This book offers an original account of a distinctly republican theory of social and global justice. The book starts by exploring the nature and value of Hegelian recognition theory. It shows the importance of that theory for grounding a normative account of free and autonomous agency. It is this normative account of free agency which provides the groundwork for a republican conception of social and global justice, based on the core-ideas of freedom as non-domination and autonomy as non-alienation. As the (...) author argues, republicans should endorse a sufficientarian account of social justice, which focuses on the nature of social relationships and their effects on people's ability to act freely and realize their fundamental interests. On the global level, the book argues for the cosmopolitan extension of the republican principles of non-domination and non-alienation within a multi-level democratic system. In so doing, the book addresses a major gap in the existing literature, presenting an original theory of justice, which combines Hegelian recognition theory and republican ideas of freedom, and applying this hybrid theory to the global domain. Fabian Schuppert creates a grand synthesis uniting neo-republican insights on freedom with Hegelian recognition theory. The result is an account of agency that arises from the idea of non-domination whose aim it is to safeguard individual freedom. When combined with Hegelian recognition theory a social focus also emerges. This amalgam comments on many of the major disputes concerning global justice from a cosmopolitan perspective. Because of the broad scope and the many contemporary discussions engaged this book will be of keen interest to scholars as well as a welcome addition to the classroom. (shrink)

Public deliberation has been defended as a rational and noncoercive way to overcome paradoxical results from democratic voting, by promoting consensus on the available alternatives on the political agenda. Some critics have argued that full consensus is too demanding and inimical to pluralism and have pointed out that single-peakedness, a much less stringent condition, is sufficient to overcome voting paradoxes. According to these accounts, deliberation can induce single-peakedness through the creation of a ‘meta-agreement’, that is, agreement on the dimension according (...) to which the issues at stake are ‘conceptualized’. We argue here that once all the conditions needed for deliberation to bring about single-peakedness through meta-agreement are unpacked and made explicit, meta-agreement turns out to be a highly demanding condition, and one that is very inhospitable to pluralism. (shrink)

The question of whether global democracy requires a world state has with few exceptions been answered with an unequivocal ‘No’. A world state, it is typically argued, is neither feasible nor desirable. Instead, different forms of global governance arrangements have been suggested, involving non-hierarchical and multilayered models with dispersed authority. The overall aim of this paper is to addresses the question of whether global democracy requires a world state, adopting a so-called ‘function-sensitive’ approach. It is shown that such an approach (...) is equipped to resist the predominant binary view of a world state and offer a more differentiated and nuanced answer to this question. In brief, a basic presumption of a function-sensitive approach is that the content, justification and status of principles of democracy are dependent on the aim they are set out to achieve, what functions they are intended to regulate (e.g., decision-making, implementation, enforce... (shrink)

The paper presents a renewed Habermasian view on transnational multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) and assesses the institutional characteristics of the Equator Principles Association (EPA) from a deliberative democracy perspective. Habermas’ work has been widely adopted in the academic literature on the political responsibilities of (multinational) corporations (i.e., political corporate social responsibility), and also in assessing the democratic qualities of MSIs. Commentators, however, have noted that Habermas’ approach relies very much on ‘nation-state democracy’ and may not be applicable to democracy in MSIs—in (...) which nation-states are virtually absent. We argue that Habermas’ detailed conceptualization of the institutionalization of deliberative democracy can be applied to transnational MSIs if these initiatives can be said to have their own ‘dèmoi’ that can be represented in associational decision-making. Therefore, we develop a definition of the dèmos of an MSI based on the notion of collective agency. Subsequently, we explain how Habermas’ approach to democracy can be applied to MSIs and show that it has more to offer than hitherto has been uncovered. Our illustrative analysis of the EPA confirms the criticisms regarding this MSI which have recently been articulated by researchers and practitioners, but also yields new findings and possible avenues for the further development of the EPA: That is, although our assessment suggests that the EPA in its current state is still far from being a democratic MSI, the possibility of a sensible analysis of its democratic character indicates that transnational MSIs can, in principle, help to fill governance gaps in a democratic way. (shrink)

