Much of Amartya Sen’s work has been directly policy-related, but his methodology of policy analysis has not been explained in detail. Action-related social science involves value-imbued procedures that guide the numerous unavoidable choices. This theme was explored earlier by authors close to...

Human rights, human development and human security form increasingly important, partly interconnected, partly competitive and misunderstood ethical and policy discourses. Each tries to humanize a pre-existing and unavoidable major discourse of everyday life, policy and politics; each has emerged...

This essay is a comment on “Sen on Freedom and Gender Justice,” by Mozaffar Qizilbash, which appeared in Feminist Economics Volume 11, Number 3, November 2005. Building on the 2003 double special issue of Feminist Economics entitled “Amartya Sen's Work and Ideas,” this paper responds to...

Leadership is a matter that social scientists often are ambivalent about, but is important in knife-edge’ situations and when people choose direction within wide-open possibilities. ‘Good leaders’ need contexts that stimulate and discipline them, good ‘followers’/ collaborators, and...

Denis Goulet (1931-2006) was a pioneer of human development theory and the main founder of work on “development ethics” as a self-conscious field that, by his definition, treats the ethical and value questions posed by development theory, planning, and practice. This paper looks at aspects...