Economy and Society Volume 35 Number 3 August 2006: 423
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The seductive quality of central human capabilities: sociological insights into Nussbaum and Sen’s disagreement Shelley Feldman and Paul Gellert

Abstract In an era when relativism and questions of modernity have unsettled the premises and goals of the development project, there is a seductive quality to the universalism of Nussbaum’s capabilities approach. We query Nussbaum’s philosophically based contribution and raise epistemological concerns about her commitment to a list of central human capabilities. We argue that attention to state forms and practices, as well as unequal power relations, must be incorporated into analyses of capability and development. This leads us to support Sen’s advocacy of deliberative democracy as a productive space for collectivities and individuals to strive for social justice and equity. Such a focus is necessarily attentive to multiple forms of inequality and domination and is best understood by engaging historically specific analyses of state formations. Keywords: democratic deliberation; capability; universalism; historical sociology; Nussbaum; Sen.

Introduction In an era when relativism and questions of modernity have unsettled the premises and goals of the development project, and when socialism and its Shelley Feldman, Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University, 334 Warren Hall, Ithaca, NY 14850-7801, USA. E-mail: [email protected] Copyright # 2006 Taylor & Francis ISSN 0308-5147 print/1469-5766 online DOI: 10.1080/03085140600845008

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utopian alternatives have been deemed a failure, there is a seductive quality to the universalism of Martha Nussbaum’s central human capabilities approach.1 What is seductive about her project lies in its cross-national claims for social justice and equity and its commitment to the social good. In drawing attention to these claims, Nussbaum helps to alter the kinds of questions that theorists and practitioners of development ought to address, including raising critical questions about gender equity and the importance of a woman’s experience in formulating her commitment to central human capabilities. In defining development based in human capabilities Nussbaum contributes to efforts to bolster a new set of development goals. Her version of capabilities, including its philosophical justification, has stimulated critical debate among economists, philosophers and other humanists, but it has garnered less attention from other social scientists. Yet, by rejecting the dominant assumptions of economic man and his preferences and replacing them with a universal vision of capabilities, the issues both she and Amartya Sen raise ought to be of interest to theorists and practitioners of development more broadly. Moreover, Sen’s notion of deliberative democracy provides a suggestive vehicle for imagining the development possibilities offered by a capability approach. Sen’s capability approach has long centred on capability as ‘what people are actually able to do and to be’ (Sen 1980, 1999a; Nussbaum and Sen 1993). As he writes, development should be evaluated in terms of ‘the expansion of the ‘‘capabilities’’ of people to lead the kind of lives they value
and have reason to value’ (1999a: 18). In Development as Freedom , Sen argues that we should expand freedom and remove various types of unfreedom ‘both as the primary end and as the principal means of development’ (1999a: xii).2 Sen’s attention to questions of (un)freedom entails a concern with unequal power relations, domination and subordination (Pettit 2001). While some have found his exploration of these themes insufficiently elaborated (Hill 2003), we find his ambiguity suggestive for understanding the goals and measures of development. Importantly, their individual and collaborative works have led to interesting cross-disciplinary exchanges on economic inequalities, gender, human rights and the practices of development (e.g. Pettit 2001; Evans 2002; Agarwal et al . 2003) and have been instrumental in shifting the development paradigm from a focus on growth to one on human development (Pressman and Summerfield 2002).3 While some of their interlocutors address questions of measurement or implementation, particularly aimed at poverty reduction (Qizilbash 1997; Gasper 2000; Alkire 2002), we focus on the socio-historical contexts and uneven power relations shaping the achievement of capability, each of which are critical for appreciating Sen’s notion of deliberative democracy. To the extent that debates between Sen and Nussbaum can be attributed partially to disciplinary difference (Robeyns 2003), our focus on global inequality and state-society relations complements the concerns of philosophers and economists. This does not imply that the latter have ignored global inequality (see, e.g., Nussbaum 2004; Sen 2001). Rather, we suggest that sociological theorizing offers different insights into similar questions.

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While Nussbaum and Sen share a commitment to the intellectual superiority and practical use of the idea of capability, they differ as to its justification and implementation (Nussbaum and Sen 1993; Sen 1999a; Nussbaum 2000a; Gasper 2000; Alkire 2002). Nussbaum (2003: 36) appreciates Sen’s view that capabilities provide the best basis for thinking about ‘a moral and humanly rich set of goals for development’. Notably, however, she (2000a, 2003) disagrees with Sen’s refusal to endorse her formulation of a specific list of central human capabilities (CHCs) and her strong universalist stance departs from Sen’s universalism, which is tempered by an emphasis on interactive processes of public reasoning (see Sen 2001, 2004b; also Robeyns 2005a,b).4 This difference is the source of Nussbaum’s use of the plural capabilities and Sen’s stress on the singular, abstract idea of capability (see Robeyns 2005b; Gasper 2002). Drawing on insights from historical sociology and the sociology of development, our contribution is to question the universal applicability of Nussbaum’s promotion of a list of CHCs. We do so, first, by emphasizing the role of historical contingency in accounting for uneven development, unequal power relations among states and between states, transnational institutions, class, and other bases of state power. Such an emphasis highlights the salience of diverse state forms as the backdrop that challenges universalist claims and, perhaps as importantly, rejects Nussbaum’s (2000a) argument that justification and implementation are two distinct and sequential moments in the promotion of capabilities. While Sen (2004a) does not speak directly to this point, his reticence to construct a list unsettles support for a ‘grand’ universalism that, as Skerker (2004: 400) observes, has ‘an assumed set of values and an associated style of reasoning’. Second, we view Sen’s advocacy of deliberative democracy as necessary but not sufficient for a full theory of justice, attentive to gender, class and other forms of inequality.5 By deliberative democracy we suggest that legitimate governance depends on reasoned discussion and exchange among all social groups that include but are not limited to the ‘high politics’ of decision-making offered by a national and international elite (Young 2001). Importantly, as well, we suggest that arenas of high politics must themselves be open to debate and contestation where relations of inequality and difference are part of ongoing processes of adjudication and challenge. We thus concur with Nancy Fraser’s (2001, 2003: 13) suggestive critique of recognition and her support for a ‘redistributive paradigm . . . rooted in the economic structure of society’ as a basis for claims making. Emphasizing exploitation, marginalization and deprivation, Fraser offers a ‘status model’ of redistribution embodied in a framework of participatory parity that is grounded in ‘rights’ and moral rather than ethical claims for justice, a model that rearticulates patterns of representation, interpretation and communication by ‘rescuing recognition from ethics and plac[ing] it within the logic of morality’. We push her ‘dual perspective’ and its emphasis on embedded relations to argue for the constitutive character of social relations as suggested by Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer’s (1985) insightful analyses of state formation. From this

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perspective we lend support to Hill’s observation that Sen fails to ‘locate the origins of rights and freedoms in social relations of dominance and subordination [including a lack of attention to] the benefits to, or incentives for, one group to constrain the freedoms of another’ (2003: 119
20). We maintain optimism about the potential emancipatory power of a deliberative democratic process, or what Fraser refers to as a dialogically applied norm of participatory parity as ‘the principal idiom of public reason’ (2003: 43). The paper is divided into three substantive sections. In the first section, we draw connections between debates within development theory and the particular issues raised by both Sen’s capability and Nussbaum’s CHC approach. We draw insight from critical political economy that addresses the structural limitations for equity of global capitalism and recognizes inter- and intra-state inequalities and the role of transnational institutions in shaping development trajectories. Development theory, we argue, provides a context for examining the historical specificity of state forms in shaping development outcomes, a theme we engage in our second substantive section. Here we aim to contribute to discussions of ‘sensitivity to context’ (Robeyns 2003) or ‘context-dependent’ choices (Pettit 2001) and appreciate Robeyns’ (2005: 201) conclusion that we need to ‘pay due attention to the discursive and deliberative aspects of our philosophical or academic projects’. We see our intervention in the spirit of this sentiment: to make ‘the world a better place to live’. Drawing on Robeyns’ comparison between Nussbaum and Sen we note, too, that, for Sen, ‘a list of capabilities is context dependent’ by which he means both a geographical site to which it applies and the sort of evaluation that is done. But, in contrast to both Robeyns and Sen, we view context specificity as constitutive of processes of political conflict and consensus-building at all levels. Our third section brings together debates about development and state formation to re-evaluate the important differences between Sen’s and Nussbaum’s views of capability, especially the ethical processes involved in the promotion and justification of a particular list (Nussbaum 2003; Sen 2004a; see also Gasper and van Staveren 2003; Crocker 1995; Robeyns 2005b). We argue that Sen’s (2004a) criticism of efforts to formulate a list better recognizes the insights of critical development theory and more fully acknowledges the wide diversity of state forms. By critiquing the normative and processual6 aspects of Nussbaum’s approach and then elaborating Sen’s views on deliberative democracy, we appreciate the latter’s promise for realizing capability.

