Measuring Empowerment
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MEASURING Public Disclosure Authorized EMPOWERMENT CROSS-DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized EDITED BY DEEPA NARAYAN THE WORLD BANK Public Disclosure Authorized MEASURING EMPOWERMENT MEASURING EMPOWERMENT Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives Edited by Deepa Narayan THE WORLD BANK Washington, DC © 2005 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433 Telephone 202-473-1000 Internet www.worldbank.org E-mail [email protected] All rights reserved. 1 2 3 4 08 07 06 05 The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of the World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Rights and Permissions The material in this work is copyrighted. Copying and/or transmitting portions or all of this work without permission may be a violation of applicable law. The World Bank encourages dissemination of its work and will normally grant permission promptly. For permission to photocopy or reprint any part of this work, please send a request with complete information to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA, telephone 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, www.copyright.com. All other queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary rights, should be addressed to the Office of the Publisher, World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA, fax 202-522-2422, e-mail [email protected]. Cover: The picture of the woman in burqa is from the front page of a leading newspaper in India, the day after elections in the state of Maharashtra. The woman holds up her ink-stained finger to show that she has just voted and exercised her right and freedom to choose the leaders of her state of almost 100 million people. Front cover photo © 2004 by The Times of India/Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for. ISBN 0-8213-6057-4 e-ISBN 0-8213-6058-2 Contents F o r e w o r d v i i James D. Wolfensohn Preface i x Contributors x i Abbreviations x i x Section One: Frameworks, Concepts, and Methods 1 1 Conceptual Framework and Methodological Challenges 3 Deepa Narayan 2 Evaluating Empowerment: A Framework with Cases from Latin America 3 9 Patti Petesch, Catalina Smulovitz, and Michael Walton Section Two: Gender and Household 69 3 Women’s Empowerment as a Variable in International Development 7 1 Anju Malhotra and Sidney Ruth Schuler 4 Measuring Women’s Empowerment: Learning from Cross-National Research 89 Karen Oppenheim Mason 5 Gender, Power, and Empowerment: An Analysis of Household and Family Dynamics 1 0 3 Joy Deshmukh-Ranadive Section Three: Subjective Well-Being and Power 123 6 Psychological Empowerment and Subjective Well-Being 125 Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener v vi Contents 7 Subjective Well-Being and Objective Measures: Insecurity and Inequality in Emerging Markets 1 4 1 Carol Graham and Stefano Pettinato 8 Self-Rated Power and Welfare in Russia 177 Michael Lokshin and Martin Ravallion 9 Applying Q Methodology to Empowerment 197 Steven R. Brown Section Four: Community and Local Governance Levels 217 10 Analytical Issues in Measuring Empowerment at the Community and Local Levels 2 1 9 Norman Uphoff 11 Peace, Conflict, and Empowerment: The Colombian Case 247 Caroline Moser 12 Measuring Empowerment at the Community Level: An Economist’s Perspective . 267 Asim Ijaz Khwaja 13 Mixing Qualitative and Econometric Methods: Community-Level Applications 2 8 5 Vijayendra Rao and Michael Woolcock Section Five: National Level 3 0 7 14 Assessing Empowerment at the National Level in Eastern Europe and Central Asia 3 0 9 Christiaan Grootaert 15 The CIVICUS Civil Society Index 3 4 1 Carmen Malena and Volkhart Finn Heinrich 16 Empowerment as a Positive-Sum Game 365 Stephen Knack 17 Democracy and Poverty 3 8 3 Ashutosh Varshney 18 Empowering the Poor: What Does Democracy Have to Do with It? 4 0 3 Larry Diamond 19 Measuring Democratic Governance: Central Tasks and Basic Problems 4 2 7 Gerardo L. Munck I n d e x 4 6 1 Foreword Poor people are the most important resource in the fight against poverty. They have imagination, guts, knowledge, experience, and deep motivation to move out of poverty. As our Voices of the Poor study showed, poor people are no different from those of moderate or substantial means in their desire to live in a safe and secure world and to have access to income so they can educate, clothe, and house their children with dignity. They long to belong and partic- ipate in their communities on an equal footing with others. Most of all, they do not want charity. They want opportunity—economic opportunity that gives them fair returns for their labor. When poor people are able to connect to basic services provided by gov- ernment, they have consistently demonstrated their intelligence and compe- tence in using public funds effectively. They have managed construction of rural roads and water systems and have monitored government employees, in- cluding health providers and schoolteachers, to improve their performance. When poor men and women gain access to banks, they have shown that even in a national financial crisis—as in Indonesia, for example—they can be trusted to repay their loans. When poor women come together in credit groups to build their confidence and their understanding of how financial sys- tems work, they can outperform all other customers in profitability. And they have proved willing to reinvest in their communities to strengthen the collec- tive welfare. Yet most decision makers still resist trusting poor people to make rational decisions and to take care of public or private investments. We hope that this book, with its focus on measuring empowerment, will help spread approaches to poverty reduction that empower poor people. Unless poor people are at the center of poverty reduction, policy making and program design will not bene- fit them. Poor people the world over have shown that they work hard to reduce poverty. It is now time for the private sector to establish innovative partner- ships with the millions of poor entrepreneurs, including vendors, shopkeepers, vii viii Foreword and craftspeople, in developing countries. It is time for governments to make policies that create space for poor people to participate in society and in the governance of their countries. And it is time for civil society to listen to poor people’s voices and to help amplify them so that they are heard, and acted upon, by decision makers at the local, national, and global levels. James D. Wolfensohn President The World Bank Preface This book is dedicated to those who work on making human rights a reality for all. The human rights framework is universal, but its form must be local. The cover photo illustrates the complexities in taking universal principles and translating and applying them correctly in different cultural, political, and economic contexts. The woman in the burqa appeared on the front page of the Times of India, a leading Indian newspaper, on October 14, 2004, following elections in the state of Maharashtra. Circulating the photograph to friends and col- leagues as the choice for the cover of this book drew mixed reactions. A woman in burqa to some was not a message of women’s empowerment, but one of oppression. Others said that the picture represented the woman’s strength and freedom. Many Islamic scholars and women in burqa them- selves have stated that the burqa for them is a symbol of freedom. It means freedom of movement, and freedom from unwanted male attention or harassment in public spaces. The woman’s raised finger also served as a Rorschach test, being variously interpreted depending upon the viewer’s cul- tural frame of reference. In the Indian context, however, the symbolism is clear. The black indelible ink on the woman’s finger shows she has exercised her right to vote and thus to influence the election of leaders of her state. While we know little about her level of oppression or freedom in other as- pects of her life, in the domain of electoral politics she is free, and choosing to make her voice heard. The picture of the woman in the burqa thus reflects the complexities in measuring empowerment and in moving from universal concepts to context- specific measures. However complex and difficult, this is a problem that must be tackled. Poverty reduction on a large scale depends on empowering the cen- tral actors, those who are most motivated to move out of poverty—poor peo- ple themselves. But if empowerment cannot be measured, it will not be taken seriously in development policy making and programming. ix x Preface This book brings together perspectives of economists, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, demographers, and political scientists who are grappling with the challenge of measuring empowerment. It is intended for planners, practitioners, evaluators, and students—indeed for all who are interested in an approach to poverty reduction that deals with the inequitable power relations that keep poor people trapped in poverty despite their back- breaking toil. The book is based on proceedings of an international, interdisciplinary workshop on measuring empowerment organized by the World Bank’s Poverty Reduction and Economic Management network in 2003.