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This paper discusses the question of whether a capability theory of justice (such as that of Martha Nussbaum) should accept a basic “capability to hold property.” Answering this question is vital for bridging the gap between abstract capability theories of justice and their institutional implications in real economies. Moreover, it is vital for understanding the difference between egalitarian and libertarian versions of the capability approach. In the paper, three main arguments about private property are discussed: those relating property to a private sphere of control, to the market system of allocating goods, and to the ability to keep the fruits of one's labor. On the basis of this discussion it is argued that the capability theory of justice should accept a basic capability to hold private property, albeit one that is restricted in scope and has an egalitarian character. Special attention is paid to libertarian arguments about property acquisition, and it is argued that capability theories of justice must reject them because they presuppose a method of justifying capabilities that the capability approach cannot accept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a decomposition of the Sen index by subgroups using the analysis of Gini. This method decomposes the Sen index, isolating the contribution of thepoverty gap, those ofwithinandbetweeninequality, as well as the contribution ofoverlapping. The application of this method to the analysis of world poverty in two years shows that the evolution of the Sen index and of all its components can be easily captured and interpreted, a feature that significantly improves the use of the Sen index in poverty analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In health economics, proponents of the capability approach argue that the value of health improvements should be evaluated us broad domains which reflect the capabilities of an individual. Instruments have been developed to measure these domains. These instruments operationalise the measurement of capability in different ways. The objective of this study is to analyze specifically how instruments operationalise the capability approach. Using a comprehensive pearl growing search methodology, we identified ten instruments. The content of these instruments was analysed in three stages. First, the definition of capability that was used for the development of an instrument was identified. Then, an analysis was conducted on how this definition was operationalised in the instrument's development. Lastly, the content of the instruments was compared with the concept "option freedom", which provides a more comprehensive definition of capability, to study whether the instruments measure capability or other aspects that are relevant for wellbeing assessment. We conclude that, despite using a shared definition of capability, the instruments differ in their methods to measure capability. Some instruments might miss content that reflect the burdens that people experience while achieving their capabilities in certain contexts. This might be due to the unclear conceptualisation of capability by Sen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among countries with comparable levels of income, India has one of the more progressive disability policy frameworks. However, people with disabilities in India are still subject to multiple disadvantages. This paper focuses on state-level variations in outcomes for people with disabilities to provide an explanation for the contrast between the liberal laws on paper and the challenges faced by people with disabilities in practice. Using average monthly per-capita expenditure as an indicator of economic well-being, instrumental-variable Wald estimator results indicate that households with members with disabilities have expenditures that are 14% lower compared with households with able members. This effect is most pronounced among families with male adults and children with disabilities, and in states that are relatively poor, relatively more urban, those that experience extremes in annual rainfall and temperature, and those that have low to medium levels of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global development goals have become increasingly used by the UN and the international community to promote priority objectives. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the most prominent example of such goals but many others have been set since the 1960s. Despite their prominence and proliferation, little has been written about the concept of global goals as a policy tool, their effectiveness, limitations and broader consequences. This paper explores global development goals as a policy tool, and the mechanisms that have two types of effects: governance effects and knowledge effects. These effects lead to both intended and unintended consequences in influencing international development strategies and action. The paper analyses the MDGs as an example to argue that global goals activate the power of numbers to create incentives for national governments and others to mobilize for important objectives. But the powers of simplification, reification and abstraction lead to broader unintended consequences when the goals are misinterpreted as national planning targets and strategic agendas, and when they enter the language of development to redefine concepts such as development and poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main argument of this paper is that progress towards gender equality and women's empowerment in the development agenda requires a human rights-based approach, and requires support for the women's movement to activate and energize the agenda. Both are missing from Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 3. Empowerment requires agency along multiple dimensions—sexual, reproductive, economic, political, and legal. However, MDG 3 frames women's empowerment as reducing educational disparities. By omitting other rights and not recognizing the multiple interdependent and indivisible human rights of women, the goal of empowerment is distorted and “development silos” are created. Women's organizations are key actors in pushing past such distortions and silos at all levels, and hence crucial to pushing the gender equality agenda forward. However, the politics of agenda setting also influences funding priorities such that financial support for women's organizations and for substantive women's empowerment projects is limited. To re-focus the post-2015 Development Agenda around human rights, we conclude by outlining an approach of issue-based goals and people-focused targets, which makes substantive space for civil society including women's rights organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were heralded as opening a new chapter in international development, and have led to the use of global goals and target-setting as a central instrument defining the international development