Which standards should we employ to evaluate the global order? Should they be standards of justice or standards of legitimacy? In this article, I argue that liberal political theorists need not face this dilemma, because liberal justice and legitimacy are not distinct values. Rather, they indicate what the same value, i.e. equal respect for persons, demands of institutions under different sets of circumstances. I suggest that under real-world circumstances? characterized by conflicts and disagreements? equal respect demands basic-rights protection and democratic (...) participation, which I here call?political justice?. I conclude the article by considering three possible configurations of the global order? the?democratic world-state?,?independent democratic states?, and?mixed? models? and argue that a commitment to political justice speaks in favour of the latter. (shrink)

Cosmopolitan principles of justice tell us that it is the responsibility of the wealthy to ensure the immediate transfer of resources to the poor. Yet, it cannot be denied that most countries, and most individual citizens, seem unwilling to act as these principles demand. At issue is motivation: although many people would agree that cosmopolitan principles of justice are right, at least to some extent, few seem motivationally inspired to act upon them. This paper evaluates one set of proposals for (...) securing the transfer of resources from the wealthy to the poor, namely, those that suggest that the right way to achieve cosmopolitan objectives is to generate institutions that will, over time, produce cosmopolitans. I argue that we should focus, doubly, on the generation of supra-national institutions as a way to create a?global demos? and on harnessing the motivational resources available at the nation-state level. (shrink)

The paper presents a renewed Habermasian view on transnational multi-stakeholder initiatives and assesses the institutional characteristics of the Equator Principles Association from a deliberative democracy perspective. Habermas’ work has been widely adopted in the academic literature on the political responsibilities of corporations, and also in assessing the democratic qualities of MSIs. Commentators, however, have noted that Habermas’ approach relies very much on ‘nation-state democracy’ and may not be applicable to democracy in MSIs—in which nation-states are virtually absent. We argue that (...) Habermas’ detailed conceptualization of the institutionalization of deliberative democracy can be applied to transnational MSIs if these initiatives can be said to have their own ‘dèmoi’ that can be represented in associational decision-making. Therefore, we develop a definition of the dèmos of an MSI based on the notion of collective agency. Subsequently, we explain how Habermas’ approach to democracy can be applied to MSIs and show that it has more to offer than hitherto has been uncovered. Our illustrative analysis of the EPA confirms the criticisms regarding this MSI which have recently been articulated by researchers and practitioners, but also yields new findings and possible avenues for the further development of the EPA: That is, although our assessment suggests that the EPA in its current state is still far from being a democratic MSI, the possibility of a sensible analysis of its democratic character indicates that transnational MSIs can, in principle, help to fill governance gaps in a democratic way. (shrink)

This article outlines a new approach to answering the foundational question in democratic theory of how the boundaries of democratic political units should be delineated. Whereas democratic theorists have mostly focused on identifying the appropriate population-group – or demos – for democratic decisionmaking, it is argued here that we should also take account of considerations relating to the appropriate scope of a democratic unit’s institutionalized governance capabilities – or public power. These matter because democratically legitimate governance is produced not only (...) through the decision-making agency of a demos, but also through the institutionally distinct sources of political agency that shape the governance capabilities of public power. To develop this argument, the article traces a new theoretical account of the normative and institutional sources of collective agency, political legitimacy, and democratic boundaries, and illustrates it through a democratic reconstruction of the classical body politic metaphor. It further shows how this theoretical account lends strong prescriptive support to pluralist institutional boundaries within democratic global governance. (shrink)

Populism’s Challenges to Political Reason can be seen as a consequence of social and cultural trends, the so called ‘emotional culture’, that have been accentuated in recent decades. By considering those trends, this article aims at shedding light on some distinctive marks of contemporary populism in order to argue for a reconfiguration of the public sphere that, without ignoring emotion, recovers argumentation and persuasion based on facts and reason.

Populism’s Challenges to Political Reason can be seen as a consequence of social and cultural trends, the so called ‘emotional culture’, that have been accentuated in recent decades. By considering those trends, this article aims at shedding light on some distinctive marks of contemporary populism in order to argue for a reconfiguration of the public sphere that, without ignoring emotion, recovers argumentation and persuasion based on facts and reason.