The seductiveness of development Rather than review the voluminous literature on development theory, we seek to situate Sen and Nussbaum in the context of on-going sociological debates. Since the 1970s, historians and social scientists of development have identified

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the biases and limitations of modernization theories (Frank 1969; Wallerstein 1991) and the crisis of structural and Marxist theories that attribute the failure of development to the systemic crises of capitalism (Booth 1985). As Arrighi (1990) and others (Cardoso 1979; Evans 1979; Wallerstein 1974) noted more than a decade ago, unequal core-periphery relations in the production of global inequality make ‘catch-up’ impossible, a thesis which challenges the universal applicability of a capabilities approach. In contrast to this pessimism, both Sen and Nussbaum believe in the promise of institutional interventions to realize more equitable social relations and to challenge neo-liberal efforts to decrease state capacity and developmentalism by promoting market-based initiatives. They acknowledge the potential for economic and social progress (within capitalism) and focus on the challenges of building state capacity to enable transformation in the periphery (Evans et al . 1985; Evans 1995; Migdal 1988). But, as Menon (2002: 157) reminds us, Nussbaum is more naı¨ve about the ‘benign’ character of the state and the value of relying on constitutions for reform. We would add that she is also naı¨ve about the politics of development policy, the interests it serves and the bureaucratic constraints, including its technocratic, anti-political character (Ferguson 1994), that shape its implementation. In brief, we place Sen and Nussbaum among those who recognize the failure of development as a social project but nonetheless who retain a belief in its seductive promise (Rist 1997). But, whereas Nussbaum promotes a universal vision of development that is ‘distinctly Aristotelian’ (Okin 2003: 311), Sen’s universalism is Smithian in its persistent call for public discussion and consideration of moral positions from ‘a certain distance’ (2004b: 351), and his promotion of freedom emphasizes processes of decision-making or achieving capability. His analysis of international and domestic inequality, especially gender inequality, also supports a structural understanding of the production of such inequalities. While the space for democratic deliberation requires greater specification than Sen provides, we view his insight on this point as a crucial step forward (see, e.g., Corbridge 2002). However, because we view development practices as heterogeneous and state forms as changing over time, we find it necessary to draw attention to the complex relationship between development as a social project and state formation.

Development theory and state formations State practices are evident in both Nussbaum and Sen’s recognition of ‘the need to have the state promote functioning capabilities, not just functioning prospects. The aspiration, quite rightly, is to get rid of dependency, not just destitution’ (Pettit 2001: 19). In this section, we review their understanding of state capacities and projects to create capability and contrast it with a historical understanding of the state. This allows for an appreciation of the kinds of interventions and policy reform that Nussbaum advocates even as we remain

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critical of the assumptions grounding her universalist position. We also engage Sen who suggests the importance of diverse interests in his understanding of public reasoning. Borrowing from Abrams (1988) we view the state, first, not as a thing but as relations of rule, which embeds domination and power into its meaning. The state system, in contrast, refers to government and the role that bureaucrats and policy-makers play in the accomplishment of rule (Abrams 1988; Corrigan and Sayer 1985) and as gatekeepers of rights and entitlements. Noteworthy is that different state forms
developmental, welfare or neoliberal states, as well as authoritarian or democratic ones
encompass distinctive relations between states and citizens and, we would argue, differentially recognize citizenship rights and entitlements. Finally, states refer to social collectivities (nations) that are linked to other states and comprise the nation-state system. To illustrate the effect of historical context on decision-making, we consider differences among three state forms
developmental, welfare and neo-liberal
to offer a sociological reading of Nussbaum’s contributions. Neo-Weberian accounts of developmental states show that state institutions have particular histories that critically shape processes of rapid industrialization and economic reorganization. As part of a universal discourse of development (read: capitalist transformation), acceptance of industrialization policies relying on state-led import substitution and state ownership of key sectors, as well as subsidies to the agrarian sector, created the conditions for the advance of some capabilities. The implementation of such policies, however, privileged particular groups and interests at the expense of others. Despite their surprising achievements, the institutions of developmental states were selective, not universal, in the choice of where, when and in what ways to intervene. As Pempel (1999: 144) observes, many development state theorists ‘treat the national bureaucracy as totally depoliticized, socially disembodied, and in rational pursuit of a self-evident national interest’, when developmental states, in fact, serve primarily to benefit the interests of capitalists and state bureaucrats. Such interests, we argue, reflect inequalities among nation-states in a global system with roots in relations of (neo)colonialism and dependence that continue to influence decisions about resource allocations and legitimate claims for them. This suggests that there can be no a priori assumptions of an environment conducive to achieving capabilities. Rather, state ‘choices’, like individual struggles over them, are often made at the pleasure of others or, what Pettit, in another context, refers to as making ‘favour-dependent decisions’ (2001: 6). Seen in this light, Nussbaum’s reliance on building a universal consensus around capabilities omits reference to social struggles that are likely to be involved in its formulation and institutionalization. While she recognizes that states are selective in implementing CHCs and that there are political and economic obstacles to achieving certain capabilities, she nonetheless recommends that (generalized) people call on their governments to honour their constitutions, if they have them. In this formulation, Nussbaum elides the role

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of social struggles in securing rights and resource access. She also is conceptually imprecise in her invocations of the state variously as the nation state (sic ), the government, both central and regional, or the nation, societies and countries (see, inter alia , Nussbaum 2000a: 101
5, 2003). We suggest that each of these terms refers to distinct domains of action and responsibility corresponding to different institutional practices, which are crucial for both interpreting and realizing social justice. Similarly, welfare states, which perhaps comes closer to providing for the capability(ies) that Sen and Nussbaum advocate, did not emerge in an abstract world in which people decided to ‘assign responsibilities’ to institutions that promoted social welfare programmes (Nussbaum 2004: 15). Rather, welfare states were historically produced in Western Europe and North America in the early decades of the twentieth century through struggle and negotiation by working-class and women’s movements. Orloff (1993) argues, for example, that the emergence of modern social provisioning responded to three social transformations: capitalist industrialization (creating wage dependence and the need for income protection); cultural and ideological shifts (leading to new moral obligations justifying state action); and the expansion of state capacity. Only the second of these corresponds to Nussbaum’s reliance on moral suasion. Resulting class and gender realignments legitimated state intervention for social welfare, creating a real redistribution of resources, albeit much more so in advanced than in peripheral economies. The ‘Golden Age of Keynesianism’, as Hans Singer (1997) has aptly designated it, most likely held the greatest promise for the realization of a vision of capability(ies). Over time, welfare and developmental state initiatives have been dismantled by neo-liberal ideology and practice that began with the end of the gold standard and the intervention of Reagan-Thatcher policies in the early 1980s (Hall 1988). These policies accompanied the transnationalization of private sectors, facilitated by the structural adjustment policies of the International Monetary Fund, and shifts in the World Bank and other multi- and bi-lateral lending. Such structural transformations altered institutional practices and recentred the framework of development away from the nation-state to the global economy. As IMF structural adjustment policies (SAPs) were applied from Latin America, Africa and parts of South Asia in the 1970s and 1980s to Eastern Europe and East and Southeast Asia in the 1990s, the macro-economic assumptions and conditionalities applied had negative impacts on poverty alleviation and the broader environment supporting capabilities among citizenries (see, e.g., Okin 2003). Stiglitz (2002; see also Abrahamsen 2000: 134
5) laments how these policies have been forced on leaders who otherwise might have made different choices, whereas Babb’s (2001) history of Mexican economies reveals that SAPs were not only imposed but also part of changes in the legitimate interests of policy-makers. As Okin (2003) observes, such neo-liberal policies challenge a state’s autonomy and alter its capacity to implement the kinds of social policies in health, education and welfare that minimally would be required to realize the

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CHCs that Nussbaum and, if differently, Sen advocate. Historically, then, one can interpret Nussbaum and Sen’s commitment to a capability approach as a critique of and response to the consequences of neo-liberal policies: increasing inequality within states and greater disparities between them. As Nussbaum acknowledges, ‘in an era of rapid economic globalization, the capabilities approach is urgently needed to give moral substance and moral constraints to processes that are occurring all around us’ (2000a: 105). While she emphasizes the contemporary moment as one ‘without sufficient moral reflection’ (2000a: 105), we would stress the dramatic increase in structural inequality. Unlike the period of welfarism where institutions were legitimate sites of reform and responded to struggles for greater equality, neo-liberal states seem to tolerate higher levels of inequality and ironically intervene in and delegitimize struggles over citizenship and rights. Whether we are concerned with the absence of moral reflection or the tolerance of high levels of inequality, including those which increase morbidity, starvation and lack of education, challenging such policies requires an explicit understanding of all three aspects of our definition of the state
as idea, regulator and national collectivity. Such explicit attention is useful if we seek to assess and promote both normative positions on values and the strategic salience of particular interventions. In light of these issues, we find that Sen and Nussbaum both provide insufficient understanding about how as well as why state bureaucrats and policy-makers make choices about provisioning, negotiate class cleavages and interests, and generate and engage resources sufficient to realize ‘their’ goals of social justice (if they have them).7 Interestingly, Sen’s chapter in Development as Freedom titled ‘Markets, states, and social opportunity’, contains few elaborations of the state even as comparisons of China and India suggest the effects of different political systems. Also, his (2003) analysis of the global importance of democracy recognizes cross-national variations but does not explain their sources. In Women and Human Development, Nussbaum recognizes the state as an active shaper of family, religion, and other institutions: ‘All human associations are shaped by laws and institutions, which either favor or disfavor them, and which structure them in various ways’ (2000a: 263). She identifies the state’s role as regulator and also specifies the multiple ways in which states either fail to enforce laws protecting women or allow certain forms of abuse against women to persist unregulated. She also sees the state as an arena of opportunity, a position that is consonant with her call for constitutional reform, and she can be credited with appreciating the importance of governments as central to understanding her commitment to the CHC approach. However, she ‘neither justifies this choice of duty-bearer nor explains why she refrains from arguing for a more global responsibility’ (Okin 2003: 295). Nussbaum’s reliance on state regulation omits the sociological questions of why, under what circumstances and in whose interests states regulate. How, for example, do bureaucratic bottlenecks and petty corruption shape constitutions

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and their uneven implementation? How are specific interests negotiated between states and their citizens? And, if states are unresponsive, are there other spaces for citizens to make claims and/or other institutions that have a duty to respond to demands for recognition and accountability? A failure to address these questions leads to an underestimation of class, as distinct from but in concert with male, interests in processes of institutional reform. It also results in the inability to explain why different states or different state actors regulate (or not) and enforce (or not) particular laws affecting gender inequality and injustice. In other words, while Nussbaum recognizes certain state actions as being either normatively good or bad, she does not frame such normative assessments in terms of context-dependent decisions that state actors make. Such questions, we argue, require attention if we wish to understand how processes of consensus-building over capabilities unfold or to anticipate how constitutional or other reforms might create positive outcomes. Another concern is Nussbaum’s limited specification of the positioning of states within a global context, including attention to culture, markets and economy. This is particularly important in a period when neo-liberal reforms are being adopted by various states in response to IMF conditionalities and as part of global and bilateral free trade agreements. Such contextual issues shape the processes that would enable the realization of her vision and guide political action in the realization CHCs. Said differently, to understand the processes by which the goals of CHCs are to be realized requires attention to relations of implementation and the production of their legitimacy as well as assessments of the alternatives offered to improve the lives of women and the poor. Thus, teasing apart these processes through interdisciplinary exchange queries the details of her approach while respecting her important philosophical contribution.

Nussbaum and Sen’s disagreement: normative and processual aspects The production of legitimacy is at the core of a seemingly minor disagreement between Sen and Nussbaum over the formulation of a specific list of capabilities. Sen (2004a), in a recent interview, offered a brief explanation for his unwillingness to endorse Nussbaum’s list, thereby enabling us to identify both normative and processual aspects to their disagreement. In what follows, we examine Nussbaum’s universalism and explore the benefits of Sen’s ‘weak universalist’ position (Cronin and De Greiff 2002; Robeyns 2005b). We concur with Sen (2004b) that in deliberative democratic processes the role of ‘open public reasoning’ is fundamental and propose that his sustained refusal to specify a list of capabilities can be partially explained by reference to his sensitivity to the weak position of peripheral states in the global economy. Before turning our attention to Sen we review Nussbaum’s strong universalist stance.

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Epistemic concerns about Nussbaum’s list of CHCs Nussbaum8 (2000a, 2003) outlines a list of central norms of justice and fundamental capabilities which consists of ten interrelated components: life; bodily health; bodily integrity; senses, imagination and thought; emotions; practical reason; (inter-human) affiliation; (living with) other species; play; and control over one’s environment. Like Sen she (2000a, 2003) recognizes that equality depends on capabilities rather than specific functionings or actual beings and doings but differs from him in arguing that ‘capabilities can help us to construct a normative conception of social justice . . . only if we specify a definitive list of capabilities as the most important ones to protect’ (Nussbaum 2003: 33). Sen (2002a: 39) is ‘attracted’ by the sort of ‘grand universalism’ that Nussbaum’s approach represents and joins her in rejecting a ‘national particularism’ that would not permit ‘outsiders’ to make moral claims against injustices in other places (Nussbaum and Sen 1989; Sen 2002a, 2004a, 2004b). But he is mindful of the need for an approach that aids in understanding people’s beings and doings. There has been much discussion of the specifics of the list, its values and content (see Robeyns 2003; Alkire 2002). Gasper and van Steveren (2003: 151), for instance, believe that the list does not serve as a ‘universal blueprint’ and recognize that Nussbaum has ‘worked sensitivity to cultural difference’ into her approach, thereby supporting her claim that the list is ‘open-ended and subject to ongoing revision and rethinking’. Nussbaum insists that the items on the list ought to be specified in a somewhat abstract and general way, precisely in order to ‘leave room for the activities of specifying and deliberating by citizens and their legislatures and courts’ (2003: 42). We, too, recognize Nussbaum’s openness to the list’s modification, but our argument concerns its justification and, like Quillen (2001: 93 fn. 9), ‘does not depend on scrutinizing its precise content’. Nussbaum (2003: 40) observes a distinction between differences about ‘what ought to be on the list’ and about ‘the more general project of using a list to define a minimal conception of social justice’. We are concerned with the latter
the epistemic position of a list and the processes and conditions of its development . By retaining grand universalist premises, we argue, Nussbaum generalizes across nations in ways that fail to recognize important differences among them, and inadequately appreciates the historically produced relations of inequality that shape development. This elision of the structural relations of global inequality leads her to focus on inequality among individuals as the basis for her list. She adds that those who lack any of the interconnected capabilities are to be assuaged by a paternalist provisioning of care ‘for the suffering of those who do not live dignified lives’ (Pressman and Summerfield 2002: 433). Nussbaum is aware of her controversial approach and defends her normative, universalist stance against three arguments: ‘from culture . . . from the good of diversity . . . and from paternalism’ (2000a: 41
59).9 Her argument against culture (and cultural relativism) recognizes that ideas are not space- and

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context-specific in origin. As she notes, Marxism and human rights have both spread ‘from the West’. And, as she and Sen (1989) observed long ago, there is a pluralism of views within India
not one ‘real’ India, especially not one defined by particular elite points of view. With respect to the argument from diversity, she plainly observes that it is pertinent to ask which values are worth preserving. How does she understand relativism’s challenge to universalism? While concurring that ideas have multiple origins, we are troubled by the philosophical bias towards context-free ideas and concur with Lawson10 that: values, experiences, objectives, and common-sense interpretations of dominant groups may be merely that there is nothing especially natural or necessarily universal about them. All claims . . . are made from particular positions by interested parties. No person or group can reasonably profess a neutral, detached, unbiased perspective. (Lawson 1999: 25)

For Nussbaum, however, these concerns are not the most relevant. Instead, she builds her case for universalism on reasonable individuals choosing the best ideas over local ideas, since there is no reason to assume that local ideas are ‘the best ideas we can find’ (2000a: 49). In a more complex earlier argument on internal criticism in India, Nussbaum and Sen (1989); see also Sen 1999a: ch. 10) noted the difficulty in defining the limits of internal criticisms since crosscultural references may be(come) part of the local. At the same time, they argued, borrowing from Aristotle, for ‘a reflective dialectical examination that will take the people’s views seriously and then move them toward the recognition and clarification of what actually are, for them, the most central values’ (1989: 313).11 In her recent writings, however, Nussbaum’s conversations with people in India, as she acknowledges, do not challenge her argument against relativism (Nussbaum 2000a: 78, fn. 82). As Okin sceptically observes, Nussbaum’s ‘highly intellectualized conception of a fully human life and some of the capacities central to living it seem to derive far more from an Aristotelian ideal than from any deep or broad familiarity with the lives of women in the lessdeveloped world’ (2003: 296). Moreover, Nussbaum’s view is ‘ancillary . . . [to] the intuitive conception of truly human functioning’ (2000a: 76) which remains its primary justification. Here we concur with Quillen’s (2001) questioning of Nussbaum’s liberal humanism for its inattention to the discursive, material and historical contexts that shape ideas of human-ness in different contexts. We do not question Nussbaum’s respect for those involved in consensus-building in India or for the Indian Constitution, but instead use the example to position her argument epistemically. Nussbaum’s commitment to a universal list is aimed to guarantee ‘a minimal conception of social justice’ (2003: 40). As an abstract goal we too support this commitment, but we challenge the means by which it is likely to be realized. For us, the realization of social justice depends on taking into account

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structural relations of inequality between states and among citizens and social classes. Qizilbash nicely captures the overall tenor of recent debates as ‘between ‘‘excessive incompleteness’’ (Nussbaum’s complaint about Sen) and ‘‘excessive specification’’ (Sen’s complaint about Nussbaum)’ (2002: 471). As Sen (2004a: 79) argues, insistence on one ‘final list of capabilities that matter’ could be ‘very dogmatic’. Robeyns (2003) takes the middle ground by accepting, with Nussbaum, the need for a list, but rejecting, with Sen (2004a), the endorsement of a definitive list and also the a priori assertion of the moral ground of the list. Robeyns (2003: 70
1) proposes that any list must be the product of social negotiation and bases her call for a procedural approach on five criteria: explicit formulation, methodological justification, sensitivity to context, different levels of generality and exhaustion and non-reduction. These criteria generate lists whose content might be ‘reconcilable’ but whose importance lies in the process by which the lists are constituted (Robeyns 2003: 76). Robeyns captures much of our argument on the disagreement between Nussbaum and Sen since she too emphasizes the importance of process as a means to secure political legitimacy. We add to her contribution the salience of power relations to examine their divergent assumptions about states, democratic practice and sovereignty. To be sure, Nussbaum recognizes (interpersonal) inequality as a relation of power as she and Sen make clear in their discussions of the intra-household bargaining position of women and of gender relations generally (Sen 1990). She also recognizes the salience of power in the construction of a list as suggested in her observation that the ‘enterprise is fraught with peril, both intellectual and political’ (Nussbaum 2000a: 35) and poses, in her defence of universalism, the question: ‘Isn’t all this philosophizing, then, simply one more exercise in colonial or class domination?’ Nussbaum rejects this charge. Our affirmative answer to this rhetorical question emerges from our interpretation of Nussbaum’s third defence of universalism against the charge of paternalism. Nussbaum speaks directly to the tensions that arise around paternalism by what she refers to as respect for difference. For her, any challenge to tolerance as a universal value requires protection from those who would deny it (Nussbaum 2000a: 160). Put this way, Nussbaum is against paternalism when it sets limits on individual behaviours that do not harm others (e.g. helmet laws), but when it concerns justice or, as she puts it, when ‘people [individuals] are being harmed’, then she views intervention as acceptable. As Deneulin notes, ‘Nussbaum’s approach, as liberal as it claims to be, appears rather paternalistic and dictatorial about the good’ (2002: 511). We agree with Deneulin as it relates to both intra-state inequalities (class, gender, ethnicity) and inter-state inequalities. Quillen also notes the limits posed by liberal humanism because it ‘decouples an analysis of the structures
social, economic, and discursive
that in any given historical context largely determine how these capabilities are actualized, structures that often enable some [capabilities] at the cost of disabling others’ (2001: 98).

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There are added complications when we shift our attention from paternalism in individual decision-making to inter-state forms of decisionmaking. Two important issues emerge when values are negotiated in building consensus across place. One is that in different historical contexts seemingly similar values may embody real differences in meanings (see Koggel’s (2003) challenge to the universal meaning of women’s work). A second concerns the question of power. Because we ought not to presume that pluralism assumes equality among groups, the assertion that consensus (even an overlapping one) has been achieved is troublesome since one cannot be sure whether the consensus is due to the persuasiveness of an argument or to relations of dominance/subordination. Consensus also may be achieved when there are conditionalities shaping some actors’ willing agreement. The spread and acceptance of structural adjustment reforms among Western-trained, developing-nation economists is a case in point (Babb 2001). While it may not fall within Nussbaum’s purview to explore the conditions by which technocrats come to share a normative view of rights, values and entitlements, we believe such issues to be central to an understanding of the universal spread of ideas
in this case, ideas that we might agree heighten international, class and especially gender inequalities
especially since they have implications for the practices that we associate with state intervention. It is exceedingly difficult to determine which of these reasons accounts for an ‘overlapping consensus’, but, unfortunately, Nussbaum does not find these institutional and context-specific concerns significant enough to unsettle the moral ground of her universalist stance. Instead she claims that we should, and in fact are obligated by a commitment to social justice ‘to hold out to all nations a set of norms that we believe [is] justified by a good philosophical argument’ (2003: 16). She justifies this claim by asserting that central norms should not be ‘left up for grabs’ (ibid.: 20) and that we have the right to tell nations that they should provide certain fundamental constitutional entitlements or rights. Nussbaum proposes intervention, or what we consider a form of paternalism, to include the right of some nations, i.e. those that have adopted her list, to engage in its cross-national promotion. As she writes, ‘nations that have adopted something like . . . [my] account of human capabilities as the basis for a constitution, [should] commend this norm strongly to other nations’ (2000a: 104). Like Quillen (2001: 95), we find the question of where the appropriate line is drawn on (non)intervention troublesome.12 The implied notion that without a universal list one is leaving norms ‘up for grabs’ underestimates the importance of the politics of adjudication around the formulation of a specific list. As Sen counters, ‘pure theory cannot ‘‘freeze’’ a list of capabilities for all societies for all time to come, irrespective of what the citizens come to understand and value’ (2004a: 78). Sen also views intervention as necessary and justified, but for him the state intervenes not to advocate on behalf of a universal list, but on behalf of those in need.13 As he notes, inequality may require forms of state intervention to mediate differences and provide

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‘minimally adequate income’ (1999a).14 This call for state intervention assumes that opportunities for functioning crucially depend on creating the conditions to ensure true equality of opportunity. As Sen notes, ‘determining whether a person is deprived’ is important to whether they can ‘call for assistance from others or from the state’ (1993: 36). And, as he continues, ‘the state may have reason to offer a person adequate opportunities to overcome hunger [or other needs] but not to insist that he must take up that offer’. While we acknowledge that such relations also may be paternalist, for us the analytic distinction between inter-class (and gender) paternalism and inter-state intervention is crucial.

