In recent years, transformative social protection (TSP) has become a favoured paradigm in global development. This rhetoric seeks to tackle poverty and inequality by reshaping norms, in addition to institutions and power relations, rather than supplementing household consumption. This paper traces the historical evolution of TSP in social protection discourse and argues that TSP rests on an incomplete diagnosis of poverty and inequality that underestimates the role of a hyper‑financialised global economy. The paper critiques contemporary framings of norms as mere limitations on human behaviour and instead reconceptualises them as long‑term cultural adaptations playing societal fitness functions that policymakers disrupt at significant ethical and evolutionary cost. It proposes a re‑orientation of the social protection agenda in which behavioural change components are grounded in context‑specific enquiries into the history and function of norms. It offers an alternate treatment of norms in social protection policy, guided by harm thresholds, an appreciation for the history of norms, and reflexivity in the policymaking process. The paper concludes with a call for approaches to social protection which are context-specific, locally determined, and adaptive rather than rigid and universalised in nature.
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