Human development, capabilities and the ethics of policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Uwe Otto ◽  
Melanie Walker ◽  
Holger Ziegler
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
National Level ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Parts ◽  
The Capability Approach

This book examines policy interventions driven or influenced by human development or human security concerns and how a capability approach can be implemented to achieve more just societies and foster equal opportunities for individuals and groups across the social and class spectrum. It also analyses the discrepancies and obstacles that actual policies present to what a capability approach could mean in social policy practice. The primary goal of the capability approach is to advance democracy at the community, local and national level in ways that promote genuine possibilities for agency to enable everyone to actively participate in shaping public policy. The book considers how the capability approach has been conceptualised and operationalised into practice in different parts of the world, including India, Buenos Aires, South Africa, England and New York City.

Ask rather than assume: the capability approach in the practitioner setting1

2019 ◽  
pp. 107-124
Author(s):  
Jana Javornik ◽  
Mara A. Yerkes ◽  
Erik Jansen
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Features ◽  
The Capability Approach

This chapter investigates the relationships between science and society, in particular social policy 'practice', by consulting the social policy actors (i.e. researchers, professionals and practitioners who deal with or implement diverse policy decisions). The purpose of the chapter is to develop our innovative communication initiative, in which we engaged with social policy professionals and practitioners in a two-way, mutually enriching theory-practice dialogue. Using the capability approach as an analytical lens hereallows for a fresh look at social policy implementation and delivery and helps to better understand how social policies in their entirety play out in different contexts. The historical and political contexts of social policies and people's different needs and values, the cornerstone of the CA, are increasingly recognised by policy practitioners and professionals who have first-hand experience with policy delivery or application at the local level. This chapter demonstrates that their experience with multiple access and eligibility-related issues on the ground sheds new light on the applicability of the CA, and how this approach may help to identify key features grounded in local knowledge, be it around social policy design, delivery or implementation.

Capability-Promoting Policies

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Equal Opportunities ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
The Social

Most current social welfare policies aim to ameliorate immediate problems or injustices, but they do little to foster human development or support the potential of people within marginalized communities. How can we more effectively use public policy to foster human development? How can we overcome the injustice of contemporary society and give people across the social and class spectrum equal opportunities to flourish? This book offers case studies and analyses of a number of different existing approaches to these questions, presenting newly conceptualised strategies for developing and implementing effective policies for fostering human development at the local, national, and international levels. It examines the discrepancies and obstacles that actual policies present to what a capability approach can do in social policy practice. The goal is to stimulate debate on how to overcome barriers in a variety of existing social policy scenarios.

scholarly journals A Poset-Generalizability Method for Human Development Indicators

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Flavio Comim
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Generalizability Theory ◽  
Well Being ◽  
New Method ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
Development Analysis ◽  
The Capability Approach

AbstractThe paper introduces a poset-generalizability perspective for analysing human development indicators. It suggests a new method for identifying admissibility of different informational spaces and criteria in human development analysis. From its inception, the Capability Approach has argued for informational pluralism in normative evaluations. But in practice, it has turned its back to other (non-capability) informational spaces for being imperfect, biased or incomplete and providing a mere evidential role in normative evaluations. This paper offers the construction of a proper method to overcome this shortcoming. It combines tools from poset analysis and generalizability theory to put forward a systematic categorization of cases with different informational spaces. It provides illustrations by using key informational spaces, namely, resources, rights, subjective well-being and capabilities. The offered method is simpler and more concrete than mere human development guidelines and at the same time it avoids results based on automatic calculations. The paper concludes with implications for human development policies and an agenda for further work.

A Sociotechnical Approach of eGovernment in Developing Countries

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-79
Author(s):  
Gabriela Viale Pereira ◽  
Marie Anne Macadar ◽  
Maurício Gregianin Testa
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Quality Of Working Life ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Development Outcomes ◽  
Ict For Development ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
The Capability Approach

In the context of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for development (ICT4D) the capability approach raises questions about the best way to generate human development outcomes through governments' implementation of ICT, encompassing specific demands of the people. Considering that quality of working life was an emergent value for the sociotechnical supporters and could foster human development, this perspective can also be used to explain the use of ICT in government. This research proposes a conceptual model to explain how governments' implementation of ICT contributes to improved human development through a sociotechnical perspective and its alignment with users' needs and expectations. The contribution of this study is the extending of the ICT4D research in a sociotechnical view and its impact in human development. By including the social context in the model, it emphasizes the differences between countries in different levels of development, the differences between users' demands and the differences in human development outcomes.

Education as investment? A comparison of the capability and social investment approaches to education policy

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Michel Bonvin ◽  
Francesco Laruffa
Keyword(s):  
Education Policy ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Normative Basis ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Capability Approach

This chapter compares the role of education policy in social investment and the capability approach. Based on an analysis of the document 'Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes' adopted by the European Commission in 2012 (and cited in the 'Social Investment Package'), we argue that the role of educational policy in social investment is mainly that of fostering the right skills for the flourishing of the economy and thus of improving people's productivity as workers. In contrast, the capability approach allows emphasizing the contribution of education not only to workers' employability but also to citizens' autonomy as well as to democratic citizenship. From this viewpoint, the capability approach could improve the normative basis of social investment, allowing to broaden the perspective on education policy beyond the one centred on human capital that currently informs social investment.

Public policy: from welfare to empowerment of women in India

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Indira Mahendravada
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Rural Women ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Sample Surveys ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Women In India ◽  
The Capability Approach

This chapter examines the paradigm shift in public policy from welfare to the empowerment of women in Karnataka, India. Drawing on data collected through sample surveys from two districts in rural Karnataka, it considers the impact of policy interventions on the empowerment of women in Karnataka at the micro level by using the capability approach. The study tests whether the policy of involving non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the empowerment of rural women positively affects the autonomy of women measured in terms of capabilities. The chapter first presents an overview of the capability approach, its application to women's empowerment and agency, and indicators to measure autonomy before discussing the findings from the study of Karnataka women. The study provides evidence that the policy of involving NGOs in delivering inputs for the empowerment of women has enhanced the capabilities of women in Karnataka.

scholarly journals The family accompaniment of persons with dementia seen through the lens of the capability approach

Dementia ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Le Galès ◽  
Martine Bungener
Keyword(s):  
Capability Approach ◽  
Family Members ◽  
The Past ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Person With Dementia ◽  
The Capability Approach

Using the capability approach initially developed by A Sen as a theoretical framework, this paper analyses both what people with dementia and their families do in response to difficulties in their daily life brought about by the disease, and the reasons they give for acting as they do. Individual and collective interviews and ethnographic observations with 15 persons with dementia and one or more of their family members were conducted. Follow-up interviews were possible for nine families. Results highlight a great diversity in ways of doing things and in accompaniment by family members. Daily adjustments are often hidden or minimized, at least at the onset of the dementia. Later, they become more frequent, repetitive and indispensable but remain influenced by the social and gender roles that existed prior to the illness. The inventiveness of families, in a context marked by various kinds of constraints, is primarily motivated by their desire to maintain the apparently intact abilities of the person with dementia but especially to preserve forms of liberty and what counted for the person, what that person valued before the disease. There are some ways of living with dementia, even when accompanied, which may long remain preferable to others, which better answer to the past and present aspirations of persons with dementia and the purposes of the accompanying persons. It is thus essential that health professionals, as well as society in general, recognize and address this issue.

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