agenda. Despite this increased importance, little is understood about how they influence policy priorities of key stakeholders, and their broader consequences. While quantification is the key strength of global goals, it also involves simplification, reification and abstraction, which have far-reaching implications for redefining priorities. This paper highlights the key findings and conclusions of the Power of Numbers Project, which undertook 11 case studies of the effects of selected MDG goals/targets, including both the empirical effects on policy priorities and normative effects on development discourses, and drew specifically on human rights principles and human development priorities. While the Project found that the effects varied considerably from one goal/target to another, all led to unintended consequences in diverting attention from other important objectives and reshaping development thinking. Many of the indicators were poorly selected and contributed to distorting effects. The Project concludes that target-setting is a valuable but a limited and blunt tool, and that the methodology for target-setting should be refined to include policy responsiveness in addition to data availability criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite almost a quarter of a century during which the global community pursued the goal of child survival, together with targets for improving child health and nutrition, Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG4) had but one target: the reduction of child mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. MDG4 was untethered from the Millennium Declaration and from the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This paper analyzes the unintended consequences of framing MDG4 in this reductive manner, showing that doing so shrunk the child health agenda, and ignored earlier incipient efforts to embed human rights principles in the pursuit of child survival. The paper also analyzes the evidence of whether the remarkable 47% decline in child mortality since 1990 was a consequence of the mobilizing Power of MDG4's numbers. Change seems due to veterans of the child-survival revolution of the late twentieth century coalescing to overcome MDG4's limitations. By 2010, the coalition began to address the distortions that flowed from disconnecting MDG4 from a human rights framework. The paper concludes with recommendations of selection criteria for indicators to monitor child survival in the post-2015 agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the change in development thinking towards a multidimensional concept of human development, the fact is that this paradigm shift has not found its parallel evolution in the practice of development planning, monitoring and evaluation. Logic model-based methods, such as results-based management and project-cycle management, are still prevalent independently of the scale or instruments used on development. This paper critically assesses how the capability approach challenges current development management methodologies, based on the results of three case studies constructed as a participant observer under an action-research perspective. Building on Sen's concepts of principles and process freedoms, and on Alkire's core objectives of human development—real freedoms, process freedoms, plural principles and sustainability—we present the possible foundations of an alternative methodology for development interventions, a “Process Freedoms Approach”, aimed at better mainstreaming the capability approach within development policies, programmes and projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the importance of and value added by applying the capability approach to strategize, design, monitor or evaluate development initiatives, by operationalizing this agency-oriented (participatory) and opportunity-based perspective and by widening standard methods to deal with new informational spaces. In the first part of the paper a dynamic analytical framework on capabilities expansion/reduction processes—which places at the central stage the opportunity gaps between valuable community functionings and individual capability sets—is presented. These gaps represent the policy area where tailored and appropriate place-specific and people-centred development initiatives can entail the maximum expansion of real freedoms. Then, on the basis of this framework, the paper presents an original participatory methodology—the “O-Gap Analysis”—which can complement standard methods to provide systematized assessments of capabilities within communities to inform policy actions. An empirical case study is also discussed, analysing the application of this methodological procedure regarding a community-based rehabilitation project in Uganda. Applying the capability approach policy interventions cannot be necessarily unique for all individuals or social groups experiencing opportunity gaps for what they have reason to value, as different barriers or mix of barriers and conversion factors, values, desires and aspiration call for tailored people-centred development initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses four renewable energy-based electrification projects that were implemented by the non-governmental organization Practical Action in the rural area of Cajamarca, Peru. Using the capability approach, the research examines the effect of the projects on the things people value. It confirms that projects provide different benefits to the communities (reducing air pollution caused by candles and kerosene, improving access to communication through television and radio, providing the possibility of night study under appropriate light, etc.), but also detects an expansion of the capabilities in other areas not considered by the non-governmental organization such as those related to religion, leisure or community participation. However, the expansion of capabilities is different for men and women. The study reveals the limitations of interventions designed to supply technology, electrification in this particular case, which do not take into account certain elements that can make the use of technology contribute unequally to the expansion of people's capabilities. The paper concludes that technological projects can generate inequalities, and some recommendations are presented in order to address these issues when planning interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Frances Stewart on state regulation and market freedom, one by Martha Nussbaum on virtues in seeing love in terms of competition and dominance, and another by Stacy Kosko on parental guidance and children's rights.

