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In this paper, we discuss Armstrong’s account of attachment-based claims to natural resources, the kind of rights that follow from attachment-based claims, and the limits we should impose on such claims. We hope to clarify how and why attachment matters in the discourse on resource rights by presenting three challenges to Armstrong’s theory. First, we question the normative basis for certain attachment claims, by trying to distinguish more clearly between different kinds of attachment and other kinds of claims. Second, we highlight the need to supplement Armstrong’s account with a theory of how to weigh different attachment claims so as to establish the normative standing that different kinds of attachment claims should have. Third, we propose that sustainability must be a necessary requirement for making attachment claims to natural resources legitimate. Based on these three challenges and the solutions we propose, we argue that attachment claims are on the one hand narrower than Armstrong suggests, while on the other hand they can justify more far-reaching rights to control than Armstrong initially considers, because of the particular weight that certain attachment claims have.
The paper analyses the interrelationship between Armstrong’s egalitarian theory and his treatment of the ‘attachment theory’ of resources, which is the dominant rival theory of resources that his theory is pitched against. On Armstrong’s theory, egalitarianism operates as a default position, from which special claims would need to be justified, but he also claims to be able to incorporate ‘attachment’ into his theory. The general question explored in the paper is the extent to which ‘attachment’ claims can be ‘married’ to an egalitarian theory. The more specific argument is that a properly constrained attachment theory is more plausible than Armstrong’s egalitarian theory. Armstrong’s paper also criticizes attachment and improvement accounts as justifying permanent sovereignty over resources. This paper argues that neither of those arguments aim to justify the international doctrine of permanent sovereignty.
This paper argues that land and resource rights are often essential in overcoming colonial inequality and devaluation of indigenous populations and cultures. It thereby criticizes global welfare egalitarians that promote the abolition of national sovereignty over resources in the name of increased equality. The paper discusses two ways in which land and resource rights contribute to decolonization and the eradication of the associated inequality. First, it proposes that land and resource rights have acquired a status-conferring function for (formerly) colonized peoples so that possession of full personhood and relational equality is partially expressed through the possession of land and resource rights. Second, it suggests that successful internal decolonization depends on access to and control over land and resources, especially for indigenous peoples.
In Justice and Natural Resources: An Egalitarian Theory (2017), Chris Armstrong proposes a version of global egalitarianism that – contra the default renderings of this approach – takes individual attachment to specific resources into account. By doing this, his theory has the potential for greening global egalitarianism both in terms of procedure and scope. In terms of procedure, its broad account of attachment and its focus on individuals rather than groups connects with participatory governance and management and, ultimately, participatory democracy – an essential ingredient in the toolkit of green politics and policy-making. In terms of scope, because it does not commit itself to any particular moral framework, Armstrong’s theory leaves the door open for non-human animals to become subjects of justice, thus extending the realm of the latter beyond its traditionally anthropocentric borders. I conclude that these greenings are promising, but not trouble-free.
A reply to my critics
(2021)
It is a real pleasure to reply to so many thoughtful and probing responses to my book. In what follows, I will focus on six key themes that emerge across the various pieces. Some of them call into question core commitments of my theory, and in those cases I will try to show what might be said in its defence. Quite a number of the critics, however, present what we might call expansionist arguments: though they endorse some of the arguments I make, that is – or pick up some of its key concepts – they seek to push them in new and interesting directions. I will suggest that many of those arguments look likely to be successful, though I will also express caution about one or two of them. I doubt, however, that I will be the final judge of their success. Early on in the book I express the hope that it might provide a set of conceptual tools capable of advancing discussions about resource justice more broadly, even for scholars who reject my own idiosyncratic approach. Having made that gambit, I cannot now claim to have a monopoly on the use of the tools in question. Witnessing the use that others have already made of them has been a refreshing and rewarding experience.
This paper uses a novel account of non-ideal political action that can justify radical responses to severe climate injustice, including and especially deliberate attempts to engineer the climate system in order reflect sunlight into space and cooling the planet. In particular, it discusses the question of what those suffering from climate injustice may do in order to secure their fundamental rights and interests in the face of severe climate change impacts. Using the example of risky geoengineering strategies such as sulfate aerosol injections, I argue that peoples that are innocently subject to severely negative climate change impacts may have a special permission to engage in large-scale yet risky climate interventions to prevent them. Furthermore, this can be true even if those interventions wrongly harm innocent people.
