Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) - (Working papers)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/38293

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    Intersectionality in Action: learnings, challenges & recommendations from IDRC-supported research in the global South
    (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2023) Dawson, Hannah J.; Lynch, Ingrid; Mhlana, Siviwe; Mokhema, Seipati
    The call for integrating intersectionality into development research and practice has surged in recent years. Advocates consider it a crucial perspective for understanding the interconnected forms in which oppression manifests and is experienced by marginalised groups of people. This approach is seen as valuable in crafting targeted, context-specific policy interventions to address diverse social problems. Despite its growing prominence and alignment with social justice agendas, confusion persists about what intersectionality entails. Ongoing debates centre on its origins, purpose and distinctiveness when compared to other conceptual tools and transformative methodologies. Existing intersectionality research often prioritises scholarship from the global North, particularly North America, which overlooks the diverse realities and perspectives of the global South. It is essential to highlight that intersectionality, as both a concept and a way of thinking, was present in various feminist traditions in the global South well before gaining prominence in the United States and academic discourse. Given the lack of a precise definition for intersectionality, scholars and practitioners increasingly emphasise the importance of investigating its application in specific research contexts and practical applications. The collaborative initiative "Promoting Intersectional Development Research," led by the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) at the University of the Witwatersrand and Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), has provided an opportunity to interrogate the concept of intersectionality and critically evaluate its relevance for development research in and for the global South. The principal objective of this project is to “understand, inform and promote intersectional approaches to development research” across different programme initiatives of the IDRC. More specifically, the project aims to: 1. Document the diverse application of an intersectional approach in IDRC-supported research projects. 2. Synthesise the lessons on the benefits, limits and barriers of incorporating an intersectional approach into research, and identify opportunities and challenges for applying intersectionality to research dissemination, policy application and engagement. 3. Identify the needs for strengthening capacity among IDRC staff and partners to enhance understanding and facilitate practical learning about the application of an intersectional lens to development research. To achieve these objectives, SCIS partnered with eight organisations to examine their application of intersectionality in an IDRC-supported research project. The resulting case studies demonstrate intersectionality in action, exploring how diverse researchers and practitioners apply its concepts and principles. These studies reflect on the relevance and usefulness of employing an intersectional lens within diverse contexts and projects that employ a range of epistemological and methodological approaches. They offer insights into both the alignment and tensions associated with adopting an intersectional lens.
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    Tax the super-rich for the right to the city
    (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, 2024-10-07) Veloso, Sérgio
    The inequality in Brazilian cities is evident: few live in luxury while the majority face precarious conditions. High-end apartments drive up rents, forcing out long-time residents. This scenario reflects an injustice that needs to be addressed. The richest 1% in Brazil owns almost half of the wealth, while millions survive with difficulty. This concentration worsens social exclusion in cities. During the recent G20 Finance Ministers meeting, Brazil proposed a 2% tax on the super-rich, which could generate 250 billion dollars per year. These resources could improve infrastructure, housing and community services. This engagement paper contributes to the ongoing discourse around tax reform in Brazil and unpacks Brazil's regressive system, and outlines how taxing the wealthy can contribute to reclaiming cities and restoring justice.
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    Taxar os super-ricos pelo direito à cidade!
    (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, 2024-10-02) Veloso, Sérgio
    A desigualdade nas cidades brasileiras é evidente: poucos vivem em luxo enquanto a maioria enfrenta a precariedade. Apartamentos de alto padrão elevam os aluguéis, expulsando moradores antigos. Esse cenário reflete uma injustiça que precisa ser combatida. O 1% mais rico no Brasil detém quase metade da riqueza, enquanto milhões sobrevivem com dificuldade. Essa concentração agrava a exclusão social nas cidades. Durante a recente reunião de Ministros de Finanças do G20, o Brasil propôs uma taxa de 2% sobre os super-ricos, que poderia gerar 250 bilhões de dólares por ano. Esses recursos poderiam melhorar infraestrutura, moradias e serviços comunitários.
