Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes in Brazil, Argentina and Scotland: A comparative analysis of their conceptions

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Abstract
This article compares three Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes (CCTPs), the Bolsa Família, the Asignación Universal por Hijo and the Universal Credit in, respectively, Brazil, Argentina, and Scotland from the standpoint of their conceptions and meanings. The objectives, conceptions and arguments that guide beneficiary selection and conditionalities are analysed and compared using the policy analysis methodology and focusing on the political and ideological contexts in which these policies were formulated. In the three countries, CCTPs have become the primary strategy for combating poverty in contexts of fiscal austerity. In Argentina and Brazil, with their historical deficits in access to social rights, the programmes have reduced the worst rates of income poverty and expanded social inclusion through health and education conditionalities, constituting a move to combat inequalities without changing the structural conditions that sustain them. In Scotland, Universal Credit broke with the universalist conception of welfare, of meeting people’s basic needs. By retracting social assistance and applying a punitive logic designed to produce behavioural changes among the poorest, it had adverse effects, especially on the most vulnerable in the population.

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