Gross National Happiness: Bhutan's Vision of Development and its Challenges

Abstract

This paper consists of two parts, which are conceptually only loosely interconnected. Proceeding from an impressionistic comparison of Bhutanese development in the late 1950s and in the late 1990s, Part I of this essay explores the missing link, the question of why development has taken the shape it did and why certain policy priorities were adopted, while others were neglected. It is concerned with the vision of Bhutanese development and its determining factors rather than with the technicalities of the actual development process. It will be argued that the Bhutanese development concept evolved from the country’s unique socio-economic, historic and political circumstances, thus being one of the last truly indigenous development approaches. As such, the first part of the paper suggests a model of Gross National Happiness, which is based on empirical research.1 It is important to emphasise this, considering that the current discourse on Gross National Happiness seems dominated by various opinions and ad hoc interpretations, which assume a certain meaning of the concept as the starting point for assessment or commentary. Concluding that Gross National Happiness – a vision sui generis – has led to an astonishingly smooth and undistorted process of change, Part II of the paper outlines three imminent challenges, which can be expected to put increasing pressure on the concept and call for an early adjustment of development priorities. As such, the second part of the essay is intended to be a policy-oriented concept paper rather than a research paper.