Even the best designed poverty relief policies can fail, if policymakers and advocates do not account for stereotypes about the poor and other biases held by the more prosperous members of society who pay the bulk of taxes and hold a disproportionate share of political power. Similarly, well-designed policies may fail to get off the ground if prosperous citizens believe that their government is simply too incompetent or corrupt to effectively administer complex poverty relief programs. In sum, to succeed politically, pro-poor policies must be palatable to the non-poor. That is the main lesson from William Ascher’s new book, The Psychology of Poverty Alleviation: Challenges in Developing Countries, which makes the case for integrating insights from social psychology into policy design and development policy more generally.

This important book starts from the premise that economics in isolation, with its emphasis on utility maximization, is poorly suited to explain the adoption and survival of anti-poverty programs. At their core, social policies impose compulsory solidarity among individuals, requiring the better-off to forgo part of their incomes knowing that the beneficiaries from subsequent government transfers will be people other than themselves. The less contributors believe they have in common with the perceived beneficiaries of social policy, the less they will support redistribution. Acquiescence toward, let alone support for, redistributive policies among the better-off is particularly puzzling in societies with overlapping economic and identity cleavages—where the poor and the rich tend to belong to different ethnic groups. A substantial body of research has found negative correlations between societal heterogeneity and individual support for redistribution and overall social policy generosity (e.g., see Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser, 2004, Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference). Similarly, diverse countries tend to provide fewer public goods (e.g., see Kate Baldwin and John D. Huber, 2010, “Economic versus Cultural Differences: Forms of Ethnic Diversity and Public Goods Provision,” American Political Science Review 104[4]). Low-income individuals from a dominant ethnic group may even oppose polices that would benefit them personally because of their perceived association with minority groups, in what is known as the anti-solidarity effect (e.g., see John E. Roemer, Woojin Lee, and Karine Van Der Straeten, 2007, Racism, Xenophobia, and Distribution: Multi-Issue Politics in Advanced Democracies).

William Ascher proposes incorporating insights from social psychology to better understand the conditions under which the rich will empathize with the poor’s plight and thus consider them deserving of redistribution. In incorporating social psychology, Ascher introduces an additional layer of complexity to the policymaking process. It is not enough, he argues, to copy a policy that worked well in another country. It is necessary to ensure that such a policy will be compatible with the views held by the better-off in that given time and place. Even internationally proven policies are unlikely to succeed if the rich overwhelmingly believe that the poor are lazy or content with their “simple” ways. Similarly, policies are unlikely to get off the ground if the rich are convinced that bureaucrats will embezzle most of their budgets or are simply too incompetent to achieve their objectives.

Fortunately, Ascher argues, “the plasticity or malleability of identifications provides crucial openings for influencing pro-poor predispositions” (p. 62). Armed with insights from social psychology and detailed knowledge of the perceptions and biases of key local actors, proponents of redistribution should be able to create conditions more favorable to the adoption and survival of pro-poor policies. This can be done by framing policies in ways that enhance the dominant group’s self-image (engendering noblesse oblige), strengthen broader identities that cut across income levels (emphasizing commonalities rather than differences), or demonstrate that helping the poor is in the dominant group’s self-interest (since it may prevent social conflict). To illustrate how social psychology dynamics affect policy success or failure, the book relies on case studies of five types of anti-poverty interventions across eight developing countries in Latin America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

The reader is presented with nuance, not easy, one-size-fits-all answers. Local knowledge is key as what works in one context may backfire in another. As Ascher freely admits, “each class of pro-poor instruments will have a different potential depending on the psychology of both nontargeted and targeted people” (p. 210). Take, for example, the case of cash transfers in Latin America (chapter 4), perhaps the lowest cost and least politically contentious of the interventions analyzed. Ascher notes that conditional transfers will be more successful “where judgments of deservingness require demonstrations of compliance to satisfy relatively prosperous people who hold generally negative stereotypes of the poor” or where those not targeted possess a “strong future orientation” and will thus be attracted to transfers conditioned on school attendance (p. 212). However, where “self-esteem of untargeted people rests heavily on broad charitability” or where “people are skeptical of bureaucratic expansion” unconditional transfers may be more attractive (p. 211). In sum, it is difficult to generalize—policymakers must try to simultaneously be area specialists, policy technocrats, and amateur social psychologists.

The Psychology of Poverty Alleviation is divided into four sections. Following the introduction, anti-poverty policies are placed within the broader economic context. Such policies, though essential, are no substitute for economic growth. When an economy grows rapidly, the poor’s incomes generally grow faster than the economy as a whole, but when an economy does poorly, the poor see steeper drops in income than the rest of the population (p. 27). Still, poverty-reducing growth may increase overall inequality, at least in the short run. Ascher warns that governments should focus on maximizing growth, even at the cost of moderating their ambitions with regard to inequality reduction (pp. 29-30). Radical redistributive policies should be avoided as they can reduce growth by triggering capital flight and may even spark destructive social conflicts. Struggling economies, in turn, will have fewer funds to invest in the poor and their better-off citizens will be less supportive of such policies.

Next, Ascher reviews social psychology research on how individuals develop opinions of deservingness towards other groups, most notably the poor. In essence, individuals inherit attitudes and attributes from the groups to which they belong. Depending on the context, the dominant group may possess attributes that “promote pro-poor commitment (e.g., the ingroup is highly charitable, pro-social, etc.) or discourage pro-poor commitment (e.g., the ingroup is vigilant and powerful enough to defend its economic and social advantages)” (p. 51). Members also inherit views of the outgroup, which “also can promote either pro-poor commitment (e.g., the outgroup’s lower capability warrants supporting them—"noblesse oblige”) or discourage pro-poor commitment (e.g., less hardworking outgroups do not deserve coddling)” (p. 51). Although the review is clear and thorough, the reader is left unsure about how to process all this information. It would have been helpful to include an additional section distilling this chapter’s most important insights into a limited number of if/then propositions that could be exemplified in the empirical chapters that follow.

Ascher then attempts to demonstrate how social psychology influences real-world policy through five empirical chapters, each highlighting a different type of pro-poor intervention—conditional cash transfers in Brazil and Mexico; targeted spending on the poor in Argentina and Brazil; pro-poor subsidies in India, Colombia, and Thailand; affirmative action in India, Brazil, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka; and policies targeting underdeveloped regions in northern Thailand. The breadth of these case studies is impressive. The cases are nuanced, rich in detail and together cover a large cross-section of the developing world and pro-poor social policy. However, there is regrettably little integration or crosspollination between these cases. The book would have benefited from the inclusion of an additional chapter or at least a section summing up and comparing the main findings and connecting them to the social psychology research presented in the literature review chapter.

The final two chapters attempt to tie everything together and provide recommendations for policymakers. However, the combination of a nuanced and highly context-specific theory and an empirical section covering five types of programs across eight countries in three regions makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to draw overarching conclusions. The penultimate chapter provides a list of potential sources of resistance to pro-poor policies that may still arise despite the prevalence of pro-poor attitudes, as well as advice on how to counteract said resistance. The book ends with a series of recommendations for promoting altruistic attitudes, reducing skepticism toward pro-poor policies, and defusing potential societal conflict. Again, it would have been useful if these lessons included examples from the cases.

In sum, The Psychology of Poverty Alleviation is an ambitious and insightful piece of research that makes valuable contributions to the study of the political economy of poverty alleviation. In incorporating insights from social psychology, Ascher provides a fresh perspective that could serve as the starting point for a new research agenda.