This paper applies a dynamic multidimensional measure of disadvantage to examine how the nature and extent of disadvantage experienced by a child can vary throughout their childhood. We use two longitudinal datasets to track a cohort of Australian children from around 4 to at least 10 years of age, comparing the experiences of Indigenous children to the broader Australian child population. Our analysis confirms that Indigenous children not only experience worse rates of disadvantage than the rest of the Australian child population at all ages, but that this gap widens further as children grow older. For all Australian children, the highest rates of disadvantage are detected in “bullying” and “body weight,” with rates of unhealthy body weight worsening with age. The empirical findings of this study can inform age-targeted policy design; while the methodological contributions have relevance for other countries aiming to target the well-being of disadvantaged socioeconomic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discussion of public health ethics usually focuses on public health and relates it to the notion of a public good. In this paper, I explain why we need to focus on population health and why it corresponds to a common good and hence is prone to depletion in the absence of appropriate state regulation. Using the capability approach perspective and Sen’s focus on the value of the opportunity and process aspects of freedom, I show why the state commitment to guarantee each individual the prerequisites for her positive freedom in fact justifies limiting an individual’s freedom of action in order to protect the freedom of others. However, even such infringements might not suffice to maintain population health as a common good. Hence, in the third section, I look at an additional course of intervention by the state, namely the use of nudges which are intended to influence an individual’s choices and to steer her to more health-enhancing behavior. In light of the possible violation of the opportunity and process aspects of individual freedom, I show why and under what circumstances the use of nudges is not only ethical, but actually preserves the two aspects of freedom and at the same time maintains the common good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse two Colombian communities using elements of the capability approach. The first, Comuna 8, is an urban community in Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city. The second community is a Zona de Reserva Campesina (Peasant Farmer Reserve Zone) in the Cabrera municipality, in the Department of Cundinamarca. We explore the reasons why people value being part of a community, along with the collective capabilities that are expanded through community participation. As a product of these capabilities communities plan their own territories, which are examples of collective functionings. Social and environmental conversion factors, as well the historical background of the two communities, are key elements in the analysis. Finally, this research sheds light on individual and collective agency. This agency not only occurs in spaces recognised by Colombian law, but also in areas claimed by the communities themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizen Voice and Action (CV&A), a rights- and strengths-based social accountability approach developed in the global South, helps communities marginalized by unfair power relations to counter low accountability. By creating a dynamic of entitlement within communities and obligation by duty-bearers, it improves power relations and frees communities to build shared agency through reciprocity which advances health rights claims. After outlining capability theory and linking it to human rights, this paper explains CV&A’s origins in democratic struggles for rights and its current praxis. Using Ugandan case studies, it examines how people suffering its low accountability claim health and human rights by culturally engaging with each other and with duty-bearers. When interpreted as a set of collective freedoms and capabilities to struggle, social accountability helps explain how democratic action with and for communities at multiple levels aligns policy implementation with service performance to produce standards of public healthcare that community members value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Martha Nussbaum argues that the capability approach to human development is grounded in an intuitive conception of what a life worthy of human dignity entails. This image is coupled with a conception of truly human functionings as a measure for development. It is not enough to establish what goods people require, but rather to consider what they can actuallydoorbecomewith those goods. Nussbaum acknowledges that the philosophical grounding for her list of central human capabilities is influenced by Aristotle through the early Marx. Despite admitting this influence, I argue that Nussbaum's incorporation omits a central facet of Marx's image of truly dignified humans: the importance of meaningful labor. This omission seriously undercuts the possibility of the capabilities approach providing persons with a life worthy of human dignity. In this paper, I develop and defend an argument for including a capability for meaningful labor in Nussbaum's list of central human capabilities. After an explication of Marx's understanding of a fully human life, I will discuss the limits of Nussbaum's capabilities list with respect to the topic of meaningful labor. I also consider how Nussbaum's discussion of a capability to hold property elucidates both the necessity and feasibility of a capability for meaningful labor. Lastly, I consider some potential political implications of this proposed capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inequality has acquired a newfound prominence in the academic and political debate. While scholars working with the capability approach (CA) have succeeded in influencing the conceptualisation and measurement of poverty, which is increasingly understood in multidimensional terms, recent scholarship on inequality focusses overwhelmingly oneconomicforms of inequality, and especially on inequalities in income and wealth. In this paper, we outline how the conceptual framework of the CA (focussing on ends rather than means, multidimensionality, and recognising the value of freedoms as well as attained functionings) has the potential to enrich the study of distributional inequality through offering a rationale for why inequality matters, exploring the association between different forms of inequality, and providing an analysis of power. But applying the CA in the context of advantage exacerbates some existing challenges to the approach (defining a capability list, and the non-observability of capabilities) and brings some fresh ones (especially insensitivity at the top of the distribution). We recommend a stronger and clearer distinction between concepts and measures. Capability inequality is a more appropriate and potentially revealing conceptual apparatus, but economic resources are likely to remain a crucial metric for understanding distributional inequality for the foreseeable future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the empirical evidence regarding the effect of economic sanctions on human development outcomes and discusses