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    The Effects of Public Investment in the Green and Care Economies and Public Infrastructure in South Africa
    (2024) Onaran, Ozlem; Oyvat, Cem
    This paper argues that a comprehensive mix of policy tools is essential to catalyse the urgent public investment required to address South Africa's growth, inequality, care, and climate change crises. According to the National Treasury, from 2010 to 2019, South Africa's growth averaged only 1.75% annually, a figure further reduced when factoring in the COVID-19-impacted years of 2020 and 2021. Fiscal policy involves decisions regarding government spending levels, tax revenue generation, and borrowing. Since 2013, a fiscal consolidation strategy has been in place to curb public spending growth, resulting in decreased expenditures on public services due to rising debt service costs. This paper argues that increasing public spending on the care economy, green economy, and public infrastructure would boost GDP and employment, thereby altering public debt/GDP ratios. It advocates expansionary fiscal policies, clear development targets, and coordinated fiscal, monetary, industrial, labour, and social policies.
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    Towards a gender just transition: Principles and perspectives from the global South
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024-06-19) Cerise, Somali; Cook, Sarah; Lehmann-Grube, Katrina; Taylor, Julia; Valodia, Imraan
    A ‘just transition’ broadly refers to the principles, processes and practices used to ensure that transitions to a low-carbon economy are socially just. Gender justice, however, frequently remains marginal to mainstream debates and policies – whether about climate finance, technological solutions, corporate management approaches – or indeed most government transition strategies. This paper argues that ensuring a transition that delivers gender justice is both critical and urgent. Without explicit attention to, and clear prioritisation of gender justice across transition policies, climate change ‘solutions’ risk replicating or reinforcing structural gender inequalities. Examples of such risk include women’s continued limited access to economic opportunities, employment and social protection; their over-representation in precarious work; and women’s primary responsibility for social reproduction and care. Communities with few livelihood options and limited access to services rely heavily on natural resources to survive. These resources are vital to the provision of care and may be severely affected by environmental degradation. Care responsibilities expose women disproportionately to climate and environmental impacts. Women are the household members most likely to bear the burden of adapting to climate change. These realities reduce the likelihood that any climate transition can be just without a clear focus on the policies, strategies and implementation processes needed to achieve gender justice. This paper asks what a gender just transition could and should look like, particularly in the global South. Based on an extensive review of conceptual and empirical literatures from a range of disciplinary perspectives, we examine how different approaches address – or ignore – gender dimensions of (in)justice in thinking about low-carbon transitions. We go on to offer a more expansive view of justice informed by perspectives drawn from feminist theory, and combine this with the pillars of distributive, procedural, recognitive and restorative justice.
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    Corporate financialisation: a conceptual clarification and critical review of the literature
    (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, 2024-05) Reddy, Niall; Rabinovich, Joel
    Corporate financialisation (CF) comprises a major field of financialisation studies centred on the belief that significant changes in corporate governance and business models have been driven by financial imperatives, which have had a profound impact on investment habits, labour policies, organisational practices and the distribution of revenues. Experiencing explosive growth in recent years, this field has become mired in conceptual ambiguity, mirroring problems with financialisation studies as a whole. While seeking to restore some conceptual clarity and clearly delineate the boundaries of the concept, this paper offers a detailed review of empirical work on CF. At the core of the field, we identify four sub-theories, each addressing distinct aspects of the way business models have become financialised under the influence of shareholder value principles. Our dissection of the literature shows, however, that these theories mostly remain under-substantiated. The connection of financialisation strategies to key outcomes of interest, such as declining investment and rising inequality, remains nebulous in most cases. Beyond this, we identify key weaknesses in the way shareholder value orientation – the causal lynch pin of CF accounts – has been theorised. The field as a whole has paid insufficient attention to the variegated and uneven nature of the shareholder revolution, which has prevented a single uniform set of governance principles from diffusing. We also argue that the tendency to dilute definitions of corporate financialisation across explanans and explanandum has masked problems of verification. The critique concludes with a call for conceptual clarity and more care in distinguishing financialisation from causal channels associated with other structural dynamics, such as monopolisation.
