ABSTRACT
This chapter refers to as “capability-based” build on the idea that marginalization can be defeated only by considering differences. In the capability-based approach, political institutions are mainly required to enact a special form of “redistributive” politics, one that focuses on the quality of life. Starting with an assessment of “focal variables”, from the more general (the environment, both social and natural), to the more specific (personal characteristics, income and wealth, education, liberties, rights), capability-based inclusive policies should foster the development and exercise of different, personal and context-dependent capabilities. To sum up, the capability-based approach advocates the protection of a narrow cluster of liberties and rights but leaves a wide leeway in terms of which kind of norms should support them. Political institutions are required to comply with a set of pre-political principles that can be shaped in accordance with the specific variables of single national contexts.
