The Decent Society The search for ‘the Decent Society’ – a fit place in which to live – has informed policy at both governmental and international level. This book analyses its nature and devises a consistent way of measuring the concept worldwide on the basis of a coherent theory of agency within social structure. Influenced by classical sociology and by the economist Amartya Sen, the book posits that societies need to create (a) economic security, (b) social cohesion, (c) social inclusion, and (d) the conditions for empowerment. The model is interactive and recursive; each component provides the requirements for each of the others. This book outlines the sociopolitical framework underlying ‘the Decent Soci- ety’ and summarises a decade of research, some of which has had a formative impact on governments’ policies. The first half contains studies of social quality based on surveys in the former Soviet Union and sub-Saharan Africa, while the second half describes the construction of a Decent Society Index for comparing very different countries across the world. This book and the index it develops will be of interest both to academics and researchers in sociology, politics, economics, psychology, social policy and devel- opment studies and to policy-makers in government, local government and the NGOs. Pamela Abbott is an honorary professor in the School of Social Sciences and an associate of the Centre for International Sustainable Development at the Uni- versity of Aberdeen, UK. Claire Wallace is a professor of sociology at the University of Aberdeen, UK. Roger Sapsford has recently retired from the post of Professor of Social Psy- chology and Research Methods at the National University of Rwanda and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen. Routledge Advances in Sociology For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com 170 Understanding Southern Social Movements Edited by Simin Fadaee 171 Sharing Lives Adult Children and Parents Marc Szydlik 172 The Reflexive Initiative On the Grounds and Prospects of Analytic Theorizing Edited by Stanley Raffel and Barry Sandywell 173 Social Movements in Violently Divided Societies Constructing Conflict and Peacebuilding John Nagle 174 Challenging Identities European horizons Edited by Peter Madsen 175 Cool Nations Media and the social imaginary of the branded country Katja Valaskivi 176 Thanatourism and Cinematic Representations of Risk Screening the end of tourism Rodanthi Tzanelli 177 The Decent Society Planning for social quality Pamela Abbott, Claire Wallace and Roger Sapsford The Decent Society Planning for social quality Pamela Abbott, Claire Wallace and Roger Sapsford First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Pamela Abbott, Claire Wallace and Roger Sapsford The right of Pamela Abbott, Claire Wallace and Roger Sapsford to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Abbott, Pamela, author. | Wallace, Claire, 1956– author. | Sapsford, Roger, editor. Title: The decent society : planning for social quality / Pamela Abbott, Claire Wallace and Roger Sapsford. Description: New York : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge advances in sociology Identifiers: LCCN 2015045913 | ISBN 9781138909335 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315694023 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Social policy. | Social integration. | Social change. | Power (Social sciences) Classification: LCC HN18.3 .A23 2016 | DDC 303.3—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015045913 ISBN: 978-1-138-90933-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-69402-3 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents List of figures viii List of tables ix Preface x Acknowledgements xii List of abbreviations and acronyms xiii 1 The decent society 1 What we expect from government 1 Understanding decent lives 5 Measuring decent lives 8 Social quality and the decent society 13 Conditions for the decent society 18 2 Economic security 21 Resources for survival 21 The wealth of nations 22 The social wage 23 The functions of economic security 29 The sustainability of economic security 32 Measuring economic security 34 3 Social cohesion 37 The cohesive society 37 Domains and functions of social cohesion 40 Governance 45 The scope and sustainability of social cohesion 47 Measuring social cohesion 50 vi Contents 4 Social inclusion 53 What social inclusion means 53 Processes of social inclusion 55 Family, community and inclusion 58 The functions and elements of social inclusion 64 Measuring social inclusion 70 5 Social empowerment 72 Agency and its context 72 Empowerment and capability 76 The elements of empowerment 78 Measuring empowerment 80 6 Social quality in transitional societies: A summary of research 83 Developing research: towards social quality 83 The former Soviet Union: countries in transition 85 Rwanda: a state that recreated itself 92 From satisfaction to the decent society 101 7 Constructing a Decent Society Index 105 The need for a different index 105 Constituting the Decent Society Index 107 8 Using the Decent Society Index 119 Headline results 119 The top sixteen countries 121 Planned social development: the case of Rwanda 125 The world’s poorest countries 131 Using the Decent Society Index 133 9 Conclusions and future directions 134 The Decent Society Model 134 Assessing the Model 136 Capability, functioning and the provision of prerequisite conditions 140 Contents vii The uses of the Index 142 Next steps in using the Model and the Index 145 References 147 Appendix 162 Index 173 Figures 1.1 The Social Quality Model 15 2.1 World map: Index of Economic Security 31 3.1 World map of Trust 43 7.1 The computation of primary indicator, domain and quadrant scores 110 8.1 World map: Decent Society scores 120 8.2 Deviation of quadrants from world mean values – the top sixteen countries 122 8.3 Domains within Economic Security for the top sixteen countries (excluding food security) 123 8.4 Scores for the index: Rwanda, the EAC, the DRC and Sub-Saharan Africa 126 8.5 Scores for quadrants: Rwanda, the EAC, the DRC and Sub-Saharan Africa 127 8.6 Domain scores within Economic Security for EAC countries and the DRC 128 8.7 Domain scores within Social Cohesion for EAC countries and the DRC 128 8.8 Selected indicator scores within Trust in People and Institutions for EAC countries and the DRC 129 8.9 Domain scores within Social Inclusion for EAC countries and the DRC 130 8.10 Domain scores within Empowerment for EAC countries and the DRC 131 Tables 7.1 Correlation among the four quadrants 111 7.2 Correlation of domains with quadrant scores 112 7.3 Component structure of domains 115 8.1 Data for the sixteen poorest countries 132 9.1 Correlation of the Decent Society Index with other key variables 139 A.1 Decent Society Index and quadrant ranks, in alphabetical order 162 A.2 Decent Society Index and quadrant ranks, in order of overall rank 165 A.3 Indicators used in the Index 168