"Hold on. Really? Oh, by the way, where is Bhutan?" - I still remember my answer. In my defense, I was 18 years old.
This small yet important piece of information changed the way I perceived development. A) It is not just about economic growth. B) Developing countries are coming up with their own, unique ways of defining and measuring development. I started searching for other examples of "by the Third World, for the Third World" notions of development and stumbled upon Amartya Sen.
Born in Bangladesh, Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen witnessed poverty, illiteracy, and famine in his country at a very young age. In his life's work, Development As Freedom, he draws upon various disciplines and personal experiences, and defines development as the pursuit and attainment of a variety of freedoms and removal of factors that reduce people's freedoms, including poverty, oppressive governments, and lack of opportunities. He lists five interconnected, complementary, and substantive freedoms, namely, political freedoms, economic freedoms, social, freedoms, transparency, and security. After reading Development as Freedom, I formed my own understanding of these freedoms and figured that they are relevant to many developed and developing countries at both micro and macro levels of analysis:
1) Political freedoms encompass citizens’ right to vote, participate in public decision making and debates, and choose from a variety of ideologies, religions, and leaders. Many citizens, especially women and minorities, in Pakistan
2) Economic freedoms involve the freedom to invest in any business of your choice without the fear of unhealthy competition, unstable political climate, and lack of law, order, and capital. Again, Pakistan
3) Social freedoms encompass the right to participate in the society as a full-fledged citizen, entitled to and receiving health care, education, food, housing, and sanitation. Many women in Pakistan are denied their rightful statuses as citizens of Pakistan
4) Transparency deals with the issue of trust (or lack of it). Pakistanis would rather take matters into their own hands than trust the police or the judicial system. We have a an overarching system of law, but a parallel system of panchayats or village/tribal justice also exist. Most people do not pay taxes because they do not trust the government with their money. Also, since there is no concept of taking legal action if need be, most people are skeptical of social interactions.
5) Last but not the least, provision of security is a major source of freedom for people, which is again lacking in Pakistan
I see a synthesis of some major development ideas and concepts in these five freedoms. Instead of adhering to a single school of thought such as the dependency school, Sen’s thesis comes as a hybrid of various ideas and "-isms". I have set each of Sen's freedoms in the context of Pakistan
To me, very few development theorists have seen the predicament of the people they write about. Even fewer have emerged from the developing countries to accurately represent their countries and their people and come up with indigenous solutions. Instead of treating all developing countries as a homogeneous whole or worse, as a disease that needs to be treated, Sen’s conception of development as freedom and as a combination of the social, political and economic aspects, can be adjusted and applied to all developing countries. Sen’s conception is normative and is rooted in not only economics and empirical data but also in ethics, sociology, gender, and philosophy. Hence, it finds a common ground among all developing nations and classes: enhancement of substantive freedoms is something all human beings desire at some level. It is more relevant to the realities of the developing world than any manufactured, "one-size-fits-all" solution delivered by the First World.
Of course, it is your 'political freedom' to contest everything that I have said above. All opinions and criticisms are welcomed. The views and opinions expressed in this blog entry are mine and may or not be supported by Sen or his book, Development As Freedom. For more information on Sen's Development As Freedom, please check out these links:
I am pleased to see a posting that discusses the importance of Sen’s work, Development as Freedom, as it is a highly influential piece on human freedoms as the path to development. For anyone interested in further readings on progressive theoretical approaches, Development as Freedom offers a stark contrast to prevailing Western approaches such modernization theory and neoliberalism. In relation to our class readings, I find the introduction of Sen’s work from Rudaba to be a good entry point for discussing alternative approaches to development as well as feminist perspectives of development. As with prevailing/mainstream approaches to development theory, feminist theories seem to follow a similar trajectory from a focus of economic growth to a holistic, rights-based approach.
ReplyDeleteAs Rudaba noted, central to Sen’s capabilities approach is human freedoms, agency, and individual capacity to access basic rights, thus the ability to exercise control over one’s own life. There seem to be some strong correlations to a theory that surfaced in this week’s readings, ‘empowerment’. Empowerment, though increasingly variable across personal and institutional definitions, operates on similar foundations. For example, social transformation that endorses the formation of tolerant sociopolitical atmospheres, which promote individual control over one’s freedoms, is fundamental to both philosophies. Both the rights-based and empowerment approaches are attractive to me in the sense that they move beyond simple models that fail to comprehensively address the complex problems of development. However, it seems the next step for those of us hoping to make a difference in development is finding successful methods for translating these innovative approaches into development practice.