Politics and Governance Open Access Journal ISSN: 2183-2463 Home About Archives Future Issues Institutional Membership For Authors For Reviewers Editorial Board Contacts Submit Abstract Submit Article User Remember me Register Forgot password? Article Tools How to cite item Journal Content Search Search Scope All Authors Title Abstract Keywords Affiliation Journal Citation Reports 2025 Impact Factor 2.5 © Clarivate Analytics SCImago Journal & Country Rank Most Viewed Articles Regimes of the World (RoW): Opening New Avenues for the Comparative Study of Political Regimes Views: 69549 Election Reform and Women’s Representation: Ranked Choice Voting in the U.S. Views: 56840 Voter Disenchantment in the Aftermath of the 2005 EU Constitutional Referendum in France Views: 47040 The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Transformative Change through the Sustainable... Views: 43601 Multilevel Trade Policy in the Joint‐Decision Trap? The Case of CETA Views: 33094 Home > Vol 14 (2026): The Politics of Pro-Poor Policies in the Global South Article | Open Access (Re)Framing Coherence: A Relational Analysis of Social Protection Systems in South Africa and Uganda Irene Among-Lutz Institute of Development Research and Development Policy, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany / International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands Full Text PDF (free download) Views: 995 | Downloads: 1093 Abstract: Coherence is increasingly promoted in international social protection discourse as a remedy for fragmented systems, yet its meaning and application remain unresolved. In many Global South contexts, social protection systems evolve within multi-actor, donor-influenced environments, raising questions about how coherence is framed, negotiated, and applied. This article examines how international–domestic actor relations shape coherence in social protection systems. It reconceptualises coherence as a relational governance practice rather than a binary system attribute. The article develops a legal, policy, and administrative actor-driven analytical framework to trace how coherence is conceived, invoked, and applied in South Africa’s and Uganda’s social protection systems. Drawing on elite interviews and document analysis, the analysis shows that international actors mobilise coherence in mandate-specific ways. Multilaterals frame coherence as a technocratic response to fragmentation; UN agencies invoke it as a normative, rights-based ideal; and bilateral donors deploy it as a pragmatic tool for system-building. These framings do not converge as they enter national discourse; instead, they are translated in line with the domestic political economy and legal constraints. Domestic actors deploy coherence across various operational rationales, producing distinct patterns of (in)coherence. In South Africa, social protection subsystems are legally embedded yet functionally siloed, whereas in Uganda, coherence is mobilised through donor-driven projects that produce parallel, fragmented systems. Overall coherence emerges as a negotiated, context-dependent process, which helps explain why fragmentation persists despite repeated reform efforts. Keywords: domestic actors; international actors; policy coherence; policy diffusion; social protection systems; South Africa; Uganda Published: 1 April 2026 DOI : https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.11298 Issue: Vol 14 (2026): The Politics of Pro-Poor Policies in the Global South © Irene Among-Lutz. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction of the work without further permission provided the original author(s) and source are credited. Journals: Media and Communication | Ocean and Society | Politics and Governance | Social Inclusion | Urban Planning © Cogitatio Press (Lisbon, Portugal) unless otherwise stated | Privacy Policy | Homepage ×