be a key component of a social-justice-oriented social contract–the “implicit social agreement” which establishes the “guiding principles in building economic, social and political institutions”(Behrendt et al. 2019, Hickey 2011). The COVID-19 crisis revealed the extent to which informal workers remain unprotected by these provisions. Their exclusion significantly contributed to the severity of the economic crisis which accompanied the health crisis. At the same time the pandemic has also opened up the political space to (re) negotiate a social contract where protections hold a more central position. This chapter focuses on pre-COVID-19 attempts by organizations of informal workers to engage in dialogue and advocacy to shape such a social contract by transforming spaces for negotiation or creating new spaces for interactions with government at international, national and municipal levels. In doing so it emphasizes the idea of the social contract as less of a static entity than a shifting process of challenge and negotiation (Hickey 2011). The social contract, understood as a process, brings to the fore the question of power–who holds the power to shape the terms of engagement in such processes, who is considered a social actor worthy of having a seat at the table, to what extent do different actors hold the expertise and knowledge necessary to make change.
- Full Text:
Shaping society from below social movements, social policy and development
- Authors: Alfers, Laura C
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/478194 , vital:78163 , ISBN 9781785368424 , https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785368431.00010
- Description: One of the lasting legacies of Marxist thought for the study of state and society is the idea that social change and the way this change is institutionalized through the state, in its regulations, laws and policies is a result of the contestation of social forces. Running through this are questions about the interplay of structure and agency, power and the response to power, and debates about whether, how and under what conditions organized groups of the less powerful can use their relative numerical dominance to engage with more powerful interests to improve their situation. The concern with how forces from below initiate, engage with, challenge and/or resist social change has characterized a wideranging academic literature, crossing multiple disciplinary boundaries. The result has been a large and diverse body of scholarship on what are known as social movements, which are broadly defined by Tilly (2004) as groups of ordinary people who mobilize around a common interest to make collective claims on others. While much social movement scholarship is focused on groups of people organizing for greater social and economic inclusion, it is important to acknowledge that social movements can also mobilize around issues that are considered exclusionary (for example, neo-Nazi groups, anti-immigration and religious fundamentalism).
- Full Text:
- Authors: Alfers, Laura C
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/478194 , vital:78163 , ISBN 9781785368424 , https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785368431.00010
- Description: One of the lasting legacies of Marxist thought for the study of state and society is the idea that social change and the way this change is institutionalized through the state, in its regulations, laws and policies is a result of the contestation of social forces. Running through this are questions about the interplay of structure and agency, power and the response to power, and debates about whether, how and under what conditions organized groups of the less powerful can use their relative numerical dominance to engage with more powerful interests to improve their situation. The concern with how forces from below initiate, engage with, challenge and/or resist social change has characterized a wideranging academic literature, crossing multiple disciplinary boundaries. The result has been a large and diverse body of scholarship on what are known as social movements, which are broadly defined by Tilly (2004) as groups of ordinary people who mobilize around a common interest to make collective claims on others. While much social movement scholarship is focused on groups of people organizing for greater social and economic inclusion, it is important to acknowledge that social movements can also mobilize around issues that are considered exclusionary (for example, neo-Nazi groups, anti-immigration and religious fundamentalism).
- Full Text:
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