A Common Good Approach to Development

Mathias Nebel

Description

This edited collection proposes a common good approach to development theory and practice. Rather than focusing on the outcomes or conditions of development, the contributors concentrate on the quality of development processes, suggesting that a common good dynamic is key in order to trigger development.

Resulting from more than three years of research by an international group of over fifty scholars, the volume advocates for a modern understanding of the common good—rather than a theological or metaphysical good—in societies by emphasising the social practice of ‘commoning’ at its core. It suggests that the dynamic equilibrium of common goods in a society should be at the centre of development efforts. For this purpose, it develops a matrix of common good dynamics, accounting for how institutions, social norms and common practices interconnect by identifying five key drivers not only of development, but human development (agency, governance, justice, stability, humanity). Based on this matrix, the contributors suggest a possible metric for measuring the quality of these dynamics. The last section of the book highlights the possibilities enabled by this approach through a series of case studies.

The concept of the common good has recently enjoyed a revival and inspired practitioners keen to look beyond the shortcomings of political and economic liberalism. This book builds on those efforts to think beyond the agenda of twentieth-century development policies, and will be of interest to those working in the fields of development, economics, sociology, philosophy and political science.

Sujets

• Society
• Poverty
• Common Good
• Development theory
• Human development
• Homelessness
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Social Science

Informations

• Publié par: Open Book Publishers
• Date de parution: 26 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800644076
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 8 Mo

Extrait

A COMMON GOOD APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT

A Common Good Approach to Development
Collective Dynamics of Development Processes
Edited by Mathias Nebel, Oscar Garza-Vázquez and Clemens Sedmak





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© 2022 Mathias Nebel, Oscar Garza-Vázquez and Clemens Sedmak. Copyright of individual chapters is maintained by the chapters’ authors.




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work for non-commercial purposes, providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that he endorses you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:
Mathias Nebel, Oscar Garza-Vázquez and Clemens Sedmak (eds). A Common Good Approach to Development: Matrix and Metric for a Collective Development Processes . Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2022, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0290
In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0290#copyright . Further details about CC licenses are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web
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ISBN Paperback: 9781800644045
ISBN Hardback: 9781800644052
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781800644069
ISBN Digital ebook (EPUB): 9781800644076
ISBN Digital ebook (AZW3): 9781800644083
ISBN XML: 9781800644090
ISBN Digital ebook (HTML): 9781800646742
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0290
Cover image: Cuetzalan, Puebla (2008). Photo by Oscar Garza-Vázquez.
Cover design by Anna Gatti

Contents
Acknowledgements
vii
Introduction
1
Mathias Nebel and Oscar Garza-Vázquez
PART I: A COMMON GOOD APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT
25
Introduction to Part I
27
Mathias Nebel and Oscar Garza-Vázquez
1.
The Theoretical Framework: Common Goods and Systems of Common Goods
29
Mathias Nebel
2.
From Theory to Practice: A Matrix of Common Good Dynamics
57
Mathias Nebel and Jorge Medina Delgadillo
3.
Design and Reflection on the Metric of Common Dynamics
103
Oscar Garza-Vázquez and Viviana Ramírez
PART II: DISCUSSING THE NORMATIVE ELEMENTS OF COMMON GOOD DYNAMICS
141
Introduction to Part II
143
Mathias Nebel and Oscar Garza-Vázquez
4.
Collective Agency Freedom as the Engine of a Common Good Dynamic: A Conceptual Proposal for Measurement
145
Oscar Garza-Vázquez
5.
The Systemic Outcome of Common Good Dynamics: Humanity
179
Clemens Sedmak
6.
Governance, Commoning and the Unequal Terms of Recognition
201
Tom De Herdt and Denis Augustin Samnick
7.
Organising Common Good Dynamics: Justice
219
Rodolfo De la Torre
8.
Development and Stability
251
Flavio Comim
PART III: CASE STUDIES AND APPLICATIONS
273
Introduction to Part III
275
Mathias Nebel and Oscar Garza-Vázquez
9.
Do We Need a Common Good Approach to Development?
277
Helen Alford
10.
Bangsamoro: A Case Study in Governing for the Common Good
293
Patrick Riordan S.J.
11.
Assessing the Nexus of the Common Good: The Case of the Municipality of Atlixco, Mexico
321
Valente Tallabs and Mathias Nebel
12.
Assessing the Transformative Impact of Love-Based Microsocial Communities: From Existential Peripheries into the Nexus of the Common Good
347
Simona Beretta
List of Illustrations
379
Index
385

Acknowledgements
This book is the result of a research process that involved many people over four years. We want to express here our gratitude to the friends and colleagues as well as the institutions that made this journey possible. First we would like to thank all the authors that took part in this project for their excellent contributions contained in this volume. This book would not be possible without your commitment, patience, and dedication throughout this process. Each one of you made this project better. We also must acknowledge our debts to the local research group based in Puebla, Mexico. Thank you Antonio Sánchez, Jorge Medina, Valente Tallabs, Ignacio Arbesu, Juan Pablo Aranda, Roy Nuñez, José Luis Ávila, Juan Martin Castro, María del Rosario Andrade, and Viviana Ramírez for the many, many  hours of debate and discussion that gave way to the matrix and metrics of common good dynamics. This time of academic friendship was precious and your insights invaluable. Similarly, we would like to thank the many researchers that took part in one or more of the three research seminars in Puebla, Barcelona, and Notre Dame between 2017 and 2018. Again, to be able to share and debate very widely the ideas shaping this book ensured not only its coherence but also the academic quality of each part. Thank you especially to Oscar Martínez Martínez (REMIPSO’s President), Roberto Vélez Grajales (CEEY’s Executive Director), Graciela Teruel Belismelis (EQUIDE’s Director), Gerardo Leyva Parra (INEGI’s Research Director) and Luis Felipe López-Calva (UNDP Regional Director for Latin-America) for their illuminating comments. Finally, we would like to express our appreciation to the two anonymous reviewers. Their helpful comments helped us improve the overall structure of the book and gave us the opportunity to clarify further the main arguments in it.
Then, we are also in debt with institutions: first the  Universidad Popular Autonoma del Estado de Puebla  (UPAEP) and its  Instituto Promotor del Bien Común (IPBC). They were the ultimate driver of this journey, granting the needed funds for our research. Thank you also to the  University of Notre Dame  and its  Center for Social Concern , and to the Institut Químic de Sarrià at Universitat Ramón Llull for hosting one of the three research seminars. Thank you also to Elizabeth Rankin for her thorough proof-reading and suggestions to several of the chapters in this book. Likewise, thanks to Andrea Cuspinera for her technical assistance in the final steps of the book edition. Finally, we would like to express our appreciation to Open Book Publishers for making the whole publishing experience as efficient and agreeable as it can be (thank you Alessandra Tossi, Melissa Purkiss, Anna Gatti, and Luca Baffa).

I ntroduction
Mathias Nebel and Oscar Garza-Vázquez

© 2022 Nebel and Garza-Vázquez, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0290.16
1. The Research Question
‘[A] misconceived theory can kill’, wrote Amartya Sen more than two decades ago (1999, p. 209). Certainly, the terrible (and unequal) human cost of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated crushing economic impact, which has pushed thousands of people into subsistence levels (or worse), painfully reminds us that the ideas we use to organise our societies can result in an unbearable toll of human lives. We could also consider the