- Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam
Roeterseilandcampus, Postbus 15578, 1001NB Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Enzo Rossi
University of Amsterdam, Political Science, Faculty Member
- SAGE, European Journal of Political Theory, Department Memberadd
- Ideology Critique, Legitimacy and Authority, Political Epistemology, Realism in political theory, Genealogy, Political Theory, and 9 morePolitical Philosophy, Ideology, Liberalism, Realism, Legitimacy, Theory and Practice of Toleration, Political Realism and Idealism, Political Realism, and Bernard Williamsedit
- I'm a political theorist. I study how power distorts our understanding of reality, and what that says about the legit... moreI'm a political theorist. I study how power distorts our understanding of reality, and what that says about the legitimacy of social and political structures. I address this question from an epistemic rather than moral angle. I try to show that there are empirically observable phenomena that yield normative political judgments. More specifically, I try to arrive at empirically-grounded evaluative judgments driven by epistemic normativity. The rough idea is this. When we believe in the legitimacy of a power structure as a result of the workings of that very power structure, epistemically flawed ideologies become prevalent, and this is normatively suboptimal insofar as it impairs our capacity to make good political decisions.
More generally, I'm concerned with the relationship between the descriptive and the normative study of society and, therefore, with questions of method in political theory. I maintain that 'ethics first', moralistic political theory often misses what's most important about politics, and is at risk of ideological distortion. I see my research as contributing to the radical realist programme: an approach that is suspicious of moral argument in politics and embraces empirical evidence, but without foreclosing far-reaching social and political change.
My recent work has appeared in venues such as the American Political Science Review and The Journal of Politics. Most of my publications and preprints can be freely downloaded from this site.
I work at the University of Amstedam, where I'm an associate professor (universitair hoofddocent) in the Department of Political Science, and the co-director of the Challenges to Democratic Representation Programme Group. I also co-edit the European Journal of Political Theory. I have held various grants as (co-)principal investigator (Dutch Research Council Vidi, 2016-2022; Gerda Henkel Foundation, 2024-2027), and as a member of consortia (EU FP7 and Horizon schemes, and others). I did my PhD in philosophy, at St Andrews.
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I consider how The Dawn of Everything deals with the question of whether cultural ideation can help explain social change in ways that do not posit non-material causal factors. I submit that the answer has to do with how each culture is... more
I consider how The Dawn of Everything deals with the question of whether cultural ideation can help explain social change in ways that do not posit non-material causal factors. I submit that the answer has to do with how each culture is materially impacted by other cultures, and how this leads to socio-political differentiation under similar environmental and technological conditions. In a nutshell, a culture’s ideation is a material constraint for other cultures that come into contact with it. I call this position, which I attribute to Graeber and Wengrow, intercultural materialism.
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This paper outlines an empirically-grounded account of normative political legitimacy. The main idea is to give a normative edge to empirical measures of sociological legitimacy through a non-moralised form of ideology critique. A power... more
This paper outlines an empirically-grounded account of normative political legitimacy. The main idea is to give a normative edge to empirical measures of sociological legitimacy through a non-moralised form of ideology critique. A power structure's responsiveness to the values of those subjected to its authority can be measured empirically and may be explanatory or predictive insofar as it tracks belief in legitimacy, but by itself it lacks normative purchase: it merely describes a preference alignment, and so tells us nothing about whether the ruled have reason to support the rulers. I argue that we can close this gap by filtering the preferences of the ruled through a form of non-moralised epistemic ideology critique, itself grounded in an empirical account of how belief in legitimacy is formed.
