Human Development in Times of Crisis

Hans-Uwe Otto is Professor of Educational Science at Bielefeld University, Germany, Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, and Director of the Bielefeld Centre for Education and Capability Research, Germany.
Spyros Pantazis is Professor Emeritus of the University of Ioannina, Greece. He was scientific director for academic upgrading programs and vocational training for Greece and Albania. He is Project Manager for VERSO - Volunteers for European Employment project.
Holger Ziegler is Professor of Social Work at the Faculty of Educational Science and a Member of the Bielefeld Centre for Education and Capability Research. He has run several international 'Social Work & Society' Academy - TiSSA conferences.
Antoanneta Potsi is Research Fellow at the University of Wuppertal, Germany. She sits on the Executive Committee of the Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) and was Conference Manager of the 2014 HDCA Conference.

This book examines human development in times of crisis, and its effect on social justice and democracy, with a focus on the delay in developmental progress caused by the 'Great Recession', the worst economic crisis in decades. The book places particular focus on policies of human development. It scrutinizes the philosophical foundations of human development while at the same time analyzing the underlying social, economic and institutional backgrounds which are conductive or limiting with respect of the task of politics of human development in times of crisis. Against this background, the project is concerned with the value added of applying the capabilities approach in order to assess the state and the policies of human development. This book connects demands for programmatic conceptions and social analyses in order to assess the opportunities for more capability-enhancing projects and public policies that aim to help counter the developmental setbacks from the economic crisis, and toenhance the quality of society and social justice.

Examines human development in the contexts of philosophy, social policy, education, health and welfare economics

1. Introduction. Capabilities and Society: Renegotiating Social Justice in Times of Crisis .- 2. The ambivalence of social policies and the challenge of Human Development: A proposal for assessing their impact against the capability approach .- 3. Corrosive disadvantages and intersectionality: empirical evidence on multidimensional inequality accross youth in Europe .- 4. Capabilities and working lives .- 5. Children's rights in times of austerity .- 6. Children's well-being in times of crisis in PIIGS countries: the Capability Approach as a multidimensional approach to deprivation .- 7. Capabilities as the informational basis for gender equality policy in higher education .- 8. The University and sustainable human development .- 9. A brief history of liberty and its lessons .- 10. Some reflections on capability and the Republican Freedom as a response to Philip Pettit's Address on the MarthaNussbaum Symposium .- 11. Anger: Weakness, Payback, Down-Ranking .- 12. Inclusive Human Progress: from structural vulnerabilities to social cohesion .- 13. Confronting Inequality and Corruption: Agency, Empowerment, and Democratic Development .- 14. Public choice and the CA: Self-interest, altruisme and their consequences for sustainable development groups .- 15. Innovation and Justice: contributions of the capabilities approach to a 21st century, transformative perspective on innovation .- 16. The capabilities approach, the environment and relational values. Why we should conceive of the environment as co-constituents of capabilities.