Global Normative Standards and National Solutions for Pension Provision: The World Bank, ILO, Norway and South Africa in Comparative Perspective

This paper identifies and describes the normative content of ideas concerning pension systems/social security schemes in terms of the concepts of fairness or justice laid out by two selected international organisations: the World Bank and the ILO. In this context, these organisations are regarded as setting global normative standards and as acting in ways that influence local powers to adopt policies that accord with these ideas. The focus is on the ideas implicit in policy stories, i.e. on the frameworks of understanding within which problems are specifically identified, their causes singled out, and remedies pursued. Three factors crucial to an understanding of the concepts of distributive justice that underlie these organisations are discussed: the coverage or scope of the pension system, redistribution, and the adequacy of pensions. The paper then presents the institutional framework of pension provision in Norway and provides a brief account of the South African system. On the basis of these four cases, the paper concludes with a comparative normative account of these frameworks and a description of various contrasts and similarities