Chris Armstrong argues that attempts at justifying special claims over natural resources generally take one of two forms: arguments from improvement and arguments from attachment. We argue that Armstrong fails to establish that the distinction between natural resources and improved resources has no normative significance. He succeeds only in showing that ‘improvers’ (whoever they may be) are not necessarily entitled to the full exchange value of the improvement. It can still be argued that the value of natural and improved resources should be distributed on different grounds, but that the value of improvements should be conceived differently.
This paper argues first that Armstrong is led to see natural resources primarily as objects of consumption. But many natural resources are better seen as objects of enjoyment, where one person’s access to a resource need not prevent others from enjoying equal access, or as objects of production, where granting control of a resource to one person may produce collateral benefits to others. Second, Armstrong’s approach to resource distribution, which requires that everyone must have equal access to welfare, conceals an ambiguity as to whether this means equal opportunity for welfare, or simply equal welfare – the underlying issue being how far individuals (or countries) should be held responsible for the use they make of the resources they are allocated. Third, when Armstrong attacks arguments that appeal to ‘improvement’ as a basis for claims to natural resources, he treats them as making comparative desert claims: if country A makes a claim to the improved resources on its territory, it must show that their comparative value accurately reflects the productive deserts of its members compared to those of countries B. But in fact, A needs only to make the much weaker claim that its members have done more than others to enhance the value of its resources. Overall, Armstrong’s welfarist approach fails to appreciate the dynamic advantages of allocating resources to those best able to use them productively.
Introduction
(2021)
Some realists in political theory deny that the notion of feasibility has any place in realist theory, while others claim that feasibility constraints are essential elements of realist normative theorising. But none have so far clarified what exactly they are referring to when thinking of feasibility and political realism together. In this article, we develop a conception of the realist feasibility frontier based on an appraisal of how political realism should be distinguished from non-ideal theories. In this realist framework, political standards are feasible if they meet three requirements: they are (i) politically intelligible, (ii) contextually recognisable as authoritative, and (iii) contestable. We conclude by suggesting that our conception of realist feasibility might be compatible with utopian demands, thereby possibly finding favour with realists who otherwise refuse to resort to the notion of feasibility.
Visuals can be effective tools for educating an audience about peacebuilding and the need to engage with a nation's violent past. However, research on visuality has pointed to the ambivalence visuals can develop through audiencing and the dominant political discourse. Building on this, this article argues that ambivalence can also occur between narratives by different media although the same institution produced them, and that such inherent contradictions can limit the institution's effectiveness. The analysis centers upon a case study of the East Timorese Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) that compares the commission's documentary dalan ba dame (“road to peace”) with its final report about peace and the human rights violations committed in the territory between 1975 and 1999. While the commission's final report stresses the individual responsibility of members of the Indonesian military and formulates the need for an institution-based liberal peace, the documentary communicates the message that all parties to the conflict are guilty of committing crimes and that peace has already been created, mitigating the need to further engage with the violent past. The analysis identifies the media's different formats and their different agendas as reasons for the creation of these contradicting messages. Based on an assessment of the dissemination of both media and their reception within the political discourse in Timor-Leste, the implications of these conflicting narratives for educating an international audience are discussed. Since the final report is difficult to access due to its length and its legal language, the documentary remains the more accessible medium to educate an international audience about the nation's violent past. However, due to the narrative it conveys, the documentary's ability to mobilize an international audience is limited. Thus, the article argues for considering three aspects when designing visuals for peace education: the intermediality of visuals with other media and its potential effects concerning the communication of a specific message, the reception of the message by the target audience, and the reception of the message by broader audiences when the visual is distributed online.
