Technologies of Choice? ICTs, Development and the Capabilities Approach

complexities and often misidentifies the causality linking specific reforms to results in what we might call the “evaluation gap” (p. 16). These problems may be overcome by eschewing normatively “thin” and instrumental approaches in favour of an alternative that is more “thick” and focused on justice and rights. Existing measures of evaluating reform and practice are often little more than inferential. This does not entail our abandoning such efforts, but rather retaking stock and adapting a different perspective. Part 3 offers three chapters providing an illuminating, rich tapestry of empirical evidence to support the central argument. Armytage considers the cases of the Asian Development Bank, the experience of Australia’s aid agency in Papua New Guinea and a selection of reform practitioners across the Asia Pacific region. Many themes emerge, but one that stood out for this reader is evidence that an instrumental approach to judicial reform may not secure justice especially when implemented top-down with a focus on outcomes rather than process. A more comprehensive approach based on capability may help overcome these known problems by offering a more integrated approach to law and political justice. Plus, a focus on capability can achieve development goals such as propoor empowerment often lacking in more traditional approaches to development. Furthermore, a capability approach model does not depend exclusively on the state for its realization. Thus, such a model may have greater reach and ability to become realized than existing models. This rights-based programme for development has many attractions. One concern is that it perhaps is more convincing regarding how others have gone wrong than regarding how it will prove right. The comprehensive critiques of the many failings of past and current judicial reforms are alone worth the modest price tag in a compelling commentary that exposes these flaws with extensive scholarship to support findings. Nonetheless, Armytage may be right that there remains deep disagreement over guiding principles, but we must know a bit more about how capability and a neo-Aristotelian understanding of justice might offer a more compelling alternative rather than yet another approach added to the mix. Nevertheless, Reforming Justice is a major contribution to how we might think about the institutionalization of the capability approach and the role that judicial reform can and should play in development.