1.4: Scope and development of the capability approach

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The previous section provides one type of answer to those who are sceptical about the capability approach, namely by showing what difference it makes in practice. The other strand in answering the sceptic who asks “Why bother?” is to explain in detail how one should understand the capability approach as a conceptual and theoretical frame and how it differs from other theoretical frameworks. After all, a proper understanding of what the capability approach precisely is (and is not) should also help in making clear what difference it can make. While this book is not framed as a reply to the sceptic, implicitly such an argument is made in the chapters to come.

Nevertheless, we should not simply assume that the added value of the capability approach is equal across cases, fields and disciplines. In some areas, the difference between the capability approach and the dominant ways of thinking and evaluating are so significant that we can rightly speak of a ‘counter-theory’. In other debates and discussions, the difference that the capability approach makes to the prevailing modes of analysis has been more limited. Moreover, the development of the capability approach itself is uneven within different disciplines.

In some debates, the capability approach has been so much studied, developed or applied that we should no longer speak of “the potential of the capability approach” or “the promises of the capability approach”, since the work that has been done has made quite clear what difference the capability approach actually makes. The prime example is the literature and debate on the very idea of what development is. The capability approach has made a crucial foundational contribution to the growth of the human development paradigm which is now well-known, especially through the work of the Human Development Reports, which are annually published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In addition, the most well-known of Sen’s books among the wider public is Development as Freedom, which uses the capability approach as a key element of his alternative vision on development (Sen 1999a). In economics, Sabina Alkire, James Foster and their collaborators have made major contributions to the development of poverty measures based on the capability approach, with the development of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (Alkire and Foster 2011; Alkire et al. 2015). In the area of development studies, the capability approach is no longer a new and emerging alternative (as it was twenty to thirty years ago), but rather one of the major established frameworks.⁸

Another area is philosophical thinking about the metric of distributive justice (that is: what we ought to compare between individuals when we make statements about whether certain inequalities between people are unjust). In this literature too, the capability approach has by now established itself as an important alternative.⁹ And while work on development and on justice perhaps stands out, there are now significant bodies of literature on the capability approach in many fields, such as health economics and public health,¹⁰ technology,¹¹ sustainability analysis and environmental policy studies,¹² disability studies,¹³ and the vast amount of literature in educational studies that works with the capability approach.¹⁴

However, in other academic fields it is more disputed to what extent the capability approach has been shown to make a real difference. For example, in ethical theories within the systematic/analytical strand of philosophy, the capability approach hasn’t yet been much developed. Similarly, one can doubt whether the capability approach has contributed to a significant change in mainstream economic thinking. The development of the capability approach within different academic disciplines and discussions thus differs significantly, and the effect the capability approach has had on developing new policies also differs drastically between different policy fields.

In the debates where the capability approach is now well-established, the development of that literature has often raised new questions. For example, in philosophical theories of justice there are now enough convincing arguments that the capability approach makes a difference, but the very possibility of a capability theory of justice has also allowed us to be much more explicit about which questions remain unaddressed in case one wants to make a substantive theory of (distributive) justice (Freeman 2006; Robeyns 2016d). This is a ‘normal’ way in which a paradigm develops. It therefore shouldn’t be surprising that we have just as many questions about the capability approach as we had a few years ago. We may even have more, but they are different to those that were raised a decade or two ago.

Whatever the unevenness in its uptake and development between disciplines, and independently of the new questions that the capability approach has raised, the current state of the literature which I will present in this book confirms that the capability approach is here to stay. It makes a difference in many debates. It is one of those rare theories that strongly connects disciplines and offers a truly interdisciplinary language. And it leads to recommendations on how to organise society and choose policies that are often genuine alternatives for prevailing views.

8 For some examples from the huge body of literature in development economics, development studies and development ethics that builds on the capability approach, see Alkire (2002); Clark (2002, 2005); Conradie (2013); Crocker (2008); Deneulin (2006a, 2006b, 2014); Drydyk (2011, 2013); Gasper (2004); Ibrahim (2011); Klasen (2000); Qizilbash (1996) and Qizilbash and Clark (2005).

9 See e.g. Anderson (1999, 2010); Nussbaum (1988); Nussbaum (2000; 2006b); Richardson (2000); Kaufman (2007); Wolff and De-Shalit (2007); Brighouse and Robeyns (2010); Arneson (2010, 2013); Claassen (2014, 2016); Nielsen and Axelsen (2017). See also section 3.13.

10 E.g. Grewal et al. (2006); Ruger (2006, 2010); Coast et al. (2008); Coast, Smith and Lorgelly (2008); Venkatapuram (2009, 2011, 2013); Bleichrodt and Quiggin (2013); Entwistle and Watt (2013); Mitchell et al. (2016, 2017).

11 E.g. Oosterlaken (2009, 2011, 2015); Zheng (2009); Zheng and Stahl (2011); Kleine (2010, 2011, 2013); Fernández-Baldor et al. (2014).

12 E.g. Anand and Sen (1994, 2000); Robeyns and Van der Veen (2007); Scholtes (2010); Schlosberg and Carruthers (2010); Rauschmayer, Omann and Frühmann (2012); Schlosberg (2012); Crabtree (2013); Voget-Kleschin (2013, 2015); Schultz et al. (2013); Holland (2014).

13 E.g. Nussbaum (2002a); Burchardt (2004); Zaidi and Burchardt (2005); Terzi (2005, 2007, 2008); Wasserman (2005); Mitra (2006); Qizilbash (2011); Harnacke (2013); Robeyns (2016c).

14 E.g. Terzi (2008); Walker and Unterhalter (2007); Lozano et al. (2012); Boni and Walker (2013); Apsan Frediani, Boni and Gasper (2014); Unterhalter (2003a, b, 2009, 2013); Hart (2009, 2012); Peppin Vaughan (2011, 2016); Peppin Vaughan and Walker (2012); Saito (2003); Nussbaum (2002b, 2006a); Walker (2003, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012a, 2012b), Loots and Walker (2015, 2016); Mutanga and Walker (2015); Wilson-Strydom and Walker (2015).