Adding links,adding persons,and adding structures: Using Sen's frameworks

Abstract

This essay is a comment on “Sen on Freedom and Gender Justice,” by Mozaffar Qizilbash, which appeared in Feminist Economics Volume 11, Number 3, November 2005.

Building on the 2003 double special issue of Feminist Economics entitled “Amartya Sen's Work and Ideas,” this paper responds to the review essay by Mozaffar Qizilbash. It identifies and illustrates various possible evaluations of a theoretical system, including that it has acknowledged strengths, unrecognized strengths, remediable gaps or failings, or structural faults. The paper then looks at Sen's system as a theoretical basis for “human development”– in particular in relation to personhood, emotions, and psychological interdependence – and argues that it points in directions required for economic and social analysis, including towards theories of care, but is not itself a sufficient treatment. The paper suggests deepening Sen's system by connecting to other important languages of analysis concerning the structuring of attitudes, emotions, felt well-being, public reasoning, and politics.     

人类福利:概念和概念化

经济学对收入的测算忽视了人类福利的很多内容。虽然这种扭曲正被逐渐关注，但是“人均GNP仍然被作为衡量一国生活水平的最重要的指标”(Partha Dasgupta)。从直觉上，福利被认为是一个概念是合理的，但实际上，令人困惑的是，我们遇到了对福利概念和方法的不同定义，部分反映了不同的背景、目的和注意点。那么，有没有反映福利的复杂性和多样性的统一框架呢?本文表述了一个相对的和综合的框架，建立在Sen等的贡献上，虽然可能并不完美。由于福利概念实际上反映了人的个性和科学的面貌，比较复杂，因此我们会循序渐进地讨论这个框架。为防止个人观点对这个框架的影响，通过回顾大量的相关经验和观点，对其内在的理解逐渐增强了。论文接着使用这个框架考察人类福利的概念化，经由Dasgupta，Sen，Nussbaum，Doyal和Gough以及Alkire的研究。     

The challenges of police-community collaboration: identity manoeuvres and power struggles in a neighbourhood based meeting

The turn to collaborative governance is a key feature of the New Public Governance environment in many Western economies. Within the UK, successive governments have mandated policing organizations to engage in public service partnerships and collaborate with communities. This paper examines one such collaborative arrangement, namely, neighbourhood public meetings. Drawing on a theoretical framing of the dynamic relationship between identities, agency and power, we critically explore how individuals seek to persuade, defend and legitimate their values, beliefs and practices in collaborative situations. The paper provides a nuanced exploration of the challenges of collaboration for both public servants and community members.     

Policy evaluation and meta-evaluation: The case of rural co-operatives

Many presentations of debates about co-operatives and rural development, and some of these debates themselves, are simplistic, or self-asserting, or self-defeating. Evaluation theory has not been given the attention it merits. Positions in meta-evaluation have been un-, or misidentified. Philosophical problems of values at the levels of policy and programme analysis have been neglected or glossed over. This paper addresses itself to some of these issues, in respect of the structuring of the evaluative argument and counter-argument. The case of rural co-operative evaluation is analysed by a method which could also be used for study and appraisal of other public policies for development.     

Do Sectoral Employment Programs Work? New Evidence from New York City's Sector‐Focused Career Centers

While sectoral employment is growing as an approach to providing job opportunities to disadvantaged jobseekers, there is little evidence on the effectiveness of these programs. This study estimates impacts on employment and earnings of three large sectoral employment programs in New York City using a quasi‐experimental design and administrative data on earnings. Participants realized increased employment levels and earnings gains. In addition, participants who received industry‐specific training had greater earnings gains than those who did not.     

A game theory modeling approach for 3G operators

This paper presents the technoeconomic evaluation of a third generation rollout scenario followed by the identification of the market conditions for two operators in a simple game theory model. The considered scenarios reflect the point of view of both dominant operators and new entrants. Technoeconomic results are presented in terms of net present value (NPV), acting like the pay-off function in the proposed theoretical Game Theory model. The business case presented here was studied by using a tool, developed by European Projects IST-25172 TONIC/ECOSYS, a model developed by the EURESCOM P901 project and the Game Theory Tool named Gambit.     

External motivators for donation of money and/or goods

This research sought to identify and group the external motivators that encourage individuals in emerging countries to donate money and/or goods. Therefore, 46 external variables were identified in the literature that motivate an individual to donate. They were grouped by similarity into five external donation motivating factors (environmental and/or political motivation, the cause or circumstances of the donation, the organisation's characteristics, influence from third parties, and personal rewards) that resulted in a proposed donation model. This model was supported by semi‐structured interviews with 22 individuals who donate money and/or goods frequently. The results supported the existence of the five proposed factors in the model and three new variables were identified: a “lack of government support,” “service for the donor” and “donation tuition with low value.”     

DEVELOPMENT AS FREEDOM v - v AND AS WHAT ELSE?

To what extent can Amartya Sen's ideas on freedom, especially his conceptualization of development as freedom, enrich feminist economics? Sen's notion of freedom (as the capability to achieve valued ends) has many attractions and provides important opportunities to analyze gender inequalities. At the same time, Sen's recent emphasis on freedom as the dominant value in judging individual well-being and societal development also contains risks, not least for feminist analysis. We characterize the risks as an underelaboration and overextension of the concept of freedom. Drawing on Sen's earlier work and various feminist theorists, we suggest instead a more emphatically pluralist characterization of capability, well-being, and value, highlighting the distinct and substantive aspects of freedom, as well as of values besides freedom, in the lives of women and men. We illustrate this with reference to women's economic role as caregivers.