Die Art und Weise, wie das Verhältnis von Staat und Unternehmen in Indien seit den 1980er Jahren restrukturiert wurde, liefert wichtige Lektionen für das Verständnis des modernen Kapitalismus in großen Schwellenländern, auch im Kontrast zum traditionellen Modell des ostasiatischen Entwicklungsstaats. Ausgehend vom historischen Entstehungskontext entwickeln wir eine Charakterisierung des Staatskapitalismus in den indischen Ballungszentren als „staatlich durchdrungene Marktökonomie“, bevor wir die Schattenseiten dieses Modells, insbesondere gravierende Ungleichheit, skizzieren, die – trotz aller wirtschaftlichen Dynamik des Kapitalismus in großen Schwellenländern wie Indien – notwendig mit diesem Wirtschaftsmodell verbunden sind.
The influence and power of some OECD states is under threat but China appears to remain astonishingly flexible, economically potent, and politically strong. How accurate is this view? To answer this question, major aspects of Chinese economic regulation that were adopted in the country’s progress towards capitalist modernization are examined. The analysis requires a historical reconstruction of how China changed the way it intervenes economically and politically, especially with regard to the institutions of the central state. Such a reconstruction reveals that, since the 1990s, the central state has indeed increased its steering capacities. These capacities have a distinctive basis that includes acceptance of a state-centered approach, idiosyncratic innovation policies taking place in the "shadow" of the state’s hierarchy, and the ongoing influence of the communist party. An all-embracing controlling power is, however, not detectable. What does exist in China’s competition-driven system of “statecapitalist” regulation, is a set of limits on the state’s capacity to govern.
In den letzten Jahren konnte eine starke Zunahme der Bedeutung von multinationalen Unternehmen von außerhalb der traditionellen Triade der Weltökonomie (Japan, Nordamerika und Westeuropa sowie Australien) beobachtet werden. Auffällig ist dabei, dass eine besonders enge Beziehung mit dem Heimatstaat ein typisches Merkmal vieler multinationaler Unternehmen aus Schwellenländern ist. Zum einen geht es dabei um binnenstaatliche Maßnahmen, die das Wachstum dieser Unternehmen in ihren Heimatländern befördert haben, z.B. durch finanzielle Unterstützung oder regulatorische Maßnahmen, die gezielt auf die Bedürfnisse dieser Unternehmen ausgerichtet waren. Zum anderen geht es um die Unterstützung durch den Staat bei der Multinationalisierung dieser Unternehmen, beispielsweise in Form von diplomatischer Unterstützung für den Zugang zu natürlichen Ressourcen in anderen Ländern oder durch die Aushandlung bilateraler oder multilateraler Abkommen. Abschließend wird kurz zusammengefasst, welches Konfliktpotential zwischen den großen Schwellenländern und den etablierten Wirtschaftsmächten sich aus diesem besonders engen Verhältnis von Staat und großen Unternehmen in Schwellenländern in den nächsten Jahrzehnten ergeben kann.
Staatskapitalismus 3.0
(2013)
Die Herausbildung staatlich durchdrungener Marktökonomien in großen Schwellenländern wie Brasilien, China oder Indien ist ein mehr als überfälliger Anlass, den Westzentrismus der aktuellen Krisendiskussionsowie der Literatur zu den „Varieties of Capitalism“ zu verlassen und sich mit den Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschieden des Kapitalismus in diesen Ländern zu beschäftigen. Wir sprechen hierbei vom Staatskapitalismus 3.0, also einer dritten Welle des Staatskapitalismus mit ihren länderbezogenen Variationen. Dieser in den Themenschwerpunkt einführende Beitrag gibt erstens einen Überblick über die historischen Wellen des Staatskapitalismus. Zweitens werden die weiteren Beiträge des Schwerpunktes vorgestellt und in den Kontext der dritten Welle des Staatskapitalismus gestellt. Schließlich folgen drittens einige Implikationen für die gegenwärtige Kapitalismusforschung, die aus der Untersuchung von politischen Ökonomien jenseits der OECD-Welt zu ziehen sind.