Democratic deliberation The differences between Sen’s and Nussbaum’s views of deliberation and democratic process have implications for the justification of a list. For Sen, decisions on the content of a list are pragmatic and depend on the ‘purpose of the exercise’ and its formation does not directly concern historical specificity or political economy. He (2004a) recently outlined his views by distinguishing among evaluation and assessment of human rights and human development in order to specify ‘the relevance of many specific capabilities’ and to argue against a ‘fixed and final’ list. We suggest that Sen’s decision not to offer a fixed list may partially reside in his recognition of both the specific exercise that is of concern and the conditions of the lives of everyday citizens. We take his latter referent as an allusion to the salience of historical specificity in the practice of democratic deliberation and to implicit recognition of the political economy of dependency and global inequality. Our aim is to highlight our preference for the historical specificity and democratic promise of his allusion, while nudging Sen to attend more closely to intra- and international inequalities and to activist critiques of deliberative democracy. As Young persuasively argues, given the ‘history and sedimentation of unjust structural inequality’, there is the need to imagine deliberative democracy as engaging ‘all interests and social segments, reasonably expressing opinions and criticizing others [in] processes of engaged and responsible communication [that includes] street demonstrations and sit-ins, musical works and cartoons, as much as parliamentary speeches and letters to the editor’ (2001: 682, 688). These diverse forms of engagement lend support to Sen’s belief that ‘[t]here is no reason why vested interests must win if open arguments are permitted and promoted’ (1999a: 123). For Sen, however, these aspects of democratic practice are grounded in a liberal pluralism where all voices can be heard. While Young and Sen address the how of democratic practice and signal the complex and perhaps oppositional interests that may characterize such practices, they are less helpful about the strategies, tactics and focuses available in struggles for rights and justice. Fraser’s (1995, 2003, 2005) ongoing

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work on the relationship between redistribution (of resources) and recognition (of difference) adds this important focus to understanding deliberative democracy. Claims for social justice are increasingly forged in the combined idiom of redistribution and recognition, she argues, reasoning that when recognition is understood as a moral rather than ethical claim there is no need to choose between them or to posit a causal relation privileging either structural or cultural determinacy. On the importance of procedural aspects of democratic practice, we concur with Robeyns particularly her argument that, ‘even if the actual list drawn up by someone using Sen’s capability approach is the same as Nussbaum’s, the underlying assumptions of what this list is, and what it is supposed to do, remain different. The theoretical status of the lists will remain distinct, even if both lists contain exactly the same elements’ (2003: 69). Interpreted thus, we argue that Sen’s reluctance introduces the radical promise, if inadequate elaboration, of the practice of democratic deliberation in ways that can include the voices of the disadvantaged, but only if relations of rule and power, and the collective ‘isms’ of race, class, gender, ethnicity and sexuality help to unsettle the liberal framing of his model of individual action, achievement and choice. Thus, there is the continued need for attention to historical formations and the structural inequalities that attend to different state formations and relations of opposition. For Sen, democracy and freedom are two sides of the same coin. Good (i.e. democratic) decision-making is based on public discussions, including the airing of ideas and disagreements over plans and policies where public discussions serve as instruments for achieving utilitarian aims while offering a true expression of choice. Thus the promise of democratic deliberation, or what Sen refers to as critical public discussion, is a key aspect of a liberal democratic state: ‘critical public discussion is an inescapably important requirement of good public policy since the appropriate role and reach of markets [and discussion over other rights and resources] cannot be predetermined on the basis of some grand, general formula
or some allencompassing attitude’ (1999a: 123
4). He (1999a: 148) also considers political freedoms to be ‘directly’ important for the realization of capabilities, ‘instrumental’ in making political claims and ‘constructive’ for the conceptualization of needs. As he explains: The exercise of basic political rights makes it more likely not only that there would be a policy response to economic needs, but also that the conceptualization
including comprehension
of ‘economic needs’ itself may require the exercise of such rights . . . [O]pen discussion, debate, criticism, and dissent, are central to the processes of generating informed and reflected choices. These processes are crucial to the formation of values and priorities, and we cannot, in general, take preferences as given independently of public discussion. (Sen 1999a: 153)

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This leads him to proffer that ‘participation in political decisions and social choice . . . have to be understood as constitutive parts of the ends of development in themselves’ (1999a: 291). Sen (1999a: 78) further insists that democratic deliberation and ‘evaluative exercises’ provide us with a way to avoid some of the limitations of what Nussbaum views as paternalism. In calling for political engagement, for example, he acknowledges diverse needs and interests, or biases, which attend to processes of change and intimates a commitment to processes of negotiation among varied intra-state interests (Sen 1999a: 123; see also Anderson’s (2003) focus on the position and voice of women). As he convincingly argues, an interactive process ‘differs both (i) from trying to justify the ethics of human rights in terms of shared
and already established
universal values . . . and (ii) from abdicating any claim of adherence to universal values . . . in favor of a particular political conception that is suitable to the contemporary world’ (Sen 2004b: 321). Sen is not naı¨ve about the substantive bases of democracy and recognizes that it is insufficient to limit democracy to electoral politics, since even: elections can be deeply defective if they occur without the different sides getting an adequate opportunity to present their respective cases, or without the electorate enjoying the freedom to obtain news and to consider the views of the competing protagonists. Democracy is a demanding system, and not just a mechanical condition (like majority rule) taken in isolation. (Sen 1999b: 10)

Democracy for Sen, as Anderson (2003: 249) reminds us, is a collective engagement in practical reason. But, these insights notwithstanding, we find Sen to be more suggestive than analytic in his attention to the different kinds of states and institutional formations that constitute social life. That is, while Sen (1999a: 146
59) addresses different kinds of states in his query, ‘Does authoritarianism really work so well?’ he does so in order to assess outcomes rather than to elaborate conditions necessary for enabling democratic deliberation or political debate.15 Yet, recognizing such particularities is signalled by his conclusion: ‘we cannot . . . take preferences as given independently of public discussion, that is, irrespective of whether open debates and interchanges are permitted or not’ (Sen 1999a: 153). For us, what remains important is to recognize that different political regimes constitute and offer alternatives for realizing gender equity or freedom from hunger and, moreover, that strategies and tactical initiatives crucially depend on analyses of the distinction between moral and ethical framings (Fraser 2003). Sen also rejects the idea of ‘collective capabilities’ (Evans 2002) as merely ‘socially dependent individual capabilities’ (Sen 2002: 85). For example, while he (1999a: 297) acknowledges the importance of institutions and the need for state intervention in the case of externalities, he does not offer an analysis of ‘the class character of the state [and] its engendered nature’ (Hill 2003: 119;

