An Introduction To The Human Development And Capability Approach

First Published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Since the publication of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sens flagship book "Development as Freedom," development has been redefined in terms of human capability and opportunity. This approach has come to underpin the United Nations Development Programs influential Human Development Reports, and has had considerable significance in both academic and policy circles.

If a country’s Gross Domestic Product increases each year, but so does the percentage of its people deprived of basic education, health care, and other opportunities, is that country really making progress? If we rely on conventional economic indicators, can we ever grasp how the world’s billions of individuals are really managing? In this powerful critique, Martha Nussbaum argues that our dominant theories of development have given us policies that ignore our most basic human needs for dignity and self-respect. For the past twenty-five years, Nussbaum has been working on an alternate model to assess human development: the Capabilities Approach. She and her colleagues begin with the simplest of questions: What is each person actually able to do and to be? What real opportunities are available to them? The Capabilities Approach to human progress has until now been expounded only in specialized works. Creating Capabilities, however, affords anyone interested in issues of human development a wonderfully lucid account of the structure and practical implications of an alternate model. It demonstrates a path to justice for both humans and nonhumans, weighs its relevance against other philosophical stances, and reveals the value of its universal guidelines even as it acknowledges cultural difference. In our era of unjustifiable inequity, Nussbaum shows how—by attending to the narratives of individuals and grasping the daily impact of policy—we can enable people everywhere to live full and creative lives.

Martha Nussbaum proposes a kind of feminism that is genuinely international.

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.

This is the first book dedicated exclusively to the question of the relationships between sustainability and the capability approach. It is rather astonishing that the issue of sustainability first posed by the Brundtland commission in 1987 has gained so little attention from capability scholars despite the approach’s focus on human well-being. This book starts with a seminal contribution by Sen on the "Ends and Means of Sustainability" delivered as a keynote in 2000. All contributions to the book focus on the difficulties that arise from a freedom-oriented view of sustainability: they argue for taking note of the impact of human life on nature, they question the meaning of intergenerational justice when measured in the currency of "substantive freedoms" (capabilities), they raise the issue of collective responsibility and suggest ways to model and operationalize the capability approach to sustainable development. The book presents the state of the art concerning "The capability approach and sustainability" while admitting that it is only a first contribution to a growing field that deserves our attention: Defining what is to be sustained and asking how it can be sustained. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities.

The capability approach developed by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has become an important new paradigm in thinking about development. However, despite its theoretical and philosophical attractiveness, it has been less easy to measure or to translate into policy. This volume addresses these issues in the context of poverty and justice. Part I offers a set of conceptual essays that debate the strength of the often misunderstood individual focus of the capability approach. Part II investigates the techniques by which we can measure and compare capabilities, and how we can integrate them into poverty comparisons and policy advice. Finally, Part III looks at how we can apply the capability approach to different regions and contexts. Written by a team of international scholars, The Capability Approach is a valuable resource for researchers and graduate students concerned with the debate over the value of the capability approach and its potential applications.

Youth, Gender and the Capabilities Approach to Development investigates to what extent young people have access to fair opportunities, the factors influencing their aspirations, and how able they are to pursue these aspirations and to carry out their life plans. The book positions itself in the intersection between capabilities, youth and gender, in recognition of the fact that without gender equality, capabilities cannot be universal and development strategies are likely to fail to achieve their full objectives. Within the framework of the human development and capabilities approach, Youth, Gender and the Capabilities Approach to Development focuses on examples in the areas of education, political spaces, and social practices that confront inequality and injustice head on, by seeking to advance young people’s capabilities and their agency to make valuable life plans. The book focuses how youth policies and issues can be approached globally from a capabilities-friendly perspective; arguing for the promotion of freedoms and opportunities both in educational and political spheres, with the aim of developing a more just world. With a range of studies from multiple and diverse national contexts, including Russia, Spain, South Africa, Tanzania, Morocco, Turkey, Syria, Colombia, India and Argentina, this important multidisciplinary collection will be of interest to researchers within youth studies, gender studies and development studies, as well as to policy makers and NGOs.