The Spanish reproductive bioeconomy has bloomed in the last few decades. There are now over three hundred fertility clinics in Spain, which has become one of the main destinations for what is often called “reproductive tourism” in the European context. The phenomenon of assisted reproduction has been extensively studied within English-speaking countries of the global North, but not so much in the cluster of Spanish-speaking countries, with a few interesting exceptions. Following the invitation to collaborate in this special issue around reproduction in Latin America and Spain, we offer an analysis of how Spanish oocyte provision and domestic work function as part of global care chains (GCC). We will compare the results of two major projects: one focusing on domestic work and the other on egg donation programs, both in Spain. We will introduce different perspectives around care and GCC, discussing how transference of oocytes can be viewed as a type of feminized labor involving affective-care work, clinical work, and biological work. The framework of GCC, a concept used to unpack unjust power relations embedded in transferences of care in current neoliberal and globalized socio-economic arrangements, can help to enable a conversation on how transferences of reproductive capacity might be reinforcing the stratification of reproduction.
Correspondence study field experiments with political elites are a recent addition to legislative studies research, in which unsolicited emails are sent to elites to gauge their responsiveness. In this article, we discuss their ethical implications. We advance from the viewpoint that correspondence study field experiments involve trade-offs between costs and benefits that need to be carefully weighted. We elaborate this argument with two contributions in mind. First, we synthesize ethical considerations in published work to explore what the specific trade-offs are and how they can be mitigated by experimental design. We conclude that correspondence study field experiments with political elites are worth pursuing given their potential to further good governance. But they also involve distinct trade-offs that are particularly challenging. Second, we draw from our own considerations while designing a comparative correspondence study field experiment and stress challenges resulting from cross-national designs. In sum, we aim to facilitate further reasoned discussion on an important methodological issue.
Background: This study investigates the willingness of men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) to use HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Research in the HIV/AIDS field typically relies on clinical and epidemiological studies, thereby often excluding social dimensions of the illness as well as factors explaining its prevention. The current study analyzes HIV-prevention through an interdisciplinary theoretical approach. It aims to comprehensively understand the mechanisms associated with the willingness to take PrEP among MSM in terms of psychological, social, behavioral, cultural, and demographic factors. Methods: We analyze data from the survey “Gay Men and AIDS” conducted in Germany in 2013 prior to market approval for PrEP. Analyses were performed using the statistical software SPSS 25.0, while results were visualized using the R programming language. Results: We find that perceived risk of infection, social norms (anticipated HIV-stigma), practices (e.g. regular condomless sex), and socio-demographic factors (young age, being single) all have a positive effect on the willingness to take PrEP, while education reveals a negative, and income no effect. Conclusions: Results indicate that beyond well-established socio-psychological mechanisms of health behavior, social factors play a crucial role in understanding the willingness of PrEP uptake. This study enriches existing health behavior theories with sociological concepts such as social norms and social practices.
This article examines whether restrictions on access to welfare rights for EU immigrants are justifiable on grounds of reciprocity. Recently political theorists have supported some robust restrictions on the basis of fairness. They argue that if EU immigrants do not immediately contribute sufficiently to the provision of basic collective goods in the host state, restrictions on their access to the welfare state are justified. I argue that these accounts of the principle of reciprocity rely on an ambiguous conception of contribution that cannot deliver the restrictions it advocates. Several strategies open to those advocating reciprocity-based restrictions are considered and found wanting. This article defends that verdict from a number of objections.
This essay explores the problem of legitimation crises in deliberative systems. For some time now, theorists of deliberative democracy have started to embrace a “systemic approach.” But if deliberative democracy is to be understood in the context of a system of multiple moving parts, then we must confront the possibility that that system’s dynamics may admit of breakdowns, contradictions, and tendencies toward crisis. Yet such crisis potentials remain largely unexplored in deliberative theory. The present article works toward rectifying this lacuna, using the 2016 Brexit and Trump votes as examples of a particular kind of “legitimation crisis” that results in a sequence of failures in the deliberative system. Drawing on recent work of Rainer Forst, I identify this particular kind of legitimation crisis as a “justification crisis.”
Four years after the Panama Papers scandal, tax avoidance remains an urgent moral-political problem. Moving beyond both the academic and policy mainstream, I advocate the “democratization of tax enforcement,” by which I mean systematic efforts to make tax avoiders accountable to the judgment of ordinary citizens. Both individual oligarchs and multinational corporations have access to sophisticated tax avoidance strategies that impose significant fiscal costs on democracies and exacerbate preexisting distributive and political inequalities. Yet much contemporary tax sheltering occurs within the letter of the law, rendering criminal sanctions ineffective. In response, I argue for the creation of Citizen Tax Juries, deliberative minipublics empowered to scrutinize tax avoiders, demand accountability, and facilitate concrete reforms. This proposal thus responds to the wider aspiration, within contemporary democratic theory, to secure more popular control over essential economic processes.
Unemployment and political trust across 24 Western democracies: evidence on a welfare state paradox
(2021)
Set against the backdrop of the Great Recession, the paper explores the interplay of unemployment experiences and political trust in the USA and 23 European countries between 2002 and 2017. Drawing on harmonized data from the European Social Survey and the General Social Survey, we confirm that citizens’ personal experiences of unemployment depress trust in democratic institutions in all countries. Using multilevel linear probability models, we show that the relationship between unemployment and political trust varies between countries, and that, paradoxically, the negative effect of unemployment on political trust is consistently stronger in the more generous welfare states. This result holds while controlling for a range of other household and country-level predictors, and even in mediation models that incorporate measures of households’ economic situation to explain the negative effect of unemployment on trust. As expected, country differences in the generosity of welfare states are reflected in the degree to which financial difficulties are mediating the relationship between unemployment and political trust. Overlaying economic deprivation, however, cultural mechanisms of stigmatization or status deprivation seem to create negative responses to unemployment experiences, and these render the effect of unemployment on political trust increasingly negative in objectively more generous welfare states.
Beyond radicalism and resignation: the competing logics for public participation in policy decisions
(2016)
Participation – like justice or freedom – is a term that can be constructed in multiple ways. However, existing typologies of participation pay little attention to the alternative logics for public participation in policy decisions: either they assume one particular normative bias or categorise by institutional design features without reference to the broader ideology that informs the use of these designs. This paper outlines an alternative approach that connects the variety in participatory practices to competing theories of democracy and public administration. It identifies four archetypes of participation: knowledge transfer; collective decision-making; choice and voice; and arbitration and oversight.
With the significant disconnect between the collective aim of limiting warming to well below 2°C and the current means proposed to achieve such an aim, the goal of this paper is to offer a moral assessment of prominent alternatives to current international climate policy. To do so, we’ll outline five different policy routes that could potentially bring the means and goal in line. Those five policy routes are: (1) exceed 2°C; (2) limit warming to less than 2°C by economic de-growth; (3) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation only; (4) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation and widespread deployment of Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs); and (5) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation, NETs, and Solar Radiation Management as a fallback. In assessing these five policy routes, we rely primarily upon two moral considerations: the avoidance of catastrophic climate change and the right to sustainable development. We’ll conclude that we should continue to aim at the two-degree target, and that to get there we should use aggressive mitigation, pursue the deployment of NETs, and continue to research SRM.
Psychotherapists in mental health institutions as a professional group are part of the medical system, and from this perspective, as representing an occupation that serves the public health interests, as well as those of the individual seeking help. Despite the different existing therapeutic approaches and diverse forms of therapy deriving from these approaches critical theories, however, consider psychotherapy as a profession with a specific jurisdictional claim and own highly specific interests. In contrast to most of the recent discussion around therapy culture, in this article, I argue that sociology and social theory could benefit from an understanding of psychotherapy as a profession with a separate logic and claim for jurisdiction for mental health. Moreover, I present some general trends showing that, regarding psychotherapy, we face a concurrence of a professionalisation, and simultaneously, an already ongoing deprofessionalisation. To develop my argument, I first discuss the perspectives of sociology of the psychotherapy professions. Second, I present the potential lack of professionalism in four dimensions. Third, I discuss possible tendencies of deprofessionalisation. Finally, I conclude by pointing out the importance of theorising the psychotherapy professions for medical sociology.
Parties should develop a consistent issue profile during an electoral campaign. Yet, manifestos, which form the baseline for a party’s programmatic goals in the upcoming legislative period, are usually published months before Election Day. We argue that parties must emphasize policy issues that are of key relevance to their likely voters in the last weeks of the election campaign, in which an increasing share of citizens make up their minds in terms of which party they will choose. To test this notion empirically, we draw on a novel data set that covers information on party representatives’ statements made during the final weeks of an election campaign in nine European countries. Focusing on the campaign messages of social democratic and socialist parties, we find that these parties indeed intensify their emphasis of unemployment policy, which is a salient issue for their core voter clienteles, particularly in times of economic hardship.
Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in the office and warehouse of an organic wholesaler in Germany, this article presents a trans-sequential analysis of an innovation that aimed to reduce the use of plastic wrap. During the analytical reconstruction of the innovation process, the substitution of plastic wrap turned out to be a precarious process of negotiating attachments to plastic. Against this background, innovation is not simply about the implementation and substitution of technology by human actors, but about negotiating attachments that humans have towards objects within socio-technical assemblages. Drawing on actor-network theory and the sociology of attachment, the article highlights the dynamic interplay between persistence and problematization of plastic wrap, which characterizes the innovation process. This interplay is seen along several steps during the innovation process: from (1) the problematization of plastic dependency to (2) the mobilization of alternatives, to (3) resistance against measures to be implemented and (4) the enforcement of reusable strings as technological substitution and (5) to conclusive retrospection on the innovation process. The trans-sequential analysis shows that ‘getting rid of something’ might be an imperfect approach to dealing with unsustainable object relations. Instead, withdrawing is a double-sided process of detaching and attaching, removing constraints and building new ones.
Most political systems consist of multiple layers. While this fact is widely acknowledged, we know surprisingly little about its implications for policy-making. Most comparative studies still focus exclusively on the national level. We posit that both “methodological nationalism” and “methodological subnationalism” should be avoided. We argue instead that in multilevel systems national and subnational governments jointly affect policy-making. Their respective influence is, however, conditional on the distribution of policy authority. Moreover, we identify power asymmetries, as subnational governments hardly affect policy-making in centralized systems whereas national governments shape subnational policy-making even in decentralized polities. Empirically, we study the case of education policy. Novel data on regional education spending, regional and national governments’ ideology, and regional authority over education in 282 regions in 15 countries over 21 years reveals strong support for the interplay between ideology and the distribution of authority across levels. We conclude by sketching a resulting research agenda.
Ökonomische Schocks haben beträchtliche Folgen für die Gesellschaft. Armutsrisiko, Arbeitslosigkeit, Bildungsmangel, Scheidungsrisiken, Vertrauenskrisen – politisches Krisenmanagement kann diese Folgen positiv beeinflussen und zu gesellschaftlicher Resilienz beitragen. Lassen sich daraus Schlüsse für die Folgen der Pandemie ziehen?
Das illusionäre Moment des »ewigen Aufbruchs« ist durch Corona phasenweise unübersehbar geworden. Doch es mangelt, auch mit Blick auf die ökologische Krise, nach wie vor an nachhaltigem Umsteuern. Ohne ein massives Umdenken ist zu befürchten, dass deren Bedrohungen durch ähnliche Mechanismen verdrängt werden, wie es schon in früheren Krisen der Fall war. Folgenreiche Muster der Bagatellisierung und Verleugnung sind auch literarisch verarbeitet worden am Beispiel des »Schwarzen Todes«.
Objective: The study investigates the relationship between perceived loneliness and the individuals' attitude whether voting is a civic duty. With that, it is the first study to shed light on the mechanism linking perceived loneliness to voting behavior.
Methods: Two independent, cross-sectional, and representative datasets from Germany (n = 1641) and the Netherlands (n = 1431) are analyzed.
Results: The regression results and effect decomposition techniques show that loneliness is associated with reduced intention to vote as well as a lower sense of duty to vote. The effect of loneliness on voting behavior is partially mediated through a reduced sense of duty.
Conclusion: Loneliness is associated with political disengagement. The study provides empirical evidence that the relationship between loneliness and turnout is partially mediated through sense of duty. This showcases that lonely individuals tend to feel detached from society and are less likely to feel obligated to participate in the electoral process.
In the recent decades, privacy scholarship has made significant progress. Most of it was achieved in monodisciplinary works. However, privacy has a deeply interdisciplinary nature. Most importantly, societies as well as individuals experience privacy as being influenced by legal, technical, and social norms and structures. In this article, we hence attempt to connect insights of different academic disciplines into a joint model, an Interdisciplinary Privacy and Communication Model. The model differentiates four different elements: communication context, protection needs, threat and risk analysis, as well as protection enforcement. On the one hand, with this model, we aim to describe how privacy unfolds. On the other hand, the model also prescribes how privacy can be furnished and regulated. As such, the model contributes to a general understanding of privacy as a theoretical guide and offers a practical basis to address new challenges of the digital age.
Este texto é uma resposta ao texto de Fernando de Moraes Barros, intitulado “Ontologia coercitiva da obra de arte: Adorno contra Heidegger”. Em linhas gerais, trata-se de um exame do funcionamento interno do texto “A origem da obra de arte”, de Heidegger. Assume-se a coexistência de dois eixos no texto de Heidegger, um crítico, compatível com o pensamento de Adorno, e outro ontológico, incompatível com a reflexão de Adorno sobre a arte.
Right-wing populist parties often resort to a xenophobic rhetoric which both exploits and fuels existing illiberal anti-immigrant sentiments. Since populist anti-immigrant sentiments are at odds with fundamental liberal values and challenge the implementation of any liberal ethics of migration, this essay argues that states should adopt civic education policies to counter such sentiments and persuade citizens to develop liberal attitudes towards immigrants. Empirical evidence suggests that sentiments may be malleable, and there are already examples of local governments devising or supporting initiatives aimed at dispelling prejudices and promoting positive interactions. It might be objected that a government’s involvement in shaping sentiments and opinions conflicts with liberal democratic states’ commitment to individual autonomy and electoral fairness. However, I argue that civic education policies are not necessarily incompatible with such values and I provide five criteria to identify policies that liberal democratic governments may legitimately adopt to counteract anti-immigrant sentiments.
The concept of solidarity has been receiving growing attention from scholars in a wide range of disciplines. While this trend coincides with widespread unsuccessful attempts to achieve solidarity in the real world, the failure of solidarity as such remains a relatively unexplored topic. In the case of the so-called European Union (EU) refugee crisis, the fact that EU member states failed to fulfil their commitment to solidarity is now regarded as established wisdom. But as we try to come to terms with failing solidarity in the EU we are faced with a number of important questions: are all instances of failing solidarity equally morally reprehensible? Are some motivations for resorting to unsolidaristic measures more valid than others? What claims have an effective countervailing force against the commitment to act in solidarity?
Populists in the EU often call for restrictions on EU immigrants’ access to welfare rights. These calls are often demagogic and parochial. This paper aims to show what exactly is both distinct and problematic with these populist calls from a normative point of view while not necessarily reducible to demagogy and parochialism. The overall aim of the paper is not to argue that all populists call for such restrictions nor to claim that all calls for such restrictions are populist. The purpose of the paper is rather humble. It only aims to show that populist calls for restrictions on EU immigrants’ access to welfare rights are characterised by two normatively problematic arguments that target two different subsets of the citizenry: what I dub for the purpose of this paper the moralists and the immoralists. It is the way populists address these two subsets of the citizenry, as well as the fact that they could simultaneously appeal to the concerns of both groups, that makes populist approaches to welfare rights both conceptually distinct to other approaches as well as potentially politically appealing to a more diverse population of voters.
This paper critically engages the legal and political framework for responding to democracy and rule of law backsliding in the EU. I develop a new and original critique of Article 7 TEU based on it being democratically illegitimate and normatively incoherent qua itself in conflict with EU fundamental values. Other more incremental and scaleable responses are desirable, and the paper moves on to assess the legitimacy of economic sanctions such as tying access to EU funds to performance on democratic and rule of law indicators or imposing fines on backsliding states. I hold such sanctions to be a priori legitimate, and argue that in some cases economic sanctions are even normatively required, given that EU material support of backsliding member states can amount to material complicity in their backsliding. However, an economic conditionality mechanism would need to be designed to minimize unjust and counterproductive effects. One way to pursue this could be to complement sanctions against the backsliding government with investment for prodemocratic actors in that state.
Recent developments in Hungary and Poland have made democratic backsliding a major issue of concern within the European Union (EU). This article focuses on the secondary agents that facilitate democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland: the European People’s Party (EPP), which has continually protected the Hungarian Fidesz government from EU sanctions, and the Hungarian ruling party Fidesz, which repeatedly promised to block any EU-level sanctions against Poland in the Council. The article analyses these agents’ behaviour as an instance of transnational complicity and passes a tentative judgment as to which of the two cases is normatively more problematic. The analysis has implications for possible countervailing responses to democratic backsliding within EU member states.
This article argues that populism, cosmopolitanism, and calls for global justice should be understood not as theoretical positions but as appeals to different segments of democratic electorates with the aim of assembling winning political coalitions. This view is called democratic realism: it considers political competition in democracies from a perspective that is realist in the sense that it focuses not first on the content of competing political claims but on the relationships among different components of the coalitions they work to mobilise in the pursuit of power. It is argued that Laclau’s populist theory offers a sort of realist critique of other populists, but that his view neglects the crucial dynamics of political coalition-building. When the relation of populism to global justice is rethought from this democratic realist angle, one can better understand the sorts of challenges each faces, and also where and how they come into conflict.
This article sheds light upon the role of the audience in the construction and amendment of populist representative claims that in themselves strengthen representative-represented relationships and simultaneously strengthen ties between the represented who belong to different constituencies. I argue that changes in populist representative claims can be explained by studying the discursive relationship between a populist representative and the audience as a conversation in which both poles give and receive something. From this perspective, populist representative claims, I also argue, can be understood as acts of bonding with the intended effect of constituting ‘the people,’ and inputs from the audience can be seen as conversational exercitives. Populist appeals therefore may change when the audience enacts new permissibility facts and signals to populist representatives that there is another way to strengthen relationships between several individuals belonging to otherwise-different constituencies.
A link between populism and social media is often suspected. This paper spells out a set of possible mechanisms underpinning this link: that social media changes the communication structure of the public sphere, making it harder for citizens to obtain evidence that refutes populist assumptions. By developing a model of the public sphere, four core functions of the public sphere are identified: exposing citizens to diverse information, promoting equality of deliberative opportunity, creating deliberative transparency, and producing common knowledge. A wellworking public sphere allows citizens to learn that there are genuine disagreements among citizens that are held in good faith. Social media makes it harder to gain this insight, opening the door for populist ideology.
Current work on populism stresses its relationship to nationalism. However, populists increasingly make claims to represent ‘the people’ across beyond national borders. This advent of ‘transnational populism’ has implications for work on cosmopolitan democracy and global justice. In this paper, we advance and substantiate three claims. First, we stress populism’s performative and claimmaking nature. Second, we argue that transnational populism is both theoretically possible and empirically evident in the contemporary global political landscape. Finally, we link these points to debates on democracy beyond the state. We argue that, due to the a) performative nature of populism, b) complex interdependencies of peoples, and c) need for populists to gain and maintain support, individuals in one state will potentially have their preferences, interests, and wants altered by transnational populists’ representative claims. We unpack what is normatively problematic in terms of democratic legitimacy about this and discuss institutional and non-institutional remedies.
As academic literatures and political demands, global justice and populism look like competing ways of diagnosing and addressing neoliberal inequality. But both misunderstand neoliberalism and consequently risk reinforcing rather than undermining it. Neoliberalism does not just break down political and social hierarchies, but also relies on and sustains them. Unless populists recognize this, they will find that assertions of sovereignty do more to reinforce neoliberalism and reproduce its hierarchies than to resist them. Recognizing neoliberalism as not simply corrosive of solidarity but also producing its own affective ties suggests that global justice advocates need to develop a critique of individual attitudes that egalitarian liberals have often seen as private and been hesitant to judge. In short, if either populism or global justice hope to take advantage of neoliberalism’s failures to advance an egalitarian politics, they need to reckon more carefully with their own entanglement with neoliberalism’s hopes and hierarchies.