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Crocker forthcoming: 4) nor does he adequately explore other salient inequalities. Yet Anderson (2003) values Sen’s attention to difference and to positionality as supporting the view that democracy depends on informational institutions to facilitate discussion and practical engagement. She also contends that women’s (and other disadvantaged and underrepresented groups’) participation in political institutions is crucial to enhance their representation and voice. While we concede that Sen ‘integrates rights and freedoms into his analysis’, we agree with Hill that ‘he does not locate the origins of rights and freedoms in social relations of dominance and subordination, and does not discuss the benefits to, and incentives for one group to constrain the freedom of another’ (2003: 119
20). Despite these criticisms, Sen suggests the means to achieve social justice in his discussion of democracy: ‘the achievement of social justice depends not only on institutional forms (including democratic rules and regulations), but also on effective practice’ (1999a: 159). And, as he acknowledges, ‘[i]n a democracy, people tend to get what they demand, and more crucially, do not typically get what they do not demand’ (1999a: 156). He goes on to note that participatory democracy is not easy as the search for consensus ‘can be extremely messy, and many technocrats are sufficiently disgusted by its messiness to pine for some wonderful formula.’ This messiness anticipates the different needs and interests that are negotiated within states and ‘implicit in the demand for equality’ (Sen 1980: 218). In distinguishing among types of equality and in emphasizing ‘discussion and exchange’ based on political rights, Sen also signals the existence of different relations between states and their citizens. As Evans (2001: 624) suggests, the plurality of these relations recognizes different kinds of liberalism that embody diverse notions of autonomy and representativeness. In combination with Sen’s typology of forms of equality and assumptions about representative democracy, such recognition can facilitate an analysis (and practice) that not only differentiates among types of liberal and non-liberal states, but also accounts for different regimes of justice, relations of power including the specificities of gender inequalities, processes of negotiation, responsibilities for distribution and, perhaps most importantly, questions of accountability. Nussbaum (2000a: 105) too grounds her argument in liberal democracy in her defence of universal values. She outlines five aspects of democratic politics: first, recognition of multiple realizability or the ways in which individuals realize capabilities; second, commitment to individual citizen choice where capability is defined as the goal; third, a foundation in notions of civil liberties and individual reason; fourth, commitment to political liberalism, by which she means using the list to generate an overlapping consensus through crosschecking; and, fifth, constraints on implementation, which, for the most part, are ceded to the internal politics of the nation (Nussbaum 2000a: 105). These presumptions encompass her understanding of democratic deliberation and her separation of justification from implementation.

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Nussbaum’s approach to the dilemma posed by a world of inequality amid what she believes to be an ever-increasing overlapping consensus on capabilities as a normative political platform is to rely on the rule of law in constitutional democracies. In cases where unsatisfactory constitutions exist, she is an advocate of constitutional reform. We view her commitment to constitutional reform as a presumption of a liberal democratic state that is real in form, i.e. has regular elections, as well as in content, i.e. can be held accountable for ensuring constitutional guarantees and protections. There has been an evolution in Nussbaum’s view (2000a: 103
5) from constitutionalism as the answer to implementation to merely ‘one way of using’ the list (2003: fn. 6). The latter formulation is closer to, though still distinct from, our position of considering a list to be one possible strategic move in a quest for social justice and gender equity in a diverse and complex world.16 But it would not be completely fair to charge Nussbaum with providing ready-made formulae for the implementation of CHCs since she, too, appreciates some of the messiness of real-world encounters and complexities of social contexts. In her view, CHCs are to be implemented in a pluralistic manner that attends to local contexts (see her 2001 debate with Quillen). Nussbaum (2000a: 126) also argues that efforts to set a threshold of CHCs in a non-arbitrary way ‘are best done by the internal processes of each liberal democracy, as it interprets its own constitution’. She places particular emphasis on national, electoral politics in liberal states, among which she includes India. As she writes, despite the shortcomings and regional variations of India’s politics, ‘these governments have one thing in their favor: they are elected’. In contrast to Sen’s (2003) more sceptical stance on democratic elections, she believes that governments (states) are ‘accountable to the people . . . in a way that international agencies and even extremely fine NGOs simply are not’ (2000a: 104). As she elaborates, ‘the primary role for the capabilities account remains that of providing political principles that can underlie national constitutions; and this means that practical implementation must remain to a large extent the job of citizens in each nation’ (2000a: 105). Importantly, such a claim has a different valence in different state formations and across time. Fraser (2005), by contrast, is usefully attentive to the historico-temporal context in her recent discussion of justice in the national Keynesian-Westphalian territorial context and in a transnational global economic one where citizens and subjects are engaged in new collectivities and alliances of struggle and opposition across state boundaries. Interestingly, Nussbaum strives to eliminate the tension between liberalism and equality (substantive democracy) in her pluralistic acceptance of adjustments to the list. There are (at least) two possible interpretations of this move. One is to see the politics of implementation impinging on the politics of justification. That is, Nussbaum recognizes this possibility but advocates for a universal list as the best one can do in the short run. Second, however, the effort to create an overlapping consensus might be a ‘dangerous utopia of reconciliation’ that can eliminate the legitimacy of dissent. In this

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case one elides the importance of democratic practice, particularly one based on the participation and voice of all citizens, in lieu of institutionalized forms of representation realized through electoral politics. In this context it is appropriate to ask, if the goal is social justice and nongovernmental institutions act in ways that promote that goal, are not they also accountable to their constituents? Why should they be deemed outside the realm of accountability, especially in an increasingly privatized context that displaces previously secured state protections with private ones? These questions emerge precisely because there remains an under-theorization of the neo-liberal state as a particular formation dependent on specific relations of intervention able to realize the goals of gender justice and social equity. Importantly, differences in local contexts are constituted by and within relations of uneven development, contexts that are characterized by historically contingent intra-state-society relations as well as bi-, multi- and transnational relations of inequality. Such relations are crucial for interpreting how we realize the goals of social justice and the processes by which they can be attained. Historical processes and relations constitute political practices and are not merely specifications of place or national territory. For Nussbaum it appears that what others, like Sen, view as constitutive aspects of inter- and intra-state relations are, rather, aspects of local contexts. As such they may be important to take into account, but not constitutive of these relations. Recognizing deliberative democracy as concerned with negotiations among competing interest groups within particular contexts, Sen stresses that we should not view ‘democracy in an unduly narrow and restricted way
in particular, exclusively in terms of public balloting and not much more broadly, in terms of what John Rawls called ‘‘the exercise of public reason’’’ (2003: 1). In making these claims, he draws examples from the histories of Africa, Asia and the Middle East to illustrate the breadth of democratic ideas and practices and to conclude that ‘[t]o ignore the centrality of public reasoning in the idea of democracy not only distorts and diminishes the history of democratic ideas it also detracts attention from the interactive processes through which a democracy functions and on which its success depends’ (2003: 7). Nussbaum is less specific about these relations of inequality, leading one to presume that electoral politics is the appropriate arena for negotiating differences and where her plea for consensus building refers primarily to the building of agreement across national borders.17 This leads us to suggest that Sen’s emphasis on deliberation offers an important basis for a view of justification and implementation that differs markedly from Nussbaum’s insistence on their separation; that is, between moral claims and constitutional and policy reform. As Nussbaum writes, ‘we may, and I believe, must, separate the question of justification from the question of implementation’ (2004b: 10) where justification is a moral project based on the building of a universal overlapping consensus, while implementation is recognized as ‘a fundamental role . . . [of] the nation state’ (2000a: 103). In this formulation, we are faced with a complicated understanding of implementation. Let us briefly elaborate.

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Deliberation, justification and implementation We appreciate the heuristic distinction between justification and implementation as central aspects of an argument for social justice and recognize that Nussbaum is primarily concerned with the former. Moreover, among philosophers Nussbaum should be commended for her view of philosophy as eminently practical and for her willingness to engage with the ‘real world’. It is not surprising that she is less concerned with the complex relations and political choices that attend to the issue of implementation. Nonetheless, her insistence on the strong separation between justification and implementation fails to recognize their mutually embedded constitution, their shared forms of accountability and the power relations that not only constitute implementation but also are embodied in struggles over justification (Nussbaum 2000a,b). Further, we question Nussbaum’s distinction because it allows a slippage into another multifaceted concept: intervention. We argue that justification and implementation, including intervention as one mode of implementation and (forced) justification, are constitutive processes and that it is only in their embeddedness that one can understand the negotiations involved in the accomplishment of human development. Sen signals this point in his distinction between ‘the growth of output per head . . . and a more foundational concentration on expanding human freedom’ (1999a: 290
1). While he acknowledges that the two approaches to development are related, he nonetheless asks: why are they not substantively congruent? He argues, and we reiterate our earlier point, that: since freedom is concerned with processes of decision making as well as opportunities to achieve valued outcomes, the domain of our interest cannot be confined only to [one part of the formulation of freedom.] Such processes as participation in political decisions and social choice cannot be seen as being
at best
among the means to development but have to be understood as constitutive parts of the ends of development. (Sen 1999a: 291)