possible avenues for reform of the current sanctions regime to reduce their adverse impact on capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bedouin community, a subpopulation of the Arab minority in Israel, has been subject to systematic discrimination throughout the state's history, including in accessibility to digital services. Based on 25 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Bedouin men and women residing in unrecognised villages – townlets that are not legally designated as municipal entities by the state and therefore lack basic infrastructure – this study asks whether and how the capabilities approach can be used to assess and examine ICT usage among the Bedouin as a marginalised community with distinct needs. The analysis illuminates the tensions and contradictions that characterise their digital experiences and shows that the capabilities approach is particularly apposite for understanding digital exclusion while compensating for the shortcoming of the digital divide framework. The findings uncover the ubiquitous presence of mobile smartphones among Bedouin users as the central enabler of their desired capabilities while pointing out the vital place religion plays in the community members' decision-making regarding the use of ICTs for the realisation of their desired capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban mobility infrastructures have a major impact on the everyday life of city residents. Not only their mobility, but also their health, enjoyment of life and development of lifestyle preferences are affected by them. However, inclusive participation in infrastructure planning processes is difficult to achieve. We explore a foresight approach that develops desirable urban visions that involve residents in the preparation of decisions that will impact their lives. We propose future-oriented co-design workshops for the operationalisation of a capabilitarian focus on conscientisation, conciliation and collaboration to involve citizens in the visioning of infrastructure planning. The study is based on future-oriented codesign workshops held in Montreal in 2022–2023. Residents were invited to evaluate and discuss various future scenarios that re-imagine a highway currently cutting through the city. The results show the capabilitarian co-design workshops to promote critical thinking, vision creation and to a lesser extent collaboration in the discussions triggered by the future-oriented codesign workshops. The results also reveal the difficulties of making such discussions truly inclusive, as well as their ambivalent relation to urban planning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role can aspirations play in small-scale human development interventions? In this paper, we contribute to answering that question with both conceptual and empirical work. Aspirations can play at least two roles in small-scale human development interventions: the capabilities-selecting role and the agency-unlocking role. While aspirations also face the challenge of adaptation to adverse circumstances and unjust social structures, we argue that this challenge can be met by embedding the formulation and expression of aspirations within a setting of public discussion and awareness-raising activities, and that adaptation can be further countered by including a commitment to action. We then report on field research done in Khayelitsha, a township in Cape Town, South Africa, where a group of women went through a process of voicing, examining, and then realizing their aspirations. The action research confirms our theoretical hypotheses. We also do not find any evidence of adaptation of the women's aspirations, and argue that the absence of such adaptation might be a result of active capability selection, reflection, deliberation, and the exercise of agency throughout the action research programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has two main objectives. The first is to focus on the role of technology, in combination with human development, in generating the growth needed for further increases in human development, which is seen as the bottom-line output. The second objective is to explore how technology measured by total factor productivity can itself be better explained by way of examining the role of openness, foreign direct investment and various types of patents. The contrast between Latin America and Asia with respect to these variables is established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I review the state of human development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and its evolution in the past four decades. I highlight the following salient characteristics of MENA economies that shape human development in the region: high income from hydrocarbon exports, which drive a wedge between individual productivity and consumption; demographic factors, such as delayed fertility transition and rapid growth of the youth population; imbalances in the labor markets, evidenced by high rates of youth unemployment and low participation of women in the labor market; high investment in schooling but with low productivity of education; and imbalance in marriage markets resulting in delayed marriage. I argue that these regional characteristics affect welfare and human development in MENA countries deeply but in ways that are not easily captured by standard human development measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to analyse Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in prospect rather than retrospect. In doing so, it begins with a critical evaluation of their conception and design to focus on limitations that must be addressed. In contemplating the future of MDGs beyond 2015, it suggests that such a framework is necessary but should not be more of the same. Thus, it explores possible options, such as structural flexibility at the national level and cognition of inequality in outcomes, which could provide the foundations of a modified framework or alternative construct. The paper argues that developing countries also need to reformulate policies, redesign strategies and rethink development in their respective national contexts for attainment of the MDGs. In the international context, where the focus has been narrow and the progress has so far been slow in the MDGs, there is need for cooperation among developing countries, through better bargaining and collective action, which provides an opportunity to reshape unfair rules in the world economy that encroach upon policy space so essential for development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Bank is currently the lead education research and lending body operating internationally, including in the area of girls’ education. As such, the World Bank wields considerable power in terms of shaping the policy agendas of borrower nations and for this reason is scrutinized in this paper for its privileging of an economic-instrumentalist normative framework for education policy development within