DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit Individual Freedom – Collective Happiness A Discussion of Bhutan´s Concept of “Gross National Happiness“ Verfasserin Mara Simperler, BA angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra (Mag.) Wien, 2013 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 057 390 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Individuelles Diplomstudium Internationale Entwicklung Betreuer: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Wolfram Schaffar 2 Acknowledgements I want to thank Wolfram Schaffar for listening to what I had to say, for saying the right words back and for believing in my idea, even when the circumstances were complicated. I owe thanks to my family, who always supports me and to my friends, who were patient when I was stressed. Thanks especially to Regina, Martina, Cat, Heather and Val for your comments. Thank you, Jakob, for being you and for your support. 3 4 „GNH, GNH. GNH - Oh God, it is so confusing. This GNH has me totally baffled. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the principles of GNH are the antithesis to GPH - Gross Personal Happiness.“ (Dorji 2011) 5 6 Index 1 Introduction...........................................................................................................................10 1.1 Research Interest and Contextualization ...................................................................... 11 1.2 Research Questions....................................................................................................... 12 1.3 Current State of Research ............................................................................................13 2 Theoretical Background........................................................................................................ 15 2.1 Happiness as a Development Factor............................................................................. 15 2.2 Concepts of Freedom.....................................................................................................20 2.3 Amartya Sen: Development as Freedom....................................................................... 23 2.4 Freedom and Happiness ............................................................................................... 28 2.5 The Universality of Values............................................................................................ 35 2.6 Individualism and Collectivism.....................................................................................41 3 Overview Bhutan.................................................................................................................. 46 3.1 Geography..................................................................................................................... 46 3.2 History .......................................................................................................................... 48 3.3 Political System.............................................................................................................55 3.4 Culture and Religion..................................................................................................... 59 3.5 Society........................................................................................................................... 63 3.6 Economy .......................................................................................................................66 4 Gross National Happiness.....................................................................................................69 4.1 Development................................................................................................................. 69 4.2 Definition and Components ..........................................................................................73 4.3 Implementation and Survey Results..............................................................................80 5 Individual Freedom in Gross National Happiness................................................................ 85 5.1 Methodology and Research Design...............................................................................87 5.2 Findings of the Research .............................................................................................. 90 6 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................103 7 Bibliography............................................................................................................................104 Directory of Bhutanese Terms.........................................................................................................117 List of Figures................................................................................................................................. 119 Abbreviations.................................................................................................................................. 120 Abstract........................................................................................................................................... 121 Zusammenfassung...........................................................................................................................122 Codebook ....................................................................................................................................... 123 Coding Sheets..................................................................................................................................125 Curriculum Vitae............................................................................................................................. 133 8 Figure 1: Map of the Kingdom of Bhutan (Eder 2013) 9 1 Introduction The story goes as follows. In the 1970s1, a small group of journalists was given entry into the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. The journalists had the opportunity to meet the fourth King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, and one of them asked the king: “How big is the annual Gross Domestic Product of Bhutan?” It was 50 US-Dollars, the lowest value in the ranking; the journalist had known this before. The king of Bhutan answered: “I am not so much interested in the Gross Domestic Product. Gross National Happiness is more important than the Gross National Product” (Rutland, quoted in Walter 2009: 70). The first reference to Gross National Happiness (GNH) was the starting point of a development idea that evolved from a mere philosophical guideline into a scientific index and concrete policy programs. Bhutan´s development concept has received widespread attention all over the world as an indigenous idea and an alternative to existing development paradigms. Despite its great success, there are some critical voices as well. People on the streets of Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, sometimes refer to GNH as “Gross National Hypocrisy” and some measures meant to increase GNH, like the discussion about mandatory wearing of the traditional dress in public at all times, from a European perspective seem like an “enforcement” of happiness. The inspiration for this paper came from a journalistic visit to Bhutan in 2011, where I researched the concept of GNH. In conversations with Bhutanese citizens and during several interviews with ministers and other officials, it sometimes seemed that the strive towards collective happiness was given more importance than the individual freedom of the people. The idea for the topic of the thesis thus did not originate from literature, but from experiences in Bhutan. In order to examine this relationship scientifically, I dedicated my final thesis to it. This paper starts with an overview of how happiness emerged as a development factor and gives an overview over different concepts of freedom. Amartya Sen´s work on development as freedom is the basis for the definition of freedom used in this paper and thus is discussed in a separate chapter. In order to combine the two major approaches in this paper, freedom and happiness, their relationship is examined through the findings of research of the past years. Even though GNH is not synonym with “Western” perceptions of happiness, they still have their role in GNH and therefore I included the discussions on correlations between happiness and freedom. The chapters about the universality of values and individualism and collectivism 1 The exact year differs across sources. 10 are of importance, as I am writing this paper as a European with corresponding values. These chapters are meant to reflect on this factor and open a broader field of analysis. The theoretical part is followed by a chapter about Bhutan, describing its geography, history and political system. In order to understand the concept of GNH, background knowledge about Bhutan is essential, as the development of some ideas related to GNH were clearly influenced by specifics of the Bhutanese context. The chapter also includes culture and religion, since GNH is strongly influenced by those issues. Furthermore, I discuss the Bhutanese society and economy. The chapter about Gross National Happiness explains the development of the concept from a philosophical idea into a scientifically measurable index, corresponding initiatives and a related ministry. I also discuss briefly the results of the first nationwide GNH survey that was conducted in 2010. The last chapter brings together what has been discussed before and combines it with empirical data that were collected for this paper. Including interviews with Bhutanese officials, an examination of