Carlos: Sen - Democracy and Social Power

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Within Sen's Ch 8 of Development as Freedom, Sen argues that in pursuit of greater freedoms, "women are increasingly seen ... as active agents of change ... that can alter the lives of both women and men" (Sen 1999, 189). Sen believes that development calls for moving away from the medical model to then empower those in need to 'help themselves'. Although I agree with Sen that empowering the underestimated, overlooked agents will further benefit that group as well as society as a whole, I agree with Hill that Sen overlooks the distribution of social power present in the institutions that these agents would have to join. 

Sen argues that development further requires women to both fight for further agency and to protect their well-being as women. Still, Sen believes that part of advocating for the well-being of women requires agency to be met (to some extent) beforehand; "focusing on women's agency ... [may help] in removing the inequities that depress the well-being of women" (Sen 1999, 191). Although Sen does not mention this in Ch 8, I think this sort of approach to development can also be extended to other marginalized groups in an attempt to see them not as 'patients' but as 'agents'. A large part of Sen's argument for increasing the agency of women includes granting them greater access to the job market and a greater say in matters of family life. Sen points to the instrumental benefits that this increase in agency within institutions of power, both on the well-being of women in general and the well-being of the family, including children and men.

Even so, as Hill points out, simply including women within these existing institutions does not guarantee an increase in agency for women. Hill references Phillip Pettit in his criticism that Sen does not account for matters of social power within his theory. Social power permeates all institutions found in society, whether it is the power dynamics between teacher and student in schools, powers between parents in a family, or the ranking of members of congress. Sen advocates for further inclusion of individuals in these institutions and greater sharing of power, however Sen does not account for the distributions of power already present in these institutions that may limit what new agents may be capable of doing when joining. 

I would think Sen may argue against this criticism in a similar manner to his work in Ch 10 by claiming the dynamics of social powers in these institutions are a result of culture that must be dealt with by democratic and open discussions. Even Hill provides a similar response to addressing the distribution of social powers within institutions by advocating for further democratization in an attempt to 'even out' the agencies of different individuals. Nevertheless, I worry about how democratization will more fairly distribute social powers if the values of the culture and its institutions aren't changed first. If the values of the society still skew towards preference of men or the economic 'bread winners', then it may be hard to use democratization to further distribute social power for marginalized groups like women. Hill even mentions this worry that "a value change may in fact be necessary for successful democratization" (Hill 2011, 129). So, now the issue I think Sen and others may need to deal with is whether social values must change first to then affect the 'fairness' of democratic processes or whether democratic processes must first take place to then change social values. I'm not entirely sure whether one should be pursued before the other or whether we can work towards pursuing both simultaneously, but I think Sen must account for this if he really wants to include the marginalized in the process of development. 

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