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    AI–Citizens’ relationship: Analysing Egypt and Mauritius national AI strategies
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-09) Hendawy, Mennatullah; Ansari, Zahra
    Recently, in the African context, there has been a great appetite for digitising services, more specifically infrastructure services, and using artificial intelligence (AI). To facilitate the development of AI, governments publish national AI strategies (NAS). In this context, governments across Africa started to issue national AI strategies to keep up with the advancements in AI (see Bareis and Katzenbach, 2022). So far, few African countries have published national AI strategies (Digiwatch, 2020; TRT Afrika, 2023). Mauritius and Egypt are the only African countries with a publicly available national strategy outlining vision and objectives (Onyango, 2022). There is an increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) in infrastructures that support the many functions performed by society. For example, public transportation, (renewable) energy, education and workplaces have all included AI and smart technology in their infrastructure. Building on the need to ensure access to AI infrastructure as it continues to disrupt African cities, this paper uses the understandings from the analytical framework of infrastructure citizenship to analyse Egypt and Mauritius NASs in order to explore the following: How is the relationship between citizens and infrastructure (AI applications) portrayed in each strategy? and How are AI applications framed in both strategies to improve or hinder the relationship between citizens and infrastructure?
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    Macro Fiscal Review: Reflections on public finances ahead of the 2024 Budget Review
    (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2024-02) Amra, Rashaad; Sachs, Michael; Willcox, Owen; Madonko, Thokozile
    This policy note, published before the 2024 Budget Review tabling, reviews global and domestic economic developments and fiscal developments since the 2023 Budget Review and Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) were tabled. It considers the implications of these developments for public finances and the realisation of the state’s socioeconomic goals. This note discusses emerging expenditure pressures observed in the recent period, which would warrant government to consider in its formulation of the upcoming budget. It assesses government’s key fiscal projections presented in the 2023 MTBPS and Budget Review. And it presents the Public Economy Project’s own updated outlook for public finances – it incorporates updated economic and fiscal data, and adjusted expenditure assumptions. It further discusses the limitations of government’s current approach to fiscal policy, and presents possible adjustments that would allow for a more equitable and sustainable path for public finances.
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    Platform work in developing economies: Can digitalisation drive structural transformation?
    (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2023-12) Cook, Sarah; Rani, Uma
    This paper discusses the expansion or penetration of digital economic activity in the context of developing economies, and what this may mean for economic or structural transformations for countries in the global South. We ask what possibilities new jobs and forms of work in the digital economy hold – in particular platform work – for the productive transformation of economies in ways that contribute to achieving the goals of human, inclusive and sustainable development. What are the impacts on work and workers in this process? The question of whether a ‘digital transformation’ can spur development and, if so, how and to whose benefit, depends in large part on the nature of employment created, and whether labour can move to higher-productivity sectors which raise incomes while also strengthening the capacity to finance public goods and services, including social protection. This paper provides a synthesis of literature and debates – conceptual, historical and empirical – linking work in the digital economy with ideas of ‘structural transformation’ and development. Our analysis of historical processes of structural transformation and of the conditions of work associated with contemporary digital platforms points to a range of obstacles to development and, in particular, the breakdown of links between skills, productivity, value and wages, limited capacity of states to invest in relevant infrastructure, and the concentration of capital with access to a global supply of labour. We conclude by considering policy actions that would be needed to direct digital economic transformation towards sustainable, fair and inclusive development.
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    The Role Of Fiscal Think Tanks in Fiscal Policy: Global patterns and lessons for South Africa
    (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2024) Krause, Philipp
    This paper looks at fiscal policy more broadly through the institutions of policy-making rather than more narrowly through the institutions of budgeting. It considers who shares the fiscal policy space with the ministry of finance and how the fiscal policy agenda is set. Finance ministries may share the policy space with other bodies, independent or not, and yet retain a dominant role in how the budget is set. The paper discusses some important institutional differences that shape fiscal policy-making, and how those differences affect a think tank’s role. It then describes the most important types of fiscal think tanks that have emerged, with reference to some country examples, and makes some suggestions for implications in practice. It concludes with an outline of options for a fiscal think tank in South Africa.