Week 2: Prosperity and development (online lecture) Flashcards
What critique exists on the neoliberal approach to development?
- Development only consists of material well-being, consumption and economic growth
How has the concept of prosperity broadened since the 1970s?
includes: social development (well-being of all members of sociey) and human security
> more of a human centered approach with a focus on the individual
What is the core question in Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaums capabilities approach ?
What can people actually do and be?
emphasies freedom to pursue valued outcomes
How does the capabilities approach view people
- As active agents, that may need support from the state.
- Recognises social and personal differences and its limitation ins **exercising agency. **
What is the ultimate goal according to Sen and Nussbaums capabilities approach?
The freedom of choice and action
What contitutes freedom in the capabilities approach?
- Goes beyond legal or political freedom
- empowerment, real opportunites, and reasoned choices.
What is an example illustrating the capabilities approach?
Choice: chosing to cycle to visit a sick mother.
**Resource: ** bicycle
**conversion factors: **
*personal: *ability and motivation
physical and economic facilities:
social opportunities: It needs to be socially accepted for women to go cycling
Environment: Weather should not be prohibitive.
Personal, social and environmental conversion factors
What are the main ideas about capablities of Amartya Sen?
- Freedom of choice also involves freedom of inner limitations and social pressures
- capabilities can not be decided top down (should be decided by the people)
What is Martha Nussbaum’s contribution to the capabilities approach?
- Developed ten core capabilities essential for **human dignity **and quality of life.
1: Life: being able to live life
**2: Bodily health: **
**3: Bodily Integrity: **Being able to move freely from one place to place, to be secure against violent, sexual and domestic assault.
**4: Senses imagination and thought: Being able to use all the sense, imagine think and reason, including access to literacy and basic mathermatical and scientific traing
Emotions: Being able to have attachment to things and person outside to oneself.
!Practical reason:** being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection
!Affiliation: Being able to live with and toward others to recognise and show concern for other humans
…
! make human apparently
What critiques are there of Nussbaum’s capabilities list?
- Criticized for being paternalistic (talking down on humans and telling them what makes life valuable)
- Does not fully account for the subjective nature of well-being.
What influences have the capabilities approach and related ideas had globally?
* Influenced the Human Development Index (HDI)
* Contributed to the Multidimensional Poverty Measure used by the World Bank (they criticised the income based approach solely to measure poverty) + education, water, santitation)
* They found out that if you look at the Multidimensional poverty measure, many countries perform much better then when you just look at the income (non monetary factors)
What is the multi dimensional poverty INDEX?
- A measure of extreme poverty
- 3 domains Health, education, living standards
- Cut offs: e.g: If one is below a certain nutrition level, they are identified to be deprived in that domain. If cut-off in all 3: mutlidimensionally poor.
- Unlike GDP: its calculated at household level to then –> calculate mean deprivation per country, compared across countries, calculate the distribution per country
–> doesn’t include income
Which three metrics does the Sarkozy report suggest ?
1) Subjective wellbeing
2) Capabilities approach
3) Fair allocations approach
What are the recurring themes that the report recognises across different wellbeing metrics and literature?
- Health
- Leisure
- Personal security
- Education
- Work
- Economic security
- Environment
- Political Voice, governance
- Social connections