This view of politics considers the state a concrete nexus of social institutions where individuals ‘live and operate’ (Sen 1999a: 142), a view that differs from Nussbaum’s understanding of institutions as entities to which people might ‘assign the responsibility for promoting others’ well-being (capabilities) to institutions, giving individuals broad discretion about how to use their lives apart from that’ (Nussbaum 2004: 15). Her emphasis on choice, moreover, emanates from an understanding of individuals as free-willed rather than social subjects constitutive of and constituted by the institutions and collectivities of which they are a part. Nussbaum acknowledges the role of institutional context as a creation ‘made by people’ (2004: 14) and essential to the implementation of social reform. While Sen shares this sentiment, Crocker nonetheless suggests that ‘for Sen, capabilities are not powers of the person

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that might or might not be realized in different situations. They are, rather, options (sets of compossible options) for actions . . . . These options may refer to but are not identical with traits of a person’ (1995: 161, 163). Thus, ‘Sen construes capabilities as opportunities rather than personal powers’ (Crocker 1995: 165, 169), whereby, according to Crocker, possibilities are seen to ‘face the agent’ rather than to be ‘powers possessed by the agent’. Sen’s position here is consistent with his view of positive freedom, for ‘the capability to function is the thing that comes closest to the notion of positive freedom, and if freedom is valued then capability itself can serve as an object of value and moral importance’ (Sen 1984: 316, in Crocker 1995: 182). In this context, good development must ensure the ability for choice and the ‘formation of good capabilities’ through the removal of impediments to their exercise (Crocker 1995). Justification then is less about deducing a consensus from liberal philosophy and more about political struggles over the content of a moral claim. If moral claims are realized only in their accomplishment then it is impossible to separate justification and implementation as Sen reminds us in recognizing the role of struggles in India for enhancing gender equity and access to education. Moreover, Sen suggestively links justification to democratic practice: ‘A country does not have to be deemed fit for democracy; rather, it has to become fit through democracy’ (1999b: 4). The connection between moral claims and their realization parallels the argument of Abrams (1988) and Corrigan and Sayer (1985) who criticize the fetishization of states and reveal the ‘idea of the state’ in the ‘accomplishment of rule’. Such a view acknowledges the relationship between moral regulation and rule as instantiated in institutional relations, a point that is implied in Fraser’s (2003) reframing of the epistemic opposition between moral redistributive claims and ethical cultural ones. Understood in this way, contestations that are apparent in struggles over implementation reverberate dialectically into the justification of particular norms and values. Unlike Nussbaum’s focus on justification, then, it is telling that Sen (1999a) begins from the relationship between freedom and economic need and insists on the importance of democratic deliberation and participation in his elaboration of development as freedom. Rejecting the view of freedom as something that can only (or best) follow sequentially from the satisfaction of economic needs, as in the Asian values debate, and the view of critical public discussion as merely instrumental for the achievement of utilitarian aims, Sen offers democratic deliberation as a process-oriented alternative. As Crocker notes, for Sen, democratic deliberation: is normative in the sense [that] it . . . calls [forth] the ‘ideals of democracy, in contrast to its ‘institutions’ and its ‘practices,’ and portrays democracy as a ‘demanding system’ of governance [including] ‘widespread actual participation . . . and an ‘equitable distribution of power’ . . . robust modes of participation . . . free discussion and the give and take of opposing arguments . . . [over]

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the range of the questions that citizens should democratically deliberate and decide. (Crocker forthcoming)

This rendering of Sen’s argument supports the view that democracy is ‘constructively’ good because it provides the institutions and processes enabling people to learn from each other and ‘construct’ or decide on values and social priorities (Crocker forthcoming; Sen 1999a). But, this alternative surely is not a panacea, as it would be erroneous to assume that democratic deliberation is automatic and occurs among equalstanding members of civil society. We thus find a weakness in Sen’s position regarding the unspecified character of this process-oriented alternative. As Ribot’s recent study of decentralization astutely notes, ‘Pluralism without representation favors the most organized and powerful groups. It favors elite capture’ (2002: 1). Hill (2003) and others (see Evans 2002; Corbridge 2002) also suggest that the lack of attention to inequalities among collectivities and the challenges such inequalities pose to the democratic-ness of deliberation leads Sen to be naı¨ve about the conditions of deliberation. This naivete´ is exemplified in his assertion that there is ‘no reason why vested interests must win if open arguments are permitted and promoted. . . . the remedy has to lie in more freedom
including that of public discussion and participatory political decisions’ (1999a: 123). While participation is necessary to a meaningful and potentially progressive social process of achieving human capability, it is insufficient for ‘people to describe their needs, capabilities and choices’ as they may be vulnerable to domination by particular social forces or classes (Hill 2003: 121; see also Young 2001). As Fraser (2003) cogently reminds us, how collectivities frame their demands sets the parameters as to whether parallel (but unequal) collective identities take precedence or whether moral claims unsettle the exclusions characteristic of the dominant in the securing of justice. Moreover, in building a theory of democratic justice she remains committed to participatory parity recognizing that justice ‘binds only insofar as its addressees can also rightly regard themselves as its authors’ (Fraser 2003: 44).18 Sen also is naı¨ve about the role of regulation in shaping normative assessments and value commitments particularly concerning conditions where individualism is valued and opposed to social responsibility, the obligations of citizenship and the collective good. Yet he offers the following: ‘people themselves must have responsibility for the development and change of the world in which they live. . . . As people who live
in a broad sense
together, we cannot escape the thought that the terrible occurrences that we see around us are quintessentially our problems. They are our responsibility
whether or not they are also anyone else’s’ (1999a: 282). This understanding of social responsibility reveals Sen’s conception of collective action as that which recognizes that individuals collaborate within the constraints of their social worlds. As he suggests in his preface to Development and Freedom :

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the freedom of agency that we individually have is inescapably qualified and constrained by the social, political and economic opportunities available to us. There is a deep complementarity between individual agency and social arrangements. It is important to give simultaneous recognition to the centrality of individual freedom and to the force of social influences on the extent and reach of individual freedom. To counter the problems that we face, we have to see individual freedom as a social commitment. (Sen 1999a: xi
xii)

For us, deep complementarity differs from a position based on relationality and constitutiveness. In Robeyns’ (2003) terms, Sen is an ethical individualist not an ontological one since he accounts for the social embeddedness of the individual and, like methodological individualism, recognizes that individuals are affected by their social worlds. Sen, however, rejects this charge in his response to Stewart and Deneulin: Social influences can stifle the understanding of inequality and muffle the voice of protest. This is one reason why we have to celebrate political activism related to class-based resistance, or anti-racist struggles, or feminist challenges, as an integral part of the process of social justice. . . . Nothing can be more remote from methodological individualism, with its reliance on detached and separated individuals. (Sen 2002b: 81)

We agree with Stewart and Deneulin (2002) as well as with Hill (2003) that Sen does not appreciate a sociological understanding of the importance of collectivities, although we recognize, with others (Evans 2002; Prendergast 2004) including Sen (2002b), that the debate has yet to be resolved. Despite these concerns, we see in Sen’s corpus an important acknowledgement of the importance of collective action and resistance in efforts to realize deliberative democratic practice.