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What is the point of ideology critique? Prominent Anglo-American philosophers recently proposed novel arguments for the view that ideology critique is moral critique, and ideologies are flawed insofar as they contribute to injustice or... more
What is the point of ideology critique? Prominent Anglo-American philosophers recently proposed novel arguments for the view that ideology critique is moral critique, and ideologies are flawed insofar as they contribute to injustice or oppression. We criticize that view and make the case for an alternative and more empirically-oriented approach, grounded in epistemic rather than moral commitments. We make two related claims: (i) ideology critique can debunk beliefs and practices by uncovering how, empirically, they are produced by self-justifying power, and (ii) the self-justification of power should be understood as an epistemic rather than moral flaw. Drawing on the recent realist revival in political theory, we argue that this genealogical approach has more radical potential, despite being more parsimonious than morality-based approaches. We demonstrate the relative advantages of our view by discussing the results of empirical studies on the contemporary phenomenon of neopatriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa.
Research Interests: Legitimacy and Authority, Ideology, Political Legitimacy, Power and Legitimacy, Ideology Critique, and 7 morePolitical Realism and Idealism, Neopatrimonialism Regimes, Political Epistemology, Realism in political theory, Moralism and Realism In Political Philosophy, Motivated Reasoning, and Sally Haslanger
In the last two decades, Anglophone political theory witnessed a renewed interest in socialscientific empirical findings-partly as a reaction against normative theorising centred on the formulation of abstract, intuition-driven moral... more
In the last two decades, Anglophone political theory witnessed a renewed interest in socialscientific empirical findings-partly as a reaction against normative theorising centred on the formulation of abstract, intuition-driven moral principles. This brief article begins by showing how this turn has taken two distinct forms: (1) a nonideal theoretical orientation, which seeks to balance the emphasis on moral principles with feasibility and urgency considerations, and (2) a fact-centric orientation, which seeks to ground normative conclusions in empirical results. The core of the article then compares and contrasts three variants of fact-centric political theory: normative behaviourism, grounded normative theory and radical realism. The upshot: normative behaviourism achieves focus on observable behaviour at the cost of status quo bias, grounded normative theory achieves radicalism at the cost of endorsing an activist orientation to theorising and radical realism combines a non-activist orientation with the potential for far-reaching critique of the status quo.
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Drawing on empirical evidence from history and anthropology, we aim to demonstrate that there is room for genealogical ideology critique within normative political theory. The test case is some libertarians’ use of folk notions of private... more
Drawing on empirical evidence from history and anthropology, we aim to demonstrate that there is room for genealogical ideology critique within normative political theory. The test case is some libertarians’ use of folk notions of private property rights in defence of the legitimacy of capitalist states. Our genealogy of the notion of private property shows that asking whether a capitalist state can emerge without violations of self-ownership cannot help settling the question of its legitimacy, because the notion of private property presupposed by that question is a product of the entity it is supposed to help legitimise: the state. We anchor our genealogical critique in recent work on ideology in epistemology and philosophy of language, and in current debates on the methodology of political theory. But, unlike more traditional approaches that aim to debunk whole concepts or even belief systems, we propose a more targeted, argument-specific form of ideology critique.
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Do salient normative claims about politics require moral premises? Political moralists think they do, political realists think they do not. We defend the viability of realism in a two-pronged way. First, we show that a number of recent... more
Do salient normative claims about politics require moral premises? Political moralists think they do, political realists think they do not. We defend the viability of realism in a two-pronged way. First, we show that a number of recent attacks on realism as well as realist responses to those attacks unduly conflate distinctly political normativity and non-moral political normativity. Second, we argue that Alex Worsnip and Jonathan Leader-Maynard's recent attack on realist arguments for a distinctly political normativity depends on assuming moralism as the default view, which places an excessive burden on the viability of realism, and so begs the question. Our discussion, though, does not address the relative merits of realism and moralism, so its upshot is relatively ecumenical: moralism need not be the view that all apt normative political judgements are moral judgements, and realism need not be the view that no apt normative political judgements are moral judgements.
