Download 3. The focus on equality of capabilities goes along with a critique of

Ad Hoc Session
Inequality, the Capability Approach and Sociology
Organizers
Jean-Michel Bonvin
Jean De Munck
Bénédicte Zimmermann
University of Applied Sciences
Western Switzerland, EESP,
Chemin des Abeilles 14,
CH - 1010 Lausanne
[email protected]
Université catholique de
Louvain, CriDIS
Place des doyens 1 L2.01.06
B - 1348 Louvain-La-Neuve
[email protected]
Centre Georg Simmel
Ecole des hautes études en
sciences sociales (EHESS)
96, boulevard Raspail
F – 75006 PARIS
Email : [email protected]
Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum’s Capability Approach is nowadays a well-known
analytical framework in non-classical economics and development studies. It gave birth to an
“epistemic community” challenging, at the global level, indicators of well-being and growth.
Economists, epidemiologists, philosophers, gender studies scholars use the concept of capability in
order to describe, explain and assess very different social realities in plural contexts.
This session aims to discuss the conditions for the use of the concept of capability in
sociology. Three issues must be dealt with in order to address this question:
1. Is the Capability Approach related to methodological individualism or are we to consider
that this approach is better described as an “ethical individualism” (borrowing Ingrid Robeyns’
term), compatible with different epistemological points of view? Capabilities grasp the individual
person through the lens of opportunities, preferences, skills and entitlements. They convey a version
of individual reflexivity that includes collective and social dimensions (namely individual freedom
as a social responsibility).
2. Capabilities encompass a double dimension: a descriptive and a normative one. How to
deal with these two dimensions? As a descriptive framework, capabilities focus the inquiry on
scopes of opportunities, resources, entitlements and the achievements (functionings: beings and
doings) they allow. They furthermore address people’s preferences and the conversion operators
required to transform available resources into effective achievements. As a normative framework,
the capability approach invites sociologists to set up an evaluative knowledge of social situations
(poverty, gender relationships, education, work, health issues…), making out of equal freedom of
choice and achievement a yardstick of assessment. Capabilities cannot be reduced to “skills” or
“competences”, they require positive freedom of achievement. They furthermore imply a pluralist
understanding of deliberation, making out of people’s agency a central issue.
3. The focus on equality of capabilities goes along with a critique of alternative versions of
equality: equality of utilities, equality of resources or equality of formal rights. According to a
Capability Approach, the freedom of achievement is not only a matter of resource distribution. It is
as well a matter of conversion of resources into valuable achievements. In so far, in order to assess
unequalities, it invites social scientists to consider the conditions for the conversion of resources
into achievements in changing contexts. Breaking with Rawls’ legacy, Sen is arguing for a “realist”
theory of justice open to empirical findings. Sociology can contribute, in its own way, to this
interdisciplinary dialogue.
Revisiting equality/inequalities, individual/collective agency by the means of the capability
concept may open up new policy frameworks, in old Welfare States as well as in “emergent”
economies. It will be the aim of the session to show the potential richness of a Capability-oriented
framework via the discussion of sociological empirical studies addressing inequalities in different
spheres of life. Addressing public action as aimed to the promotion of human rights and democratic
participation will set a transversal line of discussion. David Harvey described the Capability
Approach as a variation of neo-liberalism. The session seeks to discuss whether another reading
open to sociology is possible: the Capability Approach beyond economic liberalism.
Program
Democracy and participation in the capability approach. Paving the way toward a sociological
enquiry
Jean-Michel Bonvin, University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland
The capability approach emphasizes the tight connection between democratization and social
justice, thus providing an essential clue in the “agency vs. structure” debate. In Development as
Freedom (1999), Sen insists on the constructive value of democracy that, ideally, should allow all
people to effectively take part in collective decision-making processes, i.e. to express their
viewpoints, wishes, expectations, etc. but also the information and knowledge they have about the
issue under scrutiny, and to make them count. In other words, democratization should permit all
people (agency) to be part of the construction of the social fabric (structure), thus contributing to a
more reflexive relationship between agency and structure. The paper focuses on the potential of
such a perspective for developing a sociology of democracy; it both discusses its normative
foundations, and suggests analytical tools for its implementation in the empirical enquiry.
At normative level, Sen’s fascination for democracy has raised sharp criticisms: existing forms of
democracy do not match Sen’s ideal at all; only active deliberators are allowed to enjoy the full
benefits of democracy (cf. Cohen’s objection of athleticism), etc. In The Idea of Justice (2009), Sen
strives to answer these criticisms: he develops a notion of democracy as public reasoning,
emphasizes the relevance of issues such as the informational role of democracy, the inescapable
plurality of principles and the needed focus on tolerant values. The paper assesses to what extent
these developments take up the normative challenges raised by the criticisms. At empirical level, the
concept of “capability for voice” as a basis for the sociological use of the capability approach is
presented, and the factors facilitating (or impeding) its effective implementation are identified, thus
providing an analytical grid for the sociological enquiry of democracy and participation.
Skill and the capability approach at work
Jane Bryson, School of Management, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
This paper briefly surveys how the capability approach originally conceived by Sen has been
adapted and applied by different disciplinary perspectives for a range of purposes. Then, using the
arena of the workplace and the issue of skill, the paper explores how a sociological viewpoint might
contribute to the operationalisation of the capability approach.
