The distributive politics of social assistance targeting: Evidence from COVID-19 relief in Colombia

ABSTRACT

How do governments target social assistance? This article proposes a new typology of targeting that goes beyond the dominant focus on top-down technical solutions to highlight the important role of informal practices and non-state actors. Using evidence about the ways local governments in Colombia delivered relief during COVID-19, the typology identifies and illustrates four ideal types of targeting processes resulting from the intersection between programmatic (or not) eligibility criteria and the role of non-state actors. The article thus expands the politics of social policy research agenda to the question of targeting, a crucial aspect of policy implementation, in dialogue with scholarship on distributive politics. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.