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Strikes often lack a reasonable chance of success unless they violate some basic liberties (of contract, movement, etc.). This creates a dilemma for liberal democracies that recognize a right to strike: either the right is toothless, or... more
Strikes often lack a reasonable chance of success unless they violate some basic liberties (of contract, movement, etc.). This creates a dilemma for liberal democracies that recognize a right to strike: either the right is toothless, or the basic liberties don't have priority, and so aren't basic. Alex Gourevitch argues that grounding the radical right to strike in an interest in freedom resolves the dilemma. We point out an ambiguity in this solution: it either doesn't solve the dilemma, or it tacitly presupposes that there is no dilemma. However, we go on to show that a modified, dynamic conception of the radical right to strike can ground its priority, albeit at the expense of the basicness of certain static basic liberties. What is more, we argue that this generalises to other forms of direct action, such as the recent Black Lives Matter blockades, and those at Standing Rock.
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To what extent are questions of sovereign debt a matter for political rather than scientific or moral adjudication? We answer that question by defending three claims. We argue that (i) moral and technocratic takes on sovereign debt tend... more
To what extent are questions of sovereign debt a matter for political rather than scientific or moral adjudication? We answer that question by defending three claims. We argue that (i) moral and technocratic takes on sovereign debt tend to be ideological in a pejorative sense of the term, and that therefore (ii) sovereign debt should be politicised all the way down. We then show that this sort of politicisation need not boil down to the crude Realpolitik of debtor-creditor power relations--a conclusion that would leave no room for normative theory, among other problems. Rather, we argue that (iii) in a democratic context, a realist approach to politics centred on what Bernard Williams calls 'The Basic Legitimation Demand' affords a deliberative approach to the normative evaluation of public debt policy options.
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In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the... more
In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decision-making and an oligarchic challenge concerning power concentration. To address the challenges we then put forward three main normative claims, each of which is compatible with the evidence. We start with (1) a critique of the epistocratic position commonly thought to be supported by the evidence. We then introduce (2) a qualified critique of referenda and other forms of plebiscite, and (3) an outline of a tribune-based system of popular control over oligarchic influence on the policy process. Our discussion points towards a renewal of democracy in a plebeian but not plebiscitarian direction: Attention to the relative power of social classes matters more than formal dispersal of power through voting. We close with some methodolog-ical reflections about the compatibility between our normative claims and the realist program in political philosophy.
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In this paper, we put forward a realist account of the problem of accommodation of conflicting claims over sacred places. Our argument takes its cue from the empirical finding that modern, Western-style states necessarily mould religion... more
In this paper, we put forward a realist account of the problem of accommodation of conflicting claims over sacred places. Our argument takes its cue from the empirical finding that modern, Western-style states necessarily mould religion into shapes that are compatible with state rule. At least in the context of modern states, there is no pre-political morality of religious freedom that states ought to follow when adjudicating claims over sacred spaces. Liberal normative theory on religious accommodation which starts from the assumption of a pre-political morality of religious freedom is therefore of limited value. As an alternative, we suggest that the question of contested sacred places should be settled with reference to the purposes of the state, at least as long as one is committed to the existence of modern states. If one finds the treatment of religion by the state unsatisfactory, our argument provides a pro tanto reason for seeking alternative forms of political organization.
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Political realism is characterised by fidelity to the facts of politics and a refusal to derive political judgments from pre- political moral commitments. Even when they are not taken to make normative theorising impossible or futile,... more
Political realism is characterised by fidelity to the facts of politics and a refusal to derive political judgments from pre- political moral commitments. Even when they are not taken to make normative theorising impossible or futile, those characteristics are often thought to engender a conservative slant, or at least a tendency to prefer incremental reformism to radicalism. I resist those claims by distinguishing between three variants of realism—ordorealism, contextual realism, and radical realism—and contrasting them with both non-ideal theory and utopianism. I then develop a version of radical realism as a form of debunking and vindicatory genealogy. Even though this new approach eschews both feasibility constraints (unlike non-ideal theory) and prescriptions about the ideal society (unlike utopianism), I show how it has more radical potential than morality-driven (and hence often ideological) political theory, and how it supports both open-ended, radical social critique and concrete forms of prefigurative political action.
