From the capability approach to capability-based social policy

This concluding chapter synthesizes the key messages from the book and presents a framework for future uses of the capability approach (CA) in social policy research and practice. As shown throughout the volume, social policy as a multi-layered research field spans numerous domains, each with their inherent complexities and approaches. Taking policy domains as an evaluative entry point, social policy research seeks to understand their development, processes, aims, implementation and impact from multiple perspectives and actors, including policymakers, professionals and practitioners, and policy recipients. The CA offers a promising way forward in understanding these multiple perspectives as demonstrated by the individual chapters in this volume. We break systematically from the established scholarship in our aim to offer new frameworks for analysing and formulating policies. We propose the use of a capability approach to social policy (see Chapter One), further specified into capability theories (Robeyns, 2017), as illustrated by the conceptual and methodological developments in this volume, synthesized here. Additionally, we discuss a three-tiered translational process for shifting from developing an evaluative space for understanding social policy development, its implementation and effects, towards developing capability-based social policies at a collective level. This final, concluding chapter, briefly summarizes the key arguments of the book to provide a foundation for making this shift.