Publication Date

2023

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Porisky, Alesha

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Political Science

Abstract

What explains why the Persons With Severe Disabilities Cash Transfer (PWSD-CT) program receives limited financial support for expansion relative to the Older Persons Cash Transfer (OPCT) and Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) programs? I interrogate this question by exploring three potential explanations: the political incentive to build a voter base, inadequacy in financial resources and weaker institutional advocacy. Using Kenya as a case study, I rely on key informant interviews, document analysis and a mini-survey to collect data. My theoretical and empirical strategy is two-fold. First, I analyze relevant program documents and interview transcripts to gain insight into the politics behind the financing of cash transfer programs. I then corroborate the findings of my analysis with a mini-survey aimed at establishing the most important factor that explains the limited financing of the PWSD-CT program. Principally, I find that the political motivation to build a voter base and inadequacy in financial resources influence the underfunding of the disability-targeted cash transfer program. The analysis further advances that this political motivation has the most significant effect of the three factors examined. Essentially, parliamentarians in Kenya are driven by concerns around building their voter blocks during competitive elections. As a result, they intentionally target social welfare spending during parliamentary budgetary discussions and allocations towards populations that will likely support them - this being the elderly who are beneficiaries of the OPCT program, while excluding people with disabilities because they are deemed to be politically less salient. However, the findings also shed light on the fact that whilst state financial resources are scarce and play a secondary role, there is greater lack of political goodwill among parliamentarians to effectively prioritize lobbying for policies that ensure increase in resources and effective provision of a disability-inclusive social protection system. This thesis suggests that because of the categorical nature with which cash transfer programs are separated in Kenya, it makes it easy for politicians to specifically target welfare financing towards the elderly.

Extent

93 pages

Language

en

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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