A Capability Approach
to Fight Poverty
Social Rights and Public
Policies in the XXIst Century
Why a Capability Approach for the
European Social Policies?
1. Plurality of principles, plurality of information
basis
2. A definition of equality beyond the contradiction
between neo-liberalism and the « protective »
Welfare State
3. A definition of poverty fitted to Europe
4. Human Rights Politics (not only social policies)
1. Public policies : plurality of
development principles

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Economic orthodoxy : growth as the focus of
economic policies, efficiency as the focus of
economics.
Sen Capability Approach : insistence on plurality
of principles. Efficiency must be compatible with
equality and quality of life.Contingency of this
compatibility.
Connection with empirical information.An
information basis is not value-free. Normative
ponts of view and relevant facts are connected.
Effects of pluralism on the
information basis of public policies
Two sides of an information basis of public policies :
1.
Data collection

Critique of the indicators (GNP for instance) : need for a plurality of
indicators according to different normative points of view
Complexity can be reduced via a homogeneisation (most often :
monetarisation) : generates bias and poverty of information
We can deal with complexity via complex indicators not via
reduction.
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2. Deliberative process at any stage of the policy

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Necessity of qualitative inquiries and speech (cognitive democracy)
Data must be discussed in public debates and choices must be
made (choices are unavoidable, and sometimes tragic choices). No
absolute necessity.
2. Definition of equality
How to go beyond the
protective, fordist equality
without going back to the
liberal formal equality?
Three main features :
Beyond
(neo-)liberal « negative » freedom, the positive freedom
négative freedom : the freedom defined by the absence of obstacle
Positive freedom : the real freedom to live the life anybody wants to live

Beyond a « ressourcist » approach, the capability approach
Beyond
« categories » (worker/non worker, retired/non/retired,
learning/non learning etc.), an individual category.
3. A definition of poverty fitted to
European situation
Poverty : definition in the vocabulary of capabilities. Multiple and
multidimensional dedinitions of poverty. Current definitions of poverty are
often too restrictive to deal with poverty in Europe
-
Relativity of poverty : absolute definitions of poverty (in income or needs)
are not context sensitive : poverty is a relative concept. Different socioeconomic realities in Europe.
-
Activity of poor people : definition of needs, reference to well being, and
responses in assistance : a passive conception of poverty. For Sen well
being is only one half of the story; the other one is agency.
-
Poverty policies are often income-oriented and not good life-oriented.
Questions of quality of life are as important as questions of income.
Examples : food consumption, neighbourhood quality, work-life balance.
How to live a choosen life of projects instead of a material survival?
Three dimensions of capabilities (of
poverty)
Capacity 1
Individual
capacity
Capacity 2
Social capacity
Capacity 3
Entitlements
Psychologie,
économie
classique
Sociology, social
psychology
Capability
Economics (Sen),
institutionnalist
Economics
4. A politics of Human rights

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More important than quantitative targets : rights.
Meaning of a policy.
Beyond the opposition between rights and
policies
Human rights are moral aims of policies. Not
only means and not unconditional legal rights.
Human rights can be (or not) legalised. In order
to promote the human rights, there are and must
be functional equivalents to law.
A permanent evaluation of
human rights
Factors of
conversion
(1) Right as a cognitive
resource
(symbolic frameworks
analysis)
(2) Right as a legal
resource
Complex
context of
people’s
deliberations
and choices
(legal effects analysis)
(4) capabilities
(3) Functionings
(practical
consequences
analysis)
Rights
State
Formal
rights
Liberal
State
Material
rights
Protective
State
Substantiv Enabling
e and
State
procedural
rights
Conception State
of Freedom Interventio
n
Negative
Arbitration
Freedom
Positive
ressourcist
Freedom
Positive
capability
Manager
Supply of
effective
and
procedural