Skill, in and for the workplace, is a significant plank in the economic growth strategies of many
governments. Political economy views tend to dominate skill debates focusing on quantifying and
comparing the outcomes of different policy regimes. Sociology, along with economics and political
science, is a key contributor to political economy analyses. The paper outlines how using the
capability approach to analyse high skills policy prescriptions highlights flaws in these visions.
Importantly it is argued that this holistic view facilitated by the capability approach may better
accommodate overlapping policy agendas and thus overcome issues of policy fragmentation. The
paper then argues that sociology can augment and improve such discussions with a return to its core
concerns for social processes and norm construction. Flowing from this it proposes that illuminating
conversion factors may be the most important contribution of sociology to the practical and
theoretical development of the capability approach. The paper then draws on workplace research to
illustrate the importance of understanding and addressing conversion factors in order to enable
opportunity freedoms (capabilities) for individuals, groups, communities and societies. Conclusions
are drawn on the questions that sociology asks, the research methods that sociology employs, and
the potential contribution to the development of the capability approach as an analytical tool and as
a process of engagement with others.
The Capability Approach and the Agency / Structure Discussion in Sociology
How to understand efforts to combat social exclusion?
Bjorn Hvinden, Nova Norvegian Social Research
This paper argues that the Capability Approach of Amartya Sen and Marta Nussbaum can enrich
sociology by linking human agency and structure. Finding ways to capture the linkages between
agency and structure (or alternatively; between micro and macro) remains a never ending story in
sociology, despite efforts by some of the sharpest minds in the discipline. Proposed ways of
capturing the linkages often turn out to be biased towards agency or structure, leaving the contours
of the other vague and indeterminate. Alternatively, the proposed solutions are in practice blending
or fusing structure and agency into one. The Capability Approach is frequently perceived as being
individualistic, i.e. only concerned about the individual’s effective freedom to live the life he or she
has reasons to value and desiring to live. Sen do, however, emphasise that people’s possibilities to
convert given opportunities or resources into desired functionings do not lonely depend on
individual characteristics (e.g. having a physical or mental impairment) but also on the structures
(e.g. of a physical, social or attitudinal nature) that people face or within which they find
themselves. The paper clarifies how the Capability Approach can contribute to a better
understanding of factors hampering or facilitating human agency – both individual and collective –
and the processes reproducing or transforming the structures people face. As case the paper
discusses the efforts of persons with disabilities to combat exclusion and achieve full participation
in society on an equal basis with others.
In the path of respect: the Capabilities Approach and women’s empowerment in Latin
America
Diana Ibarra, Center for Advance Social Research, Mexico
When we face gender inequalities it is easy to be dragged upon the urgency, the neediness and the
heinousness of living stories that show us there’s much to be done. Specifically regarding policies,
on many occasions social programs and plans are hastily and ambiguously implemented to counter
these inequalities, achieving superficial and non-persistent results. The main challenge we have to
achieve a world in equality is a social restructuring where inequalities are not perceived as means
for the subsistence of dominant classes but as a burden for development. In the case of women, this
restructuring has to go hand in hand with a cultural change that sees women as an essential element
for development (Nussbaum), not only as a key point for the well-being of her family but as an
economic, political and cultural agent. However, this cultural change should include women in their
own context. The Capabilities Approach reminds us that if we want to achieve an effective human
development we have to focus on people, in what they can really be or do (Sen). It is in this sense
that I propose, in order to accomplish social restructuring, that the Capabilities Approach may
effectively endorse three basic aspects for the promotion of full female identities: the repercussion
of frequency in order to determine how often does a woman verify the recognition of her social
influence, the importance of intensity in those moments of decision in which social recognition
presents itself and the associations that have an impact on the social imaginary from linking
women’s performance with their feminine identity. The caretaking of these three key aspects for
recognition and respect can lead us to a true agency for women in Latin America.
Capabilities, Critique and Sociology
Bénédicte Zimmermann, Georg Simmel Center, EHESS, Paris
This paper discusses the implications of the double dimension of capability, a normative and
descriptive concept, for sociology and its relationship to critique. Using a capability approach
means endorsing a critical stance. But the resulting critical standpoint is as much a matter of
concept, as of theoretical and methodological implementation. Therefore different ways of bringing
together capabilities, critique and social sciences are at hand.
The conceptualization of capabilities along freedom and power of achievement offers a common
normative background. Beyond equal distribution of resources, it makes out of equal freedom to
choose and achieve, i.e. to convert resources into valuable realizations, a yardstick for assessing
social inequalities.
Once settled this common background, conversion factors bring into play the second dimension of
capabilities, namely the descriptive one, which is diversely taken up. Economists have worked a lot
on measures and descriptions of capabilities. Sociologists should contribute to this debate with their
own means. The paper argues that the sociological design of inquiry may offer an as important
source for critical social sciences. Along the lines opened by J. Dewey’s logic of inquiry, its shows
how the capability concept may fuel a critical pragmatism based on the confrontation of different
levels of analysis: institutional semantics (the public policy level), which designs how things should
be, its implementation (organizational level) and the outcomes it actually produces in people’s lives
(the biographical level).
Finally, the paper gives an insight into the analytical and critical perspectives opened up by a
capability approach focusing on the interactions between institutions, organizations, and individuals
regarding issues such as freedom, responsibility, empowerment and employability, core-concepts in
the reforms of European Welfare-states.