Moral Discourse in Social Policy Interfaces: A Mexican Case

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the moral dimensions inscribed in social policy discourses and the norms governing access to social protection, for example perceptions about the agency, gender roles and responsibilities of the poor and their social construction and processes of negotiation at different social interfaces.

Abstract: This thesis focuses on the moral dimensions inscribed in social policy discourses and the norms governing access to social protection, for example perceptions about the agency, gender roles and responsibilities of the poor and their social construction and processes of negotiation at different social interfaces. It uses the Oportunidades programme, the biggest antipoverty programme in Mexico, as a case study. Data collection methods were essentially qualitative and based on ethnographic field research conducted in a rural setting in the western-centre of Mexico. This thesis makes theoretical and empirical contributions that offer new insights into the policy process at different levels of analysis. The thesis combines two general theoretical approaches: Long‘s actor-oriented social interface analysis and Fraser‘s feminist critical theory. The concept of the social interface is used at two different policy levels – design and implementation – to examine divergences between the Oportunidades programme‘s original policy plan and the contradiction and tension that this introduces in its operation on the ground. Fraser‘s feminist critical theory helps in understanding the gendered transformative character of the social protection policy implemented in Mexico during the last decade, and in examining the extent to which antipoverty programmes such as Oportunidades recognise and enhance women‘s social status and economic autonomy. The gendered nature of the state policy is explored through community arrangements (faenas) and social relations (conjugal and parent-child relationships) currently operating in rural Mexico. The thesis discusses how these social arrangements and institutions have been adapted or reinforced over the last decade since the Oportunidades programme was introduced. This thesis also draws upon more specific theoretical discussions that inform the empirical analysis at different stages: for instance, Foucault‘s discussion of power is applied to examine state actors‘ discourses of control and sanction and policy recipients‘ resource of resistance in their everyday interaction with state institutions at the front line of policy implementation; and Lipsky‘s modes of discretion offered a useful entry point for the analysis of state actors‘ roles as street-level bureaucrats and the discretionary power that they exercise in allocating benefits. In terms of its empirical contribution, this case study is conducted at two different levels of analysis: that of individuals and households in relation to state institutions and that of individuals in relation to households and communities. The first level of analysis mostly deals with the frontline operation of Oportunidades, where the moral discourse of obligation and sanction implicitly embedded in the conditionality of this programme affect interactions between rural households and state institutions causing conflict, tension and negotiation between both groups of policy actors (doctors, teachers and recipients) in their attempts to gain control of both material and discursive social policy resources. The programme has also given rise to gendered patterns of interaction between the state and family recipients. These are informed by degrees of discretion and mechanisms of intermediation, such as local actors (in this case, enlace municipal and vocales) who play a role as brokers between state authorities and policy recipients. Those processes have emerged as unintended consequences of this Conditional Cash Transfers programme‘s official intention and while they are outside the control of state policy they influence the operation of the programme at ground level. The second level of analysis discusses the transformative element contained within the state policy design examining how community arrangements (faenas) and social relations (conjugal and parent-child relationships) have been adapted (or reinforced) after over the decade since the Oportunidades programme was introduced in rural Mexico.