The Eurozone crisis has brought the imperative of democratic autonomy within the EU to the forefront, a concern at the core of demoicratic theory. The article seeks to move the scholarship on demoicratic theory a step further by exploring what we call the social construction of demoicratic reality. While the EU’s legal-institutional infrastructure may imperfectly approximate a demoicratic structure, we need ask to what extent the ‘bare bones’ demoicratic character of a polity can actually be grounded in a full-flesh social (...) construct that is or could be acted out in the democratic experience and the self-awareness of its peoples. Ultimately, such an enquiry should help us understand whether a polity like the EU is actually and potentially a stable or unstable political form. We develop a consistent theory of popular sovereignty drawing on John Searle and HLA Hart to conceive the constitutionalised people as a social fact and the sovereignty of the people as a status ascribed to the people. We use this construction of demoicratic reality as a conceptual framework to understand the possibility of popular sovereignty being exercised concurrently by several rather than just one dêmos. (shrink)

The original constitution of the dêmos by democratic means is a fundamental problem for normative democratic theory. In this paper, I make an assessment of different solutions to the dêmos problem that have been presented in recent literature. I find that none of them is adequate, and thus hold that the dêmos problem remains unresolved. At the end of the paper, I propose a constellation in which multiple dêmoi are thought to be constituted at the same time. I show that (...) this leads to a mitigation of the negative consequences that are implied in the proposed solutions analysed in previous parts of the paper. Constituting the dêmos according to the democratic ideal is more expedient under the conditions of a large number of individuals having the option to form a plurality of dêmoi. This overall conclusion means that the democratic legitimacy of the dêmos itself is critically dependent on a relational setting of relatively open but independent dêmoi. The relations between dêmoi and the freedom of movement among them is thus not something which is added to ideal democratic theory as an external and foreign element reducing the legitimacy of a democracy. Rather, the norm that states that there should be multiple dêmoi that openly relate to each other is actually part of the hard core of democratic legitimacy. (shrink)

This paper critiques the All-Subjected Principle. The All-Subjected Principle is one of the most prominent answers to the Boundary Problem, which consists in determining who should be entitled to participate in which democratic decision. The All-Subjected Principle comes in many versions, but the general idea is that all people who are subjected in a relevant sense with regard to a democratic decision should be entitled to participate in that decision. One respect in which versions of the All-Subjected Principle differ concerns (...) how to best understand ‘subjectedness’. One view spells out ‘subjectedness’ in terms of legal bindingness. Another view understands ‘subjectedness’ in terms of coercion. I argue that the All-Subjected Principle is extensionally inadequate on both views in that it yields verdicts that are at odds with our considered judgements about certain cases. These cases involve legal norms of referral or international administrative assistance. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I critique one way of arguing for global democracy on grounds of affected interests and defend another. A famous argument for global democracy, which I call the Demos-Based Argument, attempts to justify global democracy based on the claim that affected interests vindicate individual claims to democratic participation or representation. I analyze and evaluate the Demos-Based Argument and consider different ways of interpreting and justifying its crucial premise: the Principle of Affected Interests. The result is that the argument (...) fails. One lesson of the discussion of the Demos-Based Argument is that the most promising, though eventually unsuccessful, justification of the Principle of Affected Interests is utilitarian. Given the failure of the Demos-Based Argument, the question suggests itself if there is another way to argue for global democracy on utilitarian grounds. I will outline a promising alternative argument for global democracy, which I call the Direct Argument. Like the De... (shrink)

Political legitimacy is a virtue of political institutions and of the decisions—about laws, policies, and candidates for political office—made within them. This entry will survey the main answers that have been given to the following questions. First, how should legitimacy be defined? Is it primarily a descriptive or a normative concept? If legitimacy is understood normatively, what does it entail? Some associate legitimacy with the justification of coercive power and with the creation of political authority. Others associate it with the (...) justification, or at least the sanctioning, of existing political authority. Authority stands for a right to rule—a right to issue commands and, possibly, to enforce these commands using coercive power. An additional question is whether legitimate political authority is understood to entail political obligations or not. Most people probably think it does. But some think that the moral obligation to obey political authority can be separated from an account of legitimate authority, or at least that such obligations arise only if further conditions hold. (shrink)

