When is Development More Democratic?

Abstract

If people are to be empowered by development processes, to be active participants rather than passive recipients, then development must become more democratic. However, the meaning of ‘more demo-cratic’ is not exhausted by the introduction of democratic institutions; it also entails that political activity functions more democratically. In this article, ‘democratic functioning’ is defined in terms of people's access to political activity, which has greater influence over decision‐making that is more effective in preserving or enhancing valuable capabilities. Thus development can be democratically dysfunctional in three ways: exclusion from political activity, lack of influence by political activity over decision‐making, and lack of effect on capability shortfalls within the community. The debate on participatory development points to dysfunctionalities of all three kinds, even within participatory development. Therefore, rather than merely calling for development to be more participatory, we ought to call for it to be more democratic.

Keywords:

• Democracy
• Development
• Empowerment
• Capabilities
• Participatory Development

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express gratitude for numerous helpful and challenging comments received from anonymous referees, from participants in the 4th Conference on the Capability Approach at the University of Pavia, and from participants in the Philosophy Colloquium at Carleton University. The author is also most grateful to Frank Cunningham for his pioneering work on ‘more democratic’ and for his critical support over the years.

Notes

I thank an anonymous reviewer for this formulation.

I introduce this only as an illustration. In fact, the broader and vaguer idea of rule or decision‐making by the many might be more plausible as the core concept of democracy.

I thank Frances Stewart for raising this problem.