Sen's capability approach has a culturally specific side, with capabilities influenced by social structures and institutions. Although Sen acknowledges this, he expresses his theory in individualistic terms and makes little allowance for culture or social structure. The present paper draws from recent social theory to discuss how the capability approach could be developed to give an explicit treatment of cultural and structural matters. Capabilities depend not only on entitlements but on institutional roles and personal relations: these can be represented openly if capabilities are disaggregated into individual, social and structural capacities. The three layers interact, and a full analysis of capabilities should consider them all. A stratified method implies that raising entitlements will not on its own be enough to enhance capabilities and that cultural and structural changes will be needed.
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Volume (Year): 63 (2005) Issue (Month): 1 (March) Pages: 101-124 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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Robison, Lindon J & Schmid, A Allan & Siles, Marcelo E, 2002.
"Is Social Capital Really Capital?,"
Review of Social Economy,
Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 60(1), pages 1-21, March.
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Robison, Lindon J. & Schmid, A. Allan & Siles, Marcelo E., 1999.
"Is Social Capital Really Capital?,"
Staff Papers
11649, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
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Dolfsma, W.A. & Verburg, R.M., 2005.
"Bridging Structure and Agency: Processes of Institutional Change,"
Research Paper
ERS-2005-064-ORG Revision, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus Uni.
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