Abstract

Illustrates how the concept of current well‐being can be put to work on the contemporary world. I draw upon evidence from the contemporary world's poorest countries to suggest that, interestingly, the three constituent spheres of citizenship may well be synergistically related to one another. The findings indicate that democracy and civil liberties are not only intrinsically valuable, but may even be instruments for bringing about material progress in poor countries. The fact remains though that, within democratic countries, there are enormous differences in people's life chances. Democracies in poor regions harbour malnourished people. It is argued that the malnourished are caught in poverty traps. In order to explain the findings, we are led to study institutions and the role they play in determining the allocation of resources.