Capabilities, Critique and Sociology

This paper discusses the implications of the double dimension of capability, a normative and descriptive concept, for sociology and its relationship to critique. Using a capability approach means endorsing a critical stance. But the resulting critical standpoint is as much a matter of concept, as of theoretical and methodological implementation. Therefore different ways of bringing together capabilities, critique and social sciences are at hand.

The conceptualization of capabilities along freedom and power of achievement offers a common normative background. Beyond equal distribution of resources, it makes out of equal freedom to choose and achieve, i.e. to convert resources into valuable realizations, a yardstick for assessing social inequalities.

Once settled this common background, conversion factors bring into play the second dimension of capabilities, namely the descriptive one, which is diversely taken up. Economists have worked a lot on measures and descriptions of capabilities. Sociologists should contribute to this debate with their own means. The paper argues that the sociological design of inquiry may offer an as important source for critical social sciences. Along the lines opened by J. Dewey’s logic of inquiry, its shows how the capability concept may fuel a critical pragmatism based on the confrontation of different levels of analysis: institutional semantics (the public policy level), which designs how things should be, its implementation (organizational level) and the outcomes it actually produces in people’s lives (the biographical level).

Finally, the paper gives an insight into the analytical and critical perspectives opened up by a capability approach focusing on the interactions between institutions, organizations, and individuals on issues such as freedom, responsibility, empowerment and employability, core-concepts in the reforms of European Welfare-states.