Social debtfare policies and the rise of the creditor-State. The financialization of welfare in Argentina.

TOMAS NOUGUES

Río de Janeiro

Conferencia; Pre-SASE Conference "Socio-economic policies in Latin America: discussing challenges and opportunities"; 2023

Young Scholars Iniciative

Over the past decade, scholars have highlighted the emergence of a new welfare infrastructure inSouth America that is built upon complex interlinkages between cash transfers, financial marketsand mass consumption. Whereas they considered the collateralization of CCTs as a hallmark offinancialization, other aspects were largely neglected. Drawing on the Argentinean case, thearticle explores new trends of welfare’s financialization in South America. The main argument isthat the institutionalization of credit as a policy tool to meet welfare goals has prompted a newgeneration of policies, which I call social debtfare policies. These policies establish a debtrelationship between the State, positioned as creditor, and the welfare users, who becomedebtors. Accordingly, the article proposes an analytical matrix to assess the concrete impact offinancialization in the dynamics of social protection which is illustrated with the Argentinean case.