Capabilities,well‐being and human development: A survey

Economists have moved away from thinking of development in terms of growth of per capita GNP. The most influential alternative conception of development ‐ due to Amartya Sen ‐ involves judging the quality of life in terms of capabilities and viewing development as a ‘capability expansion’. This article argues that Sen's approach is an inadequate account of development. It is further argued that other versions of the approach ‐ involving the work of Nussbaum and Frankfurt ‐ also fail. The most promising foundation for an account of human development derives from James Griffin's recent writings on well‐being.     

Sustainable Development: Concepts and Rankings

One way of thinking about development - endorsed by the UNDP and the Brundtland Commission - involves improvements in the quality of life which are equitable. This conception invokes two values - equity and well-being - which can conflict. The potential conflict suggests that countries which are doing well in terms of well-being may perform badly on environmental concerns. Desai argued to the contrary that there are positive linkages between human development and environmental protection. He found tentative support for this claim in rankings of developing countries in terms of the HDI and indices of environmental exploitation. This result is not robust when similar exercises are carried out using a different set of countries and closely related indices.     

A ‘whole system’ approach to the choice of electoral rules in democratizing countries:: Senegal in comparative perspective

Authoritarian incumbents in democratizing countries choose electoral rules to retain power while accommodating opposition demands for increased participation and representation. We clarify the political logic of this institutional choice and its consequences in Senegal by employing a ‘whole system’ approach that emphasizes the intricate but often hidden relationships between elections and the rules governing them at multiple levels — presidential, legislative and local. Success at one level depends on performance at all levels. In the short run, multiple-level electoral reforms preserve the ruling party in power while expanding opportunities for, but also fragmenting, the opposition. In the long run, they encourage splits within the ruling party and help the opposition develop increased ability to coalesce around a single opposition candidate, resulting in the defeat of the authoritarian incumbent and a democratic transfer of power through competitive elections.     

Ethnopolitical demography and democracy in sub-Saharan Africa

Ethnic fragmentation is largely presumed to be bad for democracy. However, many African countries belie this claim, as democracy has recently sprouted in several of its multiethnic states. We argue that African countries that have demographic patterns where the largest ethnopolitical group is at least a near-majority and is simultaneously divided into nested subgroups produce Africa's most democratic multiethnic societies. This large-divided-group pattern, which has gone largely unnoticed by previous scholars, facilitates transitions to democracy from authoritarian rule. The large group's size foments the broad-based multiethnic social agitation needed to pose a genuine threat to a ruling autocrat, while its internal divisions reassure minorities that they will not suffer permanent exclusion via ethnic dominance under an eventual democracy. We support our claim with cross-national quantitative evidence on ethnic fragmentation and regime type.     

Core Poverty,Vagueness and Adaptation: A New Methodology and Some Results for South Africa

Amartya Sen has argued that poverty is a vague concept. This paper develops a methodology for applying a framework which uses a ‘supervaluationist’ account of vagueness in the context of poverty. Within this framework people or households are termed ‘core poor’ if there is no ambiguity about whether or not they are poor. The framework is applied using data from a survey on the ‘Essentials of Life’ conducted in three locations in South Africa in 2001. The methodology relates the data to the framework using an insight of Max Black's. While the application of the methodology is, in its very nature, somewhat arbitrary, we illustrate how it can lead to an estimate of core poverty which differs from standard measures of the ‘ultra-poor’ and ‘most deprived’. Finally, the possibility that respondents may have adapted to their living conditions is investigated. A first look at the data does not provide conclusive evidence of such adaptation.