Three Worlds of Capabilities?: Comparing Capabilities Among Social Democratic, Liberal, and Christian Democratic Regimes

Abstract

The capabilities approach has gained more legitimacy and use as a way of comparing government performance. While many of the criteria it uses to judge government performance are useful when trying to compare developing and developed countries, these same standards are not very revealing when one tries to use them to compare capabilities among only developed countries. This paper proposes new, more discerning and subtle measures of capabilities to apply to Western countries. It then applies them to archetypical countries that represent Esping-Andersen’s three worlds of welfare capitalism to see whether social democratic, liberal, or Christian democratic regimes better promote the capabilities of their citizens.