This is a collection of four papers about the All-Affected Principle (AAP): the view that every person whose morally weighty interests are affected by a democratic decision has the right to participate in that decision. -/- The first paper (“Narrow Possibilism about Democratic Enfranchisement”) examines how we should distribute democratic participation rights: a plausible version of AAP must avoid treating unlike cases alike, which would be procedurally unfair. The solution is to distribute participation rights proportionately to the risk that a (...) person’s interests will be affected. AAP thus implies an account of political equality that requires adherence to the ‘one person—one vote’ model only if interests are indeed equally affected. -/- The second paper (“Economic Participation Rights and the AAP”) argues that AAP supporters have paid insufficient attention to economic participation rights. The exercise of such rights raises unique worries about democratic accountability, which is why their exercise is constrained by a number of duties. -/- The third paper (“What AAP Is, and How (Not) to Fight It”) explores how AAP fares in light of possible objections from desirability and feasibility. Unlike crude versions of AAP, a plausibly restricted version of AAP cannot be dismissed as easily as many AAP sceptics may have thought. My reflections here are useful for AAP supporters and sceptics alike: this paper helps clarify what kind of objection can cast serious doubt on AAP. -/- The fourth paper (“Criminal Disenfranchisement, Political Wrongdoing, and Affected Interests”) asks: is AAP compatible with criminal disenfranchisement? AAP, when endorsed in combination with a plausible theory of punishment, is compatible with disenfranchising a narrow set of criminal wrongdoers only: those guilty of ‘political wrongdoing’, which is wrong primarily because it undermines democratic procedures and institutions for private gain. The upshot is that current blanket policies of criminal disenfranchisement are incompatible with AAP. (shrink)

Vaikka suurin osa viimeaikaisesta ilmaston lämpenemisestä on ihmisten aiheuttamaa antropogeenista lämpenemistä, yksittäisten ihmisten kausaalinen vaikutus ilmastonmuutokseen on minimaalinen, jopa mitätön. Tämän takia jotkut väittävät, että on harhaanjohtavaa pitää yksilöitä vastuussa ilmastonmuutoksesta. Tällainen argumentointi perustuu perinteisiin vastuutulkintoihin ja -käsitteisiin, joissa vastuun perustana painotetaan toimijan näkökulmaa ja hänen kausaalista rooliaan: jos toimijan teot tai tekemättä jättämiset eivät vaikuta lopputulokseen, hän ei ole vastuussa siitä. Ilmastonmuutoksessa on toinenkin vastuukäsitysten kannalta ongelmallinen seikka, intentionaalisuus eli tahallisuus: ihmiskunta tai yksittäiset ihmiset eivät ole tietoisesti lähteneet muuttamaan (...) ilmastoa. Päinvastoin ilmastonmuutos on syntynyt teollistumisen ja nykyisen elämäntyylimme tahattomana – ja pitkään myös tiedostamattomana – sivuvaikutuksena. Koska omien tekojemme kausaalinen vaikutus sekä niiden tahallisuus tai tahattomuus on luonnollisesti keskiössä arvioidessamme omaa vastuutamme, mahdollinen osallisuutemme vahingon tuottamiseen jää helposti vähemmälle huomiolle. -/- Keskityn tässä artikkelissa osallisuusvastuun (complicity) käsitteeseen ja argumentoin samalla liian yksilökeskeistä ajattelua vastaan. Kollektiivinen toimijuus on otettava huomioon siinä missä yksilökeskeinenkin. Vastuunkantaja ja vastuun peruste ovat analyyttisesti erillisiä käsitteitä, ja niiden tarkastelu voi valottaa vastuukeskustelua ilmastonmuutoksesta. Vastuun peruste voi olla yksilöllinen silloinkin, kun vastuunkantaja on kollektiivinen. Lisäksi argumentoin, että vastuusta puhuttaessa ei riitä katsoa asiaa vain toimijan itsensä kannalta, vaan myös uhrin ja sivustakatsojan näkökulmat on otettava huomioon. Vasta kun vastuukäytäntöjä tarkastellaan ihmisten keskinäisten (usein monimutkaisten) verkostojen ja linkitysten kautta, voidaan saada tasapainoinen kuva vastuumme määrästä ja sen rajoista. -/- Yksilön vastuu ei poista vastuuta kollektiiveilta, kuten valtioilta, ja voimme tehokkaimmin hillitä ilmastonmuutosta esimerkiksi lainsäädännön kautta. Ennen kuin kollektiiviset ratkaisut ilmastonmuutoksen hillitsemiseksi saadaan toimimaan, vastuu palautuu kuitenkin yksilöille. Vastuun peruste on aina yksilötasolla ja sitä voidaan ainoastaan delegoida kollektiiveille. Ilmastonmuutoksen kohdalla delegointi ei ole vielä toiminut. (shrink)