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This chapter discusses the Rawlsian project of 'political' liberalism, and its reception. After a brief philosophical rather than philological reconstruction of the project, the chapter revolves around a distinction between idealist and... more
This chapter discusses the Rawlsian project of 'political' liberalism, and its reception. After a brief philosophical rather than philological reconstruction of the project, the chapter revolves around a distinction between idealist and realist responses to it. Focusing on political liberalism’s critical reception illuminates an overarching question: was Rawls’s revival of a contractualist approach to liberal legitimacy a fruitful move for liberalism and/or the social contract tradition? The last section contains a largely negative answer to that question. Nonetheless the chapter's conclusion shows that the research programme of political liberalism provided and continues to provide illuminating insights into the limitations of liberal contractualism, especially under conditions of persistent and radical diversity. The programme is, however, less receptive to challenges to do with the relative decline of the power of modern states.
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In this paper I trace some key realist themes in Newey’s work, to try and show how his realist insights preceded the explicit realist revival, and how they then developed in dialogue with the growing realist literature. I then place Newey... more
In this paper I trace some key realist themes in Newey’s work, to try and show how his realist insights preceded the explicit realist revival, and how they then developed in dialogue with the growing realist literature. I then place Newey in a taxonomy of realisms, to the extent that his often illuminatingly contrarian positions allow for such an exercise. Finally, and more speculatively, I consider some of Newey’s posthumous work, to try and see where his unique approach to realism might take us next.
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This essay is a critical study of Jason Brennan's Against Democracy. We make three main points. Firstly, we argue that Brennan’s proposal of a right to competent government only works if one considers the absence of government a viable... more
This essay is a critical study of Jason Brennan's Against Democracy. We make three main points. Firstly, we argue that Brennan’s proposal of a right to competent government only works if one considers the absence of government a viable proposition—something most of his opponents aren’t prepared to do. Secondly, we argue
that Brennan’s account of competent decision-making is blind to forms of oligarchic power that work against the very ideals of justice and epistemic virtue that competence is meant to safeguard. Thirdly, we muster empirical evidence to argue that, in the real world, democracy just isn’t about making decisions and selecting policies, in which case Brennan's argument misses its mark.
that Brennan’s account of competent decision-making is blind to forms of oligarchic power that work against the very ideals of justice and epistemic virtue that competence is meant to safeguard. Thirdly, we muster empirical evidence to argue that, in the real world, democracy just isn’t about making decisions and selecting policies, in which case Brennan's argument misses its mark.
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In this essay we criticise Rainer Forst's attempt to draw a connection between power and justification, and thus ground his normative theory of a right to justification. Forst draws this connection primarily conceptually, though we will... more
In this essay we criticise Rainer Forst's attempt to draw a connection between power and justification, and thus ground his normative theory of a right to justification. Forst draws this connection primarily conceptually, though we will also consider whether a normative connection may be drawn within his framework. Forst's key insight is that if we understand power as operating by furnishing those subjected to it with reasons, then we create a space for the normative contestation of any exercise of power. He calls this the noumenal understanding of power. Against the conceptual connection between power and justification, we argue that (i) on most plausible accounts of political freedom, some freedom-restrictions commonly attributed to the successful exercise of power would perplexingly count as failures of power on Forst's view, and that (ii) on the most plausible account of reason-recognition, namely an appropriateness of response account, a justification relation is only a sufficient but not necessary condition for recognition. Against the normative connection, we argue that (iii) Forst can establish the existence of a right to justification only if he reconsiders the transcendental aspirations of his theory.
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Cécile Laborde has argued that the freedom we think of as ‘freedom of religion’ should be understood as a bundle of separate and relatively independent freedoms. I criticise that approach by pointing out that it is insufficiently... more
Cécile Laborde has argued that the freedom we think of as ‘freedom of religion’ should be understood as a bundle of separate and relatively independent freedoms. I criticise that approach by pointing out that it is insufficiently sensitive to facts about the sorts of entities that liberal states are. I argue that states have good reasons to mould phenomena such as religion into easily governable monoliths. If this is a problem from the normative point of view, it is not due to descriptively inadequate accounts of religion, but a problem with a lack of realism about the sort of institutions states are. My conclusion is a three-way disjunction: