Inequality, Advantage and the Capability Approach
Inequality, Advantage and the Capability Approach
复制标题
DOI：
10.1080/19452829.2017.1395396
复制
发表时间：
2018-01-01
影响因子：
1.5
通讯作者：
Hick, Rod
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Burchardt, Tania;Hick, Rod
不平等在学术和政治辩论中获得了新的突出地位。虽然使用能力方法（CA）的学者成功地影响了贫困的概念化和衡量，人们越来越多地从多维度角度理解贫困，但最近关于不平等的学术研究主要集中在不平等的经济形式，特别是收入和财富的不平等上。在本文中，我们概述了 CA 的概念框架（关注目的而不是手段、多维性、认识自由的价值以及所获得的功能）如何通过提供不平等重要性的基本原理、探索不同形式的不平等之间的关联以及提供权力分析来丰富分配不平等的研究。但是，在优势背景下应用 CA 会加剧该方法的一些现有挑战（定义能力列表和能力的不可观察性），并带来一些新的挑战（尤其是分布顶部的不敏感性）。我们建议对概念和措施进行更强有力和更清晰的区分。能力不平等是一个更合适且具有潜在揭示意义的概念工具，但在可预见的未来，经济资源可能仍然是理解分配不平等的关键指标。
Inequality has acquired a newfound prominence in the academic and political debate. While scholars working with the capability approach (CA) have succeeded in influencing the conceptualisation and measurement of poverty, which is increasingly understood in multidimensional terms, recent scholarship on inequality focusses overwhelmingly on economic forms of inequality, and especially on inequalities in income and wealth. In this paper, we outline how the conceptual framework of the CA (focussing on ends rather than means, multidimensionality, and recognising the value of freedoms as well as attained functionings) has the potential to enrich the study of distributional inequality through offering a rationale for why inequality matters, exploring the association between different forms of inequality, and providing an analysis of power. But applying the CA in the context of advantage exacerbates some existing challenges to the approach (defining a capability list, and the non-observability of capabilities) and brings some fresh ones (especially insensitivity at the top of the distribution). We recommend a stronger and clearer distinction between concepts and measures. Capability inequality is a more appropriate and potentially revealing conceptual apparatus, but economic resources are likely to remain a crucial metric for understanding distributional inequality for the foreseeable future.