which formal schooling is viewed exclusively as a means for economic growth, rather than as a potential tool for the achievement of social justice. An analysis of World Bank work in The Gambian education sector is used to illustrate the limits of a human capital-driven, economic-instrumentalist approach to education policy, with specific attention paid to gender and education issues and related policy solutions. We ultimately argue the value of the World Bank adopting the human capability policy approach as a means to advance World Bank education sector work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically examines the determinants of child health in developing countries and how public policy may interact with these determinants. It improves on previous empirical studies by conducting a more careful analysis of the determinants controlling for possible endogeneity, and by using a more comprehensive and richer panel dataset, drawing on a health database covering 136 countries over 1960–2005, supplemented by the latest World Development Indicators dataset as well as data on a broad variety of alternative indicators of governance, such as those from the International Country Risk Guide and the Open Budget Index. We find that both public spending on healthcare and the quality of governance matter for the reduction of child mortality rates. However, our mixed results on the interaction of governance with public spending throw some doubt on the conclusiveness of previous empirical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines and explores a key obstacle to evaluating education policy using the capability approach. According to the capability approach, education policy should be targeted towards expanding people's capabilities. Values are central to an individual's capability set, because they determine the functionings important to them, and therefore the capabilities which are valuable to that individual. However, it is argued here that education has a more complex function than other areas of social policy, as education is able to influence and transfer values much more directly. How do we examine the relationship between education and the expansion of an individual's capabilities, if at the same time the process of education may directly determine the very nature of the capability set itself? As a solution, a form of education is proposed that would enable students to become aware of the values they hold, and develop them further through fostering critical thinking, practical reason, and access to knowledge, rather than directly imparting values to students. We illustrate this drawing on a recent project on higher education and transformation in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With rapidly deteriorating national and local economies, many urban dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa are resorting to informal sector activities to ameliorate the current food insecurity that poor households face. Among these activities is urban agriculture, which is used both as a source of basic foodstuffs and also for income generation. In many cities, the growing of food crops is considered as an activity for rural areas, and is therefore, excluded from urban development and planning policy. This state of affairs has traditionally presented major challenges for many small-scale urban farmers to realise their full potential and attain household food security. In recent years, changes in climatic conditions (e.g. drought and flooding), coupled with a lack of policies supporting the activities of the urban poor, have combined to make it difficult for households to adapt to the changing urban environment. Drawing upon recent field-based research in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, the paper explores the relationships between urban livelihoods and extreme weather events, and evaluates the extent to which changes in climate and urban governance are impacting upon urban agriculture. The paper has wider relevance in the context of evolving strategies for achieving sustainable urban development, poverty reduction and food security in Africa and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reviews experience in advancing Human Development (HD) since 1970 by investigating behaviour among countries that made the largest improvement in HD and those that made the least improvement. The paper provides evidence on a range of indicators for the three best (and worst) performers among high, medium and low HD countries. It identifies alternative combinations of variables associated with success and failure. It then reviews performance on a range of other dimensions of Human Development, including political rights, gender empowerment, societal stability and environmental sustainability and shows these are only weakly associated with performance on the Human Development Index (HDI). To illuminate historical, political and institutional factors associated with success and failure, the performance of six countries (four successful and two weak performers) are briefly reviewed—Bangladesh, Chile, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos and Zambia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contrasts the impact of the financial crisis of 2008 on poor countries and poor people with the debt crisis of the 1980s. The financial crisis of the 2000S affected more regions of the world but its effects on particular countries were more heterogeneous, varying according to countries' dependence on different sources of foreign exchange. The worst affected regions were South and Eastern Europe and Latin America. Because of heavy aid dependence and less integration with financial markets, sub-Saharan Africa was less badly affected, while in the 1980s sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America suffered most. In aggregate terms, the fall in gross domestic product (GDP) was much greater in the 2000s than the 1980s. Yet, taken as a whole, the impact on poverty appears to have been less. One major difference between the 1980s and 2000s was the greater autonomy countries had in policy-making, and lesser dependence on the International Monetary Fund, allowing countries to follow more expansionary policies. Government expenditure as a proportion of GDP was generally sustained in 2000s in contrast to severe cuts in the 1980s. Moreover, there were more extensive social support programmes in existence in the 2000s that acted as mild protections against economic downturn. Like the 1980s, there were no real-time data for poverty in 2008 and 2009 at a global level. Global estimates based on simulations show a slowdown in poverty reduction and no increase in actual poverty rates, yet the limited ‘actual’ data reviewed here show an increase in the rate of income poverty, some with social protection programmes in many places, although mostly the increase was more modest than the 1980s. The crisis of 2000s was shorter than the 1980s, so that people and governments could draw on their