Agents, Coercive Learning, and Social Protection Policy Diffusion in Africa

This paper makes theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions to the study of social policy diffusion, drawing on the case of social protection in Africa, and Zambia in particular. We examine a range of tactics deployed by transnational agencies (TAs) to encourage the adoption of cash transfers by African governments, at the intersection between learning and coercion, which we term ‘coercive learning’, to draw attention to the important role played by TA-commissioned policy drafting, evidence generation, advocacy, and capacity-building activities. Next, we argue for making individual agents central in the analysis of policy diffusion, because of their ability to reflect, learn, and interpret policy ideas. We substantiate this claim theoretically by drawing on practice theories, and empirically by telling the story of social protection policy diffusion in Zambia through three individual agents. This is complemented by two instances of self-reflexivity in which the authors draw on their personal engagements in the policy process in Zambia, to refine our conclusions about the interplay of structure and agency.