From Universalism to Targeting and Back Again: Conditional Cash Transfers and the Development of Social Citizenship

"Moving forward from the premise that poverty is not simply a lack of resources, but in fact at the same time a relation through which the poor come directly under the control of the State, Roberts (2012) explores the place of Cash Transfer Programs (CCTs) such as Mexico's Oportunidades Programme in the evolution of social policy and citizenship in Latin America, assessing the impact of these programmes in terms of poor peoples' perceptions of their rights and the quality of their civic participation. In the industrialized world, poverty reduction policy was initially strongly influenced by concern that schemes intended to help poor people might in fact have the ultimate effect of generating disincentives among the poor to engage in paid work. It was only later, and in developing countries particularly, that policy discourse began to focus on building poor peoples' capabilities, in broad terms, as a means toward breaking the vicious cycle of poverty."(?)