savings to protect their livelihoods, but if the global recession recurs, the poverty consequences could become much worse. The need for short-term indicators of poverty remains urgent, if we are to be able to analyse the effects of crises on poverty (natural disasters and conflict as well as economic fluctuations) rapidly and accurately, and to design appropriate protective policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies two elements for global governance critical to the pursuit of human development: democratic accountability and institutional experimentation. The paper stresses the critical importance of organizing effective global institutions for the purpose of human development and briefly discusses some major challenges that can and do affect the international community. It summarizes the theoretical underpinnings for the primacy of institutions as derived from two strands of development theory and the extent towards which these ideas have been acted upon in developing frameworks of global governance. The paper discusses these two principles in light of some of the major challenges that can and do affect the international community as a whole, and some of the decentralized forms of governance that are being developed as developing countries assert themselves in debates on institutional organization. It focuses on the global financial crisis as a case study in the inadequacies of current global governance and the reforms advocated by the Commission of Experts of the President of the United Nations General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System to redress these failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Human Development Index (HDI) published in the Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program has been calculated as a simple average of the Life Expectancy Index, the Education Index and the Gross Domestic Product Index. This paper provides statistical support for the use of this seemingly arbitrary equal weighting of the three components by treating human development as a latent concept imperfectly captured by its three component indices. We show that a principal component analysis (PCA) based on the correlation matrix of the components leads to practically the same weights. Specifically we show that, for the period 1975-2005, the first principal component accounts for between 78% and 90% of the total variability in the data, and that its coefficients are positive and nearly equal. By normalizing the coefficients, the simple average weighting (1/3, 1/3, 1/3) scheme is obtained. The ranks of countries obtained using the PCA weightings are very similar to those based on the HDI. An advantage of the simple equal weighting is that one can define a simple index to measure the balance of a country's development, given its HDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the role of finance and financial regulation in shaping capabilities, in the context of the 2008 financial crisis in the USA, paying particular attention to the implications for capability to be adequately housed. It argues that public reasoning and public action to safeguard this capability can benefit from reference to the obligation to realize the human right to adequate housing. The paper contributes to two areas of discussion that have been relatively neglected in relation to capabilities: the role of finance and financial regulation; and the role of human rights obligations in safeguarding and expanding capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capabilities and human rights are closely related and share common commitments to freedom and justice as central political objectives. Much of the literature on this relationship has focused on defining the overlaps and differences between them as theoretical concepts. This paper explores a different aspect of the relationship, namely the overlaps and differences in their respective measurement approaches. The paper argues that human development indicators that are used to evaluate policies for capability expansion, or human development, cannot substitute for human rights indicators because of the differences in them as concepts as well as the way that these concepts are used and applied. Human rights indicators are used to assess the accountability of the state in complying with the obligations that are codified in international and domestic law. However, the literature of development economics and the methods of empirical analysis and aggregative summary measurements extensively used in the human development and capabilities approach can overcome some of the constraints of conventional methods used in human rights assessments. These possibilities are illustrated in the Economic and Social Rights Fulfillment Index, recently developed by Fukuda-Parr, Lawson-Remer and Randolph that develops an empirical model of 'progressive realization' and provides an empirical basis for setting benchmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Polanyi's 1944 analysis of policy change—in which there are long-term swings from state regulation to markets and back again, as the consequences of one regime lead to political reactions that in turn reverse the policies. It shows how the Polanyi analysis continued to apply throughout the twentieth and early-twenty-first century, well beyond when he wrote, and that the swings also apply to developing country policy-making. It argues that there are new signs of policy change—this time against market domination—in a number of developing countries. The paper concludes that Polanyi's view of the conditions behind policy change—notably long-term political movements, political struggle and political conflict—needs to be introduced into the analysis of policy change for the promotion of human development and the expansion of capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper in this issue sets out to do a simple task: to empirically evaluate the hypothesis of an inverse relationship between the number of low-skilled migrant workers and their rights using existing cross-national data. In his reply, Martin Ruhs argues that our criticism is unconvincing because our data on numbers do not adequately capture the object of his hypothesis—which refers to the rights of persons admitted with the primary purpose of employment—and because our data on rights also capture other dimensions of the conditions of migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the empirical support behind the idea that there is a trade-off between the size of low-skilled migrant labor populations and the rights and entitlements accorded to them. We first look at the empirical correlation between measures of migrants' rights and the size of both the stock and flow of immigrants in a number of existing databases. Using data on migrants' rights from three recent studies—the Economist Intelligence Unit's Migrant Accessibility Index, the Migration Policy Group and British Council's Migrant Integration Policy Index, and the Human