by Chris Bertram on March 6, 2014
The UK’s Institute for Public Policy Research has just published a new report on immigration, “A fair deal on migration for the UK”. Given the recent toxicity of the British debate on migration, with politicians competing to pander to the xenophobic UKIP vote, it is in some ways refreshing to read a set of policy proposals that would be an improvement on the status quo. Having said that, the status quo is in big trouble, with the Coalition government having failed to reach its net migration target (the numbers are actually going the wrong way) and with open warfare breaking out between ministers. Given the current climate, however, this probably marks the limit of what is acceptable to the Labour Party front bench (who have notably failed to oppose the current Immigration Bill), so it represents a marker of sorts, albeit that it is a strange kind of thing to be masquerading as a progressive approach.
The report is structured around the need to respond to the current “crude restrictionist” approach to immigration and positions itself by rejecting other views which it characterizes as “failed responses” (pp. 9-10). Leaving aside the “super pragmatist” approach which is actually remarkably close to their own, these are the “super-rationalist” and the “migrants rights activist” approaches, the first of which consists of telling the public clearly what the current social scientific research says and the second sticking up for a vulnerable group on grounds of justice. Since both of these groups have strong grounds for doing what they are doing — telling the truth and fighting injustice, respectively — it seems rather tendentious and self-serving to represent them as being simply failed attempts to do what the IPPR is trying to do, namely, influence senior politicians.
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by Ingrid Robeyns on March 6, 2014
Assuming we now have a basic understanding of the notions of ‘functioning’ and ‘capability’, we can ask what the capability approach is. The best way to answer this question is by first taking a helicopter view, and having a not-too-detailed look at the entire terrain we will be covering. Perhaps an outsider would expect that this is an easy question, but alas it is not. In my view, it is poorly analyzed in the literature, sometimes misleadingly discussed, and also the source of many confusions and possible flawed arguments [arguments for this view will be provided in future posts, not now!].
Here’s how Amartya Sen described the CA in a paper devoted to clarifying the approach:
“[The capability approach] is an intellectual discipline that gives a central role to the evaluation of a person’s achievements and freedoms in terms of his or her actual ability to do the different things a person has reason to value doing or being.” (Sen 2009: 16)
Sen clearly opts for a general description the CA, that doesn’t tie it to one particular scholarly discipline or debate. I agree with the general trust of Sen’s description. Yet let’s try to get this a bit more specific.
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by Ingrid Robeyns on March 6, 2014
There are two notions in the CA that are key – the notions of ‘functioning’ and ‘capability’. Since most of the discussions on the CA are about human beings, I will restrict the discussion now to human functionings and capabilities, and devote a separate post later to nonhuman capabilities. So unless specified otherwise, all references in what follows [in this and future posts] will be to human capabilities. [click to continue…]
by Ingrid Robeyns on March 6, 2014
So, finally the previously announced capability project will start. Recall that the plan is to have a series of post, from now for at least a few weeks but possibly a few months, discussing the capability approach at a slow pace, and starting from scratch, hence assuming no background knowledge. Before I upload the first post, it may be good to be clear about why I am doing this, and what you can expect.
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