Giving money to the poor: the political payoffs of allocating conditional cash transfers in Turkey

This dissertation analyzes the political consequences of the Conditional Cash Transfer program (CCT) in Turkey, The purpose is three-fold: first, to investigate the political incentives and payoffs that motivate policymakers to adopt CCTs; second, to test whether political or technocratic criteria explain the allocation of CCTs in Turkey, and third, to examine whether conditionally transferring cash to the poor empowers poor citizens, or produces/reproduces pressure on the poor to reciprocate by supporting the political party that made the cash transfer. My research draws on six months of fieldwork conducted in Malkara, Tekirdağ (with Roma beneficiaries) and Diyarbakır (with Kurdish beneficiaries), and on regression analysis of original district level data on the allocation of CCTs. I reach three primary conclusions. First, the adoption of CCTs under the coalition government, influenced and pushed by the World Bank, led to a relatively strict formulation of the social assistance scheme in Turkey, which provides a promising attempt to make a transition to programmatic social policy. Second, although on balance, social and economic indicators guide the distribution of funds, Kurdish districts appear to receive favorable treatment. Third, due to the lack of CCTs requirements for increased social participation and active social engagement on the part of beneficiaries, the CCT program does not have a transformative impact on the enhancement of citizenship and the empowerment of women for both the Kurdish and Roma communities. Rather, more politicized groups, such as the Kurdish people, view the benefit as their social right due to state’s inefficiency in creating jobs in the eastern part of Turkey and their uneasy relations with the state. Among less politicized groups, such as the Roma people, the program triggers feelings of gratitude and appreciation to the politicians providing this program, especially Prime Minister Erdoğan.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Ozgen Gokce Bayka