Marco Zupi shares much of Koonings’ criticism on current concepts of poverty that fail to include ‘the political’. In adding to the discussion, he highlights the ongoing interaction between different poverty approaches as well as the shortcomings of approaches that are limited to the notion of individual preferences.

Kees Koonings argues that the political dimensions of poverty require a tailored focus on poverty alleviation and that the mainstream approaches and assumptions on poverty do not suffice.

This is true. Development cooperation has not been able to substantially address interest positions and power relations, that is, the political dimension of poverty and poverty reduction. And the idea that a favourable environment for making development effective requires a mixture of sound macro-economic policies and complementary political reforms - in terms of good governance,
rule of law, consolidation of democracy and respect for human rights - can be criticised as well. This is because the concept of good governance is used simply in the reduced and technical sense of better public sector management and accountability.

Koonings touches on issues that involve complex measurement and data: (inter)national poverty and inequality, the pro-poor effects of economic growth, the multi-dimensional nature of poverty, and the innovation presented by PRSP and the MDGs. However, the discussion deliberately diverts the reader’s attention away from technical and statistical issues in order to focus on the poverty discourse itself.

To deconstruct this discourse is important. We see the relevance of new dimensions of poverty, for instance in Europe. Participation, social ties and networks are basic components of new poverty. This is a consequence of the shift from a distributional approach to poverty (only focused on inequality) to a distributional and relational one (which combines the effects of inequality, social cohesion and power relations). In communities facing multiple disadvantages there is a decline in the networks of relationships, support systems and organisations that facilitate the active participation of people in the community. This leads to social exclusion. The dimensions of political power, rights and citizenship (a political asset) further distinguish social exclusion from the traditional notion of poverty. Social exclusion is not the final state of economic and social deprivation. But the dynamic processes that create such a state push the poor into precariousness, vulnerability and exclusion. Marginalisation is translated into economic (insecure and low-paid jobs together with long-term and recurrent unemployment) and social (loss of networking and opportunities for social participation) and political (loss of participation and influence) deprivations.

The main statements of Koonings’ chapter are convincing, even though the length of the chapter does not permit much in-depth analysis. Koonings provides neat and provocative summaries of a critical assessment on the prevailing discourse on poverty. In order to contribute to this stimulating chapter, a few questionable or missing points can be highlighted.

Firstly, Koonings outlines (i) the trickle-down, (ii) the basic needs, and (iii) the good governance and human rights approaches as the three main approaches to poverty reduction. He then presents (iv) the PRSP and (v) the MDGs as somehow innovative initiatives. However, the author fails to discuss the importance of the interaction between these approaches and their cumulative effect.
An approach focused on basic needs and resources essentially leads to the commodification of poverty. It suggests that the main instrument to reduce poverty is to provide more goods and services - or the equivalent financial resources needed to access them. The MDGs in fact reflect this misleading perception of poverty.
The early trickle-down approach induced a distinction between ‘first’ change (economic growth) and ‘second’ change (social, political, cultural and human development). Again, this is still evident in the later approaches and initiatives. The basic needs approach does not address the ‘hard’ window of big infrastructure. And PRSP does not include any recommendations (in terms of a participatory approach, for instance) on financial matters, because stabilization is still secretly negotiated with the ‘hard’ financial ministries. The MDGs do not mention any ‘hard’ issue, such as infrastructure or small and medium-sized enterprise promotion, because economic growth and social development are still considered separate components.

Seen from this perspective, we must conclude that the notion of basic needs, the MDGs and PRSP agenda, as well as, I would like to add, the slogan of economic de-growth or décroissance (which has often been presented as a radical alternative and as a counter-globalisation discourse on poverty and development) are not really such alternative or essentially different approaches. Rather the opposite. The notion of de-growth as well as the separation between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ dimensions of poverty (in trickle down, PRSP, MDGs) are examples of the concept of ‘enantiodromia’ (first used by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, later cited by Carl Gustav Jung): opposites complement each other and are actually the same. Current poverty discourses clearly reflect the dominance of the economic growth priority and the trickle-down myth while, in a subaltern and defensive way, proposing the opposite solution (focussing on social dimensions – PRSP, MDGs – and being silent on what type of ‘pro-poor’ growth or, in a very subaltern position, reclaiming de-growth).

Secondly, given Koonings’ elaborate critical assessment of the prevailing paradigms, I had also expected him to mention the limitations of those poverty approaches focused on individual preferences, the so-called subjective perceptions. These are a powerful research tool for sociological and anthropological research, but can be easily abused or misused. Individual and collective preferences structurally depend on social, economic and political conditions. Traditional hierarchies, inequalities and privileges are crucial determinants of individual preferences, as expressed by both the poor and the rich. In the past, for example, people reduced to slavery were induced to think that they did not deserve freedom or to release themselves from bondage. Thus, also exclusively subjective approaches have strong limitations. What these approaches do rightly stress is the importance of bottom-up approaches; but this is not a panacea.

That’s why, I would argue, the concepts of common welfare and individual capabilities/qualifications more accurately embrace the diverse dimensions of poverty than the mainstream development concepts of basic needs or the notion of individual preferences. This entails a shift of perspective from negative (lack of resources) to positive aspects (capabilities to achieve functionings); and from the poor as passive to active subjects who are able to control their lives.

I entirely sympathise with the main conclusion of the chapter: in building up a more complex understanding of poverty, interest positions and power relations must be properly addressed. Inevitably, this implies equity issues must be a core aspect. Finally, I wish to add one more crucial aspect for understanding poverty: sustainability and eco-system changes, in which the role played by politics is extremely important. Unfortunately, this area currently only represents a small proportion of research work.

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Marco Zupi is an international development economist (MPh International Economiccs, Tor Vergata University; PhD International development economics, Roskilde University). He is Deputy Director of CeSPI (Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale), an Italian think-tank based in Rome, committed to research programmes focused on policy oriented development studies and international cooperation. He is also part-time Associate Professor of International Development Economics at Roskilde University, Denmark and visiting professor at CIRPS, Sapienza University in Rome. He has written and edited numerous books and articles on development co-operation and development economics. His most recent published books are Economia e Politica della Cooperazione allo sviluppo (Laterza, 2007, co-authored with Mauro Mellano) and La globalizzazione indebita (Società Editrice Internazionale, 2007).