Development Report Office's Migrant Entitlements and Services Index—we fail to find a systematic correlation of any sign. We then turn to regression analysis using ordinary least squares and instrumental variable techniques, and again fail to find evidence in favor of the existence of a correlation. The numerical magnitudes of the correlations suggest a quantitatively small relationship that in several cases is positive rather than negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine high-income country motives for restricting immigration. Abundant evidence suggests that allowing labor to move from low-income to high-income countries would yield substantial gains in global income. Yet, most high-income countries impose strict limits on labor inflows and set their admission policies unilaterally. Making immigration more attractive would require creating mechanisms that limit the negative impacts of labor inflows on natives. Fiscal distortions create an incentive for receiving countries to screen immigrants according to their perceived economic impact. For high-skilled immigrants, screening can be based on educational degrees and professional credentials, which are relatively easy to observe. For low-skilled immigrants, illegal immigration represents an imperfect but increasingly common screening device. For policy-makers in labor-importing nations, the modest benefits freer immigration brings may simply not be worth the political hassle. To induce high-income countries to lower border barriers, they need to get more out of the bargain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration from developing to developed countries has been accompanied by growing resentment of immigrants and refugees. While xenophobic sentiment continues to be strongly entrenched in developed countries, it is increasingly prevalent in developing countries as well. This paper examines the rise of xenophobic sentiment and action in India and South Africa. The response of the state to xenophobic violence in each jurisdiction is considered. In each case, the ability of the state to formulate and implement remedial policies is compromised by its own complicity or denialism in regard to xenophobia. Without a coordinated international, regional and national recognition of the magnitude of the problem and the formulation of a coherent and coordinated response (including much more research on the actual rather than imagined impacts of migration), xenophobia will continue to undermine the rights of migrants and bedevil efforts to maximize the development potential of migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a framework and estimates of enrollment rates per natural and combines them with previous income and child mortality per-natural estimates to produce a Human Development Index by country of birth as opposed to country of residence (per natural). The methodology is applied for 1990 and 2000 to provide estimates of growth rates of this measure over the period. The paper also develops and illustrates a framework for estimating an education place premium, and discusses how it is related to per natural measures. The peoples of the least developed countries stand to gain the most from international migration, but there are potentially significant gains to migration between developing countries as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the decline in income inequality that has taken place over 2002-2007 in most Latin American countries against the background of its steady increase over 1980-2002. The paper then analyzes the factors that could explain this trend reversal. It focuses in particular on favorable external conditions, cyclical factors, improvements in the distribution of educational achievements and the subsequent drop in skill-premium, and changes in macro-economic and social policies introduced in several countries, particularly by a growing number of left-of-center governments that have come to power during the past decade. An econometric test for the years 1990-2007 using a sample of countries covering the majority of the population in the region indicates that, in addition to a favorable business cycle and external conditions, a decline in skill premium and the new policy model of fiscally prudent social-democracy that is emerging this decade in much of Latin America impacted favorably the distribution of income. If this approach will survive the current crisis, much of the recent inequality decline is likely to become permanent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we compare and contrast the view on poverty of lay people, who are affected by the policies, with that of academics and policy-makers. Drawing from fieldwork in a village in Kerala, India, and applying the 'participatory numbers' approach, we devise a 'local method' to identify poor households, based on the villagers' poverty criteria. The local method is then compared with the official methods used by the national and the state governments. Based on the results, we argue for the need to take into account local dimensions of poverty, in addition to objective/universal dimensions, in the design of poverty reduction programmes. Our findings also suggest that effective risk-mitigation strategies must be devised to help poor households cope with shocks and stresses as well as to prevent the vulnerable non-poor from falling into poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German conditions of life approach to the measurement of well-being bears some resemblance to the capability approach (CA) and can be said to anticipate some of its features. In particular, both approaches view well-being as inherently multidimensional and suggest that freedom of choice is an important aspect of well-being. Conditions of life are viewed as elements that together build an opportunity set from which the person can choose only one element. The paper gives a brief, chronological introduction to the conditions of life approach and considers the differences between the versions proposed by the main authors. Parallels are then drawn between the individual versions of the conditions of life approach and the CA. There are several similarities with the CA, but the conditions of life approach takes up some issues that CA more or less neglects. This thus gives rise to the question of how these issues fit into the CA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Sen has written extensively on the social factors of capabilities, the exact nature of these social factors and how they interact to form and influence capabilities is contested and unclear. Consequently, how to coherently integrate social components into capability research remains a concern for those attempting to put the capability approach to practical use. This paper proposes one approach to understanding and integrating the social nature of capabilities. Building upon two recent contributions by Martins, we argue that underpinning Sen's notion of capabilities is an ontological conception of a relational society. In this perspective, an individual's capabilities emerge from the combination and interaction of individual-level capacities and the individual's relative position vis-a-vis social structures that provide reasons and resources for particular behaviors. Crucially, this conception of society is predicated upon a contextual notion of causality that is flexible enough to incorporate both individual and social causes into social analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature dealing with aspiration traps indicates that a life of poverty, deprivation or exclusion may hinder people's development of goals and aspirations that would best serve their interests. Many authors seem to suggest that governments, schools, development agencies or NGOs should develop policies to help individuals avoid aspirations which are too low. However, it is not yet fully clear how these policies need to be designed in order to increase people's welfare. To bridge this gap, this paper compares two different welfare approaches and examines how useful these might be when looking at normative implications of policies regarding aspirations. Drawing on Sen's capability approach, we conclude that policies addressing aspiration traps need to be accompanied with policies that address, more directly, poverty and material hardship. To alleviate poverty, it can be helpful to make people reconsider their aspirations; however, this can complement but not substitute other policies. Moreover, to ensure that policies that address aspirations are not detrimental to welfare, they should not push people towards specific choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whales are complex creatures with diverse capacities for intelligence, playfulness, esthetic expression, and social learning. And yet they have not been granted legal “standing” as beings with rights to this species-specific form of life. For this reason, whales continue to be hunted and killed for both commercial and “scientific” purposes. This paper examines the whaling industry and its impact on whales’ species-specific form of life, and presents a theoretical framework for reconciling the conflicting claims of whales and human scientists. We pay particular attention to the International Whaling Commission’s 1982 moratorium on commercial whaling and the controversial “scientific” exception built into this moratorium, which allows the killing of whales for vaguely defined scientific purposes. We also focus on the 2014 International Court of Justice ruling that Japan’s program of scientific whaling in the Antarctic violated international law; Japan’s decision to continue a revised form of the program despite the ruling; and the resistance that this program has met from marine activists. Finally we argue that any theoretical framework that does justice to whale life must go beyond a utilitarian or rights-based approach, and instead must focus on the distinct capabilities of whales as they live their lives unencumbered by human killing. This approach enables us to protect spheres of choice and characteristic life-activities for whales, while also articulating what a contemporary scientific inquiry into whale life should and should not include. With this framework developed, we present policy recommendations for the International Whaling Commission, anti-whaling activists, and individual nations interested in protecting the rights of whales. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper highlights the important role of action research in triggering and promoting social innovation processes in communities. By conceptualising social innovation as a process involving the development and delivery of new ideas for improving human capabilities and social relations, we argue that well-designed and well-executed action research can provide participants with opportunities to reflect on and develop shared understandings of individual and societal challenges and their possible solutions. Well-designed and well-executed action research also can provide participants with opportunities to critique and test proposed novel ideas, strategies, services and products, thereby determining their effectiveness or ineffectiveness in facilitating the realisation of envisioned social, economic and political goals. Drawing on evidence from empirical research undertaken in the fisheries sector of Ukerewe District in Tanzania, where small-scale fishers cogently argued for and positioned themselves as “constrained wealth creators” instead of poor actors, we illustrate how the provision of adequate spaces for dialogue enables the unveiling of innovative ideas and solutions to individual, sectoral and societal challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorists have critiqued the individualism at the heart of Sen’s capabilities approach, and have advocated the concept of “collective capabilities” to better understand the role of social institutions in influencing human flourishing and freedom. However, the extent to which collective capabilities are complementary to, or in tension with individual ones has been under-researched. This paper explores the relationship between collective and individual capabilities by analysing the social institutions of indigenous peasants living in the Bolivian Altiplano, a relatively collectivist society, considering the roles of three key social institutions: village-level political organizations, social activities, and Evangelical churches. It argues that the strength of institutions to contribute to both individual and collective well-being often depends on their ability to use coercive instruments to override individual freedoms. Therefore, while the data support the claim that individualist approaches to well-being and freedom are inadequate, it also calls for more dynamic understandings of the ways in which social institutions enable and constrain people’s capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues for the family as a unit of analysis within capabilities approaches to human development. Challenging the liberal emphasis on the individual, this article illustrates that individualist approaches to families do not account for the relatively common scenario of families acting as a unit. Building upon Margaret Gilbert’s concept of plural subject agents, the paper suggests a new category of capabilities called joint capabilities that apply to the opportunities afforded to families that function as a unit. In order to build the case for joint capabilities, the author’s experiences and observations of family in the Afro-indigenous Garifuna ancestral villages of Honduras are discussed. More specifically, the capability of rural families to make cassava bread, orerebain the Garifuna language, is explored. While the Garifuna family is explored as an important unit of analysis for understanding capabilities, the family is also examined as a complex context for exploration of power relations and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]