Conclusion The seductiveness of Nussbaum’s philosophical intervention into the realm of human development is, as suggested by Rist’s (1997) history of development, both powerful and problematic. Its power comes from its forthright commitment to social justice, gender equity and a vision of human dignity that has tremendous allure and is surely a significant feature of the enduring promise of development and modernity. The problematic aspects of her project correspond to the liberal framing of her approach that leads to a failure adequately to address the historical and structural roots of inequality (gender, class, race, ethnicity and sexuality) and the institutional transformations that would be required to achieve social justice. Although commendable for its attentive response to the neoliberal transformations that frame contemporary

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relations of inequality, Nussbaum’s grand universalism offers more peril than the promise of democratic deliberation we see in Sen. By acknowledging the historical specificity of neoliberalism we are forced to ask: is the premise of a universalist list of CHCs the most productive way to address questions of inequality in the struggle for social justice? We believe there is ample historical evidence, in colonial as well as postcolonial situations, that social reformers have sought to improve the status of women in a move towards human development without recourse to universalist premises. Thus, in terms of a specific list, and particularly its universal claims based on a Western, modernist understanding of what women (and men) should be and do, we agree with Menon who astutely observes that ‘[i]t has always been considered to ‘‘be all right’’ to render dowry illegal [or enhance women’s educational opportunities], we did not need the capabilities approach to discover this’ (2002: 163). Taking Menon’s point seriously we support the capabilities approach less as an analytic approach than as a strategic tool to be used to promote a vision of structural reform and democratic practice. Thus we can appreciate the value of a human capabilities approach in efforts to realize gender equity within the framework of economic development, but we are sceptical of Nussbaum’s position about its realization under conditions that leave unchallenged the relations that generate and sustain inequalities, whether between women and men, ethnic groups, among nations or between international institutions and national subjects. We also find that Nussbaum misses an opportunity to engage fully the rationale behind Sen’s position on the value of a universal list. If we shift our gaze from the idea of a list to what Sen offers as an alternative institutional matrix able to provide the conditions of possibility for women and men to realize all they can be and do, then we must address the underlying determinants of inequality and reallocate resources towards the disadvantaged. Importantly, this shift entails contestation and negotiation among unequals
within and betweens states
in a deliberative process forwarded, if not adequately elaborated, by Sen. His commitment to a deliberative process provides the conditions of possibility for the disadvantaged as they strive to understand, (re)frame and redress the conditions of their inequality. Thus, while we applaud Nussbaum’s (2000a: 298) pragmatic impulse and her strong and consistent voice on behalf of women, we view the absence of sustained attention to the political economy of gender and of state forms that continue to support gender inequality not as a matter of the lack of ‘a consensus that sexbased inequality is an urgent issue of political justice’ but more the lack of an adequate challenge to the institutions and structures of inequality whose benefits accrue to men and to capitalism as a mode of production. While Sen’s liberal individualism leaves him open to criticism, he nonetheless offers us a way to think about these issues grounded, we argue, in his emphasis on democratic deliberation. This is suggested in the allencompassing importance he gives to institutions within an uneven and highly interdependent global economy. The seductiveness of visions of development,

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equality and social change, however, would benefit from greater attention to the role played by historical struggles over the definition, instantiation and challenges to inequality by class, as well as by gender, ethnic, racial and other collective disparities. As read through Fraser, promoters of deliberative democracy ought to redress the structural inequalities evident in liberal pluralist practice and the lack of recognition that accompanies its diverse formations in ways that secure redistribution to enable people to be all they can be and do. Moreover, we find hope in recasting the tensions between structural and cultural imaginings and support a historically constitutive understanding of social exclusion in ways that set the parameters for strategic struggles for justice and rights. In short, Nussbaum’s position on CHCs asks us to join a consensus (largely) on her terms and then implement it, while Sen’s capability approach invites us to debate both the content and the process of achieving capability for more and more of the world’s people. In a world of sustained gender and class inequalities, war and religious and ethnic strife, we find greater potential in Sen’s suggestive offerings
but only when they are coupled with attention to specific historical experiences of intra and inter-state relations.

Notes 1 We use the label ‘central human capabilities approach’ to distinguish it from Sen’s capability approach (see Gasper 1997, 2001). 2 Our discussion is limited principally to Development as Freedom , the most popularized version of Sen’s writings and recognized in debates by disciplines outside economics (see, e.g., Evans 2002). 3 Sen’s persistent efforts to focus on capability have been foundational to the broadening of development economics and the practices of development assistance that institutionalizes the Human Development Index to complement measures of economic growth (UNDP 1990). 4 Sen (2004b) rejects both what he terms ‘Grand Universalism’ and ‘nationalist particularism’ (implied by Rawls’ Law of Peoples). 5 Sen (2004b: 337) did not elaborate a ‘capability-based theory of justice’ (see, inter alia , Robeyns 2005a,b) but recognizes that capability is a substantive part of such a theory, and would require attention to questions of fair process for which he relies on Rawls. 6 We distinguish this from Robeyns’ (2003) ‘procedural’ approach. 7 A critical analysis of the policies and practices of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and their implementation practices in dependent states would be suggestive here but beyond the scope of this paper. See, however, Stiglitz (2002). 8 Sen’s Tanner lecture establishes a baseline for their subsequent collaboration and debate (Nussbaum and Sen 1989, 1993; Sen 1990, 1993; Nussbaum 2000a, 2003). Nussbaum draws on Sen’s (1980, 1999a) notion of capability or ‘what people are actually able to do and to be’, and endorses his basic challenge to normative development models. They both argue that the goal of increased GNP occludes distributional inequalities attendant on development. 9 In a reply to Quillen’s critique of her liberal universalism, Nussbaum observes that she is ‘notorious and controversial in philosophy for insisting on the importance of

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narrative and a rich consideration of context when we assess any normative ethical or political claim’ (Nussbaum 2001: 126). 10 Lawson’s critique is ontological. Here we address her epistemology rather than her comments on multiculturalism (Nussbaum 2000a: 49). 11 We appreciate their rejection of Truth and a view from ‘the rim of heaven’; as they write, ‘ethical truth . . . can be seen only from the point of view of immersion’ (1989: 311). With respect to creating an evaluative procedure, they argue, ‘Universal rules and other ethical generalizations have worth only insofar as they correctly summarize particulars; they are rules of thumb and cannot, in general, take precedence over concrete perceptions’ (1989: 315). This defence of universalism was much less forceful. 12 Skerker similarly remarks, ‘In a sense, a liberal must be a bit illiberal about the political and social foundations of a liberal society’ (2004: 404), an especially problematic stance for feminists. 13 We refer here to Sen’s argument that democracies are less likely to experience famine because they are potentially accountable to their populations (Sen 1999a: 160
88). See also Anderson (2003) on the importance of regimes that are non-hierarchical, participatory and transparent. 14 Unfortunately Sen does not elaborate this process of mediation but instead posits that the outcome of state intervention depends on equality of well-being freedom or what Cohen refers to as ‘equality of access to advantage’ (in Sen 1993: 46). 15 This focus on outcomes can be understood as a positive effect of development interventions, sustaining his belief in the project of development as such. 16 In describing Nussbaum’s ‘somewhat different perspective’, Sen seems to concur with such a strategic deployment. He writes, ‘The framework of capabilities, as I see it, helps to clarify and illuminate the subject matter of public reasoning, which can involve epistemic issues (including claims of objective importance) as well as ethical and political ones. It does not
and cannot
displace the need for public reasoning’ (2004b: 333, fn. 31). 17 We recognize that Sen differs from Nussbaum on this point as he is clearly aware of the cross- and transnational interests that shape struggles for equity and the realization of justice (1999a: ch. 9), and contestation over cultural legitimacy (1999a: ch. 10). 18 We are thankful to one of the referees for leading us to this passage in Fraser.

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Shelley Feldman studied sociology at the University of Connecticut and the University of Hull and is currently Professor, Development Sociology, and the former Director of the South Asia and the Gender and Global Change programmes at Cornell University. She is the author of ‘Intersecting and contesting positions: world systems, postcolonial, and feminist theory’, ‘Exploring theories of patriarchy’, ‘Paradoxes of institutionalization: the depoliticization of Bangladeshi NGOs’ and ‘Partition and displacement revisited’. She is currently completing an institutional history of post-1947 East Pakistan and examining the interface of religious and civil law in independent Bangladesh. Paul Gellert holds a PhD in sociology from the University of WisconsinMadison and is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology

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at the University of Tennessee. He recently published ‘The shifting natures of ‘‘development’’: growth, crisis, and recovery in Indonesia’s forests’ in World Development and a chapter entitled ‘For a sociology of socionature: ontology and a commodity-based approach’ in Nature, Raw Materials and Political Economy (eds P. S. Ciccantell, D. A. Smith and G. Seidman, Elsevier/JAI, 2005). His current research concerns the political economy and socio-spatial dynamics of Asian timber industries under neo-liberalism.