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The truncated commercialization of microinsurance and the limits of neoliberalism
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Bernards, Nicholas (2018) The truncated commercialization of microinsurance and the limits of neoliberalism. Development and Change, 49 (6). pp. 1447-1470. doi:10.1111/dech.12454 ISSN 0012-155X.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12454
Abstract
Microinsurance — defined as low‐cost insurance products targeting low‐income populations — exemplifies key themes in contemporary neoliberalism, and has figured prominently in neoliberalism's turn to discourses such as ‘risk management’ and ‘financial inclusion’. The development of commercial markets for microinsurance, however, has in practice been highly variable and often very limited. This article considers the implications of this process of ‘truncated commercialization’. It draws on a Polanyian analytical framework that emphasizes the contradictory regulatory dynamics involved in the commodification of labour. The article applies this approach by tracing multiscalar efforts to promote microinsurance, examining the emergence of the concept in the efforts of the International Labour Organization to promote social security for informal workers in the 1980s and 1990s, looking at the adoption of explicitly commercializing imperatives in the work of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors in the 2000s, and, finally, considering a case study of South Africa. The truncated commercialization of microinsurance, it is argued, provides a useful lens through which to see the practical impossibility of neoliberal development strategies.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HG Finance | ||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > School for Cross-faculty Studies Faculty of Arts > School for Cross-faculty Studies > Global Sustainable Development |
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| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Microinsurance, Neoliberalism, International Labour Organisation, International Association of Insurance Supervisors, South Africa -- Economic conditions | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Development and Change | ||||||
| Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc | ||||||
| ISSN: | 0012-155X | ||||||
| Official Date: | 12 September 2018 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 49 | ||||||
| Number: | 6 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 1447-1470 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.1111/dech.12454 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Re-use Statement: | This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Bernards, N. (2018), The Truncated Commercialization of Microinsurance and the Limits of Neoliberalism. Development and Change, 49: 1447-1470. doi:10.1111/dech.12454, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12454. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 19 February 2019 | ||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 12 September 2020 | ||||||
| Funder: | Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada | ||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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