Notions Of Need Research Articles

Conceptualising Capabilities and Dimensions of Advantage as Needs

Amartya Sen’s critique of the concept of need and his case for the superiority of capability as a measure of advantage have been highly influential. However, Sen perpetuates a caricature. Needs are not necessarily mere instrumental resource requirements achieving ends; the valuable ends of people’s lives can themselves constitute needs, as can freedoms. Indeed, these ideas are already present in basic needs theory. Moreover, official disavowals notwithstanding, expansive notions of need are implicitly present in certain important theories of capabilities and other advantages. Objections to need can be undermined in part by showing how this is the case. Aversion to need is unfortunate, because the concept offers powerful theoretical resources that could be better exploited if negative preconceptions were overcome and need were explicitly embraced. However, this proposal is friendly. It is not that need should replace, but that it can augment, other concepts. Drawing on need may assist with: selecting important capabilities or dimensions of advantage; marking a distinction of seriousness between these and relatively trivial advantages (and buttressing claims to the ethical or political priority of the former); explaining the incommensurability/non-substitutability of certain capabilities and dimensions of advantage, and; defining notions of sufficiency.

From Residualisation to Individualization? Social Tenants’ Experiences in Post-Olympics East Village

ABSTRACT This paper provides an insight into social tenants’ lived experiences in post-Olympics East Village, exploring how they are shaped by new forms of neoliberalism embedded into housing provision. Focusing on allocations policy reform and housing providers’ management strategies in East Village, this paper identifies a shift from patterns of residualisation to individualization, as self-reliant tenants are sought above those most in housing need. The housing provider’s financial responsibilisation and contractual strategies work to construct tenants with enhanced consumer identities, which shift risks from landlord to tenants, at a time when housing providers themselves are facing increased financial risks. The paper considers to what extent social housing discourse is shifting from notions of need to concerns with affordability, and how this exacerbates inequalities between working-class fractions. It is argued that it is not sufficient to simply call for more social rented housing, as social housing providers’ allocation and management practices must also be closely examined.

The Sociopolitical Context of LCFF: Resource Allocation and Minoritized Communities in Silicon Valley

ABSTRACTThe goals of this article are to provide a critical policy analysis and conceptual examination of California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and Accountability (LCAP) systems in the Silicon Valley context. The goals and structure of this article are as follows: First, I situate my discussion on LCFF by providing a sociocultural and sociopolitical portrait of the Silicon Valley context where this examination takes place. Next, I highlight key findings from a critical policy analysis of LCAPs and corresponding budgets in one Northern California county comprising 31 districts, whereby juxtaposing notions of need with actual allocation of resources. As part of my descriptive analysis I shed light on the politics of California’s LCFF in practice, and implications for minoritized communities.

“I don't know how I'm still standing” a Bakhtinian analysis of social housing and health narratives in East London

Housing is a significant determinant of health and substandard housing is a public health issue. East London has long had a shortage of social and affordable housing, worsened in recent years by a combination of stressors. In one of East London's most deprived boroughs, Newham, changes brought about by the 2011 Localism Act and the unique demands of being the host Olympic borough in 2012 have brought considerable pressures to bear on social infrastructure. This paper examines how these pressures were experienced by local residents via their narratives of social housing and health. The data reported here are from a qualitative study comprising two waves of data collection. Narrative family interviews and go-along interviews were conducted with 40 Newham residents at wave one and 28 at wave two. A narrative analysis with a Bakhtinian interpretation was undertaken. This revealed that residents framed experiences of social housing in terms of an inherent system-level ideology based on notions of need and waiting. A particularly striking feature of this ideology was the extent to which descriptions of ill health and impairment were implicated in constructions of housing need; participants directly attributed a range of health complaints to their housing predicaments, including stress, depression, cancer scares, panic attacks and loss of sleep. Understanding the contested ideology of social housing can illuminate both the dynamic processes of social exclusion and the ways in which its subjects seek to resist it.

The Myth of the Disposition: Motivation and Personality in Management

AbstractReaders of management books frequently find themselves among experts who claim to know about motivational and personality dispositions. However, they find it impossible to agree on the most basic of details. This paper argues that dispositions are myths derived from an inadequate grasp of their dubious logical and linguistic status. Concepts such as need, motive and trait are logically deficient because of the inherent problem of circularity and linguistically inadequate because of the vagueness of definition that applies to all dispositional theories. Two leading representatives of the motivational dispositional perspective in management [David McClelland and Abraham Maslow] serve as the basis for case studies in which the notions of need and motive are shown to be problematic. Personality traits are also analysed critically and reveal similar deficiencies. An analysis of the authoritarian personality serves as a third case study and reveals an important negative relationship between personality and intelligence. It is argued that personality reflects deficiencies rather than dispositions and an alternative view is offered which treats individuals as pattern perceivers and rational choosers of goals. Such a view, however, works against dispositionalism's scientism, which has found much favour with managers and their consultants for the past fifty years. Why this should be the case is briefly explored.

The Myth of the Disposition: Motivation and Personality in Management

AbstractReaders of management books frequently find themselves among experts who claim to know about motivational and personality dispositions. However, they find it impossible to agree on the most basic of details. This paper argues that dispositions are myths derived from an inadequate grasp of their dubious logical and linguistic status. Concepts such as need, motive and trait are logically deficient because of the inherent problem of circularity and linguistically inadequate because of the vagueness of definition that applies to all dispositional theories. Two leading representatives of the motivational dispositional perspective in management [David McClelland and Abraham Maslow] serve as the basis for case studies in which the notions of need and motive are shown to be problematic. Personality traits are also analysed critically and reveal similar deficiencies. An analysis of the authoritarian personality serves as a third case study and reveals an important negative relationship between personality and intelligence. It is argued that personality reflects deficiencies rather than dispositions and an alternative view is offered which treats individuals as pattern perceivers and rational choosers of goals. Such a view, however, works against dispositionalism's scientism, which has found much favour with managers and their consultants for the past fifty years. Why this should be the case is briefly explored.

Needs and choice in housing: An individualist approach

This article discusses the notion of need as a non‐intentional state and discusses the distinction between housing as a basic or instrumental need. It suggests that housing is an example of an instrumental need and thus related to individual choices. The article uses this definition of need to undertake a critique of the notion of housing need based on the merit good argument of government intervention. The article concluded by suggesting a moral basis akin to that of Nozick (1974) which could serve as a framework for housing processes based on individualist notions of need and choice.

Chinese and western notions of need

In this article, we compare Chinese and western notions of need, by look ing at the theoretical underpinnings of need in western and Chinese moral thought. We do so, first, by outlining a theory of need developed by Doyal and Gough (1984, 1991), second, by examining the notion of autonomy, third, by considering social obligations, and, fourth, by look ing at the social construction of need. We conclude by arguing for a con sideration of a theory of need based upon Confucian principles of con nectedness.