Three new books by Martha Nussbaum, Jeff Sebo, and Mark Rowlands seek to raise the profile of non-human animals within political theory. They present a series of compelling arguments for making animal flourishing central to discussions about the future, especially in a time of ecological crisis. All three offer important insights into what a genuinely non-anthropocentric political theory could look like. But while they converge in some ways – for instance, all recommend serious restrictions on the human industries that brutalise (...) other animals – they also paint quite different visions of the proper relationship between humans and other animals. This review essay assesses their distinctive visions of the future of human-animal relations. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that a progressive approach to normative political theorizing should incorporate a conception of meaningful political change that is nonutopian (it conceives of advancements as gradual stages), large-scale (it involves the largest possible numbers of organized and unorganized social movements), and democratically emancipatory (it displays a commitment to breaking down the barriers that prevent individuals from feeling responsible for the direction of society). Bearing this in mind, such an approach should be organized around a cooperative effort (...) between theorists and agents of change and should be oriented toward the collective construction of large-scale actionable proposals for social and political change here and now. (shrink)

John Rawls’ The Law of Peoples has typically been read as an intervention in the field of ‘global justice’. In this paper, I offer a different and widely overlooked interpretation. I argue that The Law of Peoples is a secular theodicy. Rawls wants to show that the 'great evils' of history do not condemn humankind by using a secularised form of moral faith to search for signs that the social world allows for the possibility of perfect justice. There are, I (...) show, striking homologies between this argument and the Christian theodicy that Rawls wrote in 1942, A Brief Inquiry Into the Meaning of Sin and Faith. Perhaps more significantly, I draw out how there is, as Rawls himself appears to acknowledge, an intimate relationship between this redemptive project and Rawls' idealistic and moralistic approach to political philosophy. (shrink)

Despite the transformation it introduced in theories of democratic representation, the so-called ‘constructivist turn’ left unchallenged the epistemology that had characterised traditional accounts: the questions at stake in current debates on representation are still mostly elicited by a ‘passive’ image of representation as ultimately the phenomenon of being represented by others. Nowhere has the focus explicitly been placed on the experience of representing others. This article proposes a recalibration of current constructivist accounts of representation by introducing what I term the (...) representative standpoint, an epistemological perspective which discloses neglected aspects of the nature and the value of democratic representation. In particular, I suggest that from the representative standpoint, we are able to configure representation as the periodic motion between two spaces: the square, where the representative meets with their constituents, and the circle, where the representative meets with the representatives of other constituencies. The essence of democratic representation lies precisely in the constant moving back and forth between these two spaces. I finally suggest that, configured in these terms, representation may be acknowledged and valued also for providing liberal democracies with an in-built device for a kind of civic education, the beneficiaries of which are the representatives themselves. (shrink)

In recent years, political theorists have increasingly turned their attention to the past in search of conceptual renovation in the present. While recourse to the past has been a recurring thread throughout the history of political thought, the overlapping concern of recent scholarship has been to revisit seemingly exhausted political concepts with the aim of repurposing them for contemporary political challenges and realities. The three edited collections under review – Positive Freedom, Perfektionismus der Autonomie and Rethinking Liberty Before Liberalism – (...) are distinguished by their thoughtful attempts at retrieving and politicizing the concepts of positive freedom, post-Kantian perfectionism, and neo-Roman liberty in contemporary political thought. These retrievals present promising avenues for theoretical innovation, along with the ever-present risk of diminishing interpretive returns. (shrink)

A great deal of ink has been spilled trying to define political conservatism. Yet, far too many of these definitions have failed to isolate a unified and distinctive set of normative commitments that conservatives can be said to share. This has led some critics to allege that the view has no definition. In this paper, I show that there are in fact two perfectly comprehensible conceptions of the theory that meet these criteria. However, I argue that, given some fairly uncontroversial (...) facts about human institutions, neither version represents a believable political philosophy. I conclude that there are legitimate and distinctive conservative political reasons, but that any attempt to describe these as our sole or primary political reasons is doomed to fail. (shrink)

A citizens’ movement in Berlin advocates for the expropriation of housing corporations and has won a significant majority in a popular referendum in September 2021. Building on this proposal, this paper develops a general account of expropriation as a measure for corporate reform and thereby contributes to the ongoing debate on the democratic accountability of business corporations. It argues that expropriation is a valuable tool for intervention in a dire situation in some economic sector to enable a re-structuring of the (...) governance of the assets in question. Compared with other tools available, expropriation is a more forward-looking, genuinely political measure that does not depend on the legal assignment of guilt but rather proceeds in a pragmatic and problem-oriented manner. It also allows us to reconsider in how far the market mechanism should be employed in the administration of assets. Objections from private property rights against expropriation fail as corporations generally are privileged, quasi-public institutions that can justifiably be subject to democratic interventions. Expropriation is thus an important addition to the arsenal of corporate reform proposals, especially for those concerned with a broad democratization of the corporation. (shrink)