The Capability Approach In Practice
Download The Capability Approach In Practice PDF/ePub or read online books in Mobi eBooks. Click Download or Read Online button to get The Capability Approach In Practice book now. This website allows unlimited access to, at the time of writing, more than 1.5 million titles, including hundreds of thousands of titles in various foreign languages.
Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice
Author: Ingrid Robeyns
language: en
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Release Date: 2017-12-11
How do we evaluate ambiguous concepts such as wellbeing, freedom, and social justice? How do we develop policies that offer everyone the best chance to achieve what they want from life? The capability approach, a theoretical framework pioneered by the philosopher and economist Amartya Sen in the 1980s, has become an increasingly influential way to think about these issues. Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined is both an introduction to the capability approach and a thorough evaluation of the challenges and disputes that have engrossed the scholars who have developed it. Ingrid Robeyns offers her own illuminating and rigorously interdisciplinary interpretation, arguing that by appreciating the distinction between the general capability approach and more specific capability theories or applications we can create a powerful and flexible tool for use in a variety of academic disciplines and fields of policymaking. This book provides an original and comprehensive account that will appeal to scholars of the capability approach, new readers looking for an interdisciplinary introduction, and those interested in theories of justice, human rights, basic needs, and the human development approach.
Why the Capability Approach?
In addressing operational challenges such as poverty or economic development, many researchers and practitioners wish to build upon insights raised by Sen's capability approach and related writings. This paper argues that the comprehensive reach and foundation of the human development and capability approach has a value independent from and additional to their practical outworkings, and yet also that operational specifications are both possible and vital to the further development of the approach. The paper begins with a thumbnail sketch of the core concepts of the capability approach, and supplements these with additional informational and principle requirements that Sen argues to be necessary for a more complete assessment of a state of affairs. It traces some important avenues along which the Human Development Reports and other empirical studies have operationalized certain aspects of Sen's capability approach. The paper then articulates further developments that might be expected, arguing that such developments must also build upon cutting edge research in other fields. It also identifies certain 'value judgments' that are inherent to the capability approach and should not be permanently dismissed by some methodological innovation.
The Capability Approach
This book provides a unique laboratory of ‘capabilities in practice’ in the Asia-Pacific region. It explores the application of the capability approach in development practice and public policy from a multidisciplinary perspective by bringing together scholars and practitioners from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including development studies, health policy, political science, political theory, political economy, architecture, indigenous studies, urban planning and communication technologies. The first part of the book provides a foundational theoretical framework to introduce the empirical applications of the capability theory in different areas of development practice and public policy in the Asia-Pacific region. This part discusses thorny issues in capability theory and raises the potential for capability theory to lead to new ways of thinking about old problems. The second part discusses the application of the capability approach to intransigent problems of marginalisation and the articulation of public policy in New Zealand and Australia. In particular, this part focuses on the potential implications that a capability-based approach can have on the well-being of indigenous peoples in both countries, as well as children, older renters, and urban dwellers in Australia. The third part elucidates how capability theory is being applied by researchers in the Asia-Pacific region to local issues in developing countries such as Samoa, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka. In doing so, it provides original content to the world market in capability theory by focussing on this often-neglected area of scholarship. As a whole, this volume offers a unique and innovative scrutiny of a multifaceted capability-based analysis of development practice and public policy. The scope and breadth of this volume advance the application of the capability approach and offer an indispensable resource to scholars, researchers, policy makers and policy practitioners interested in the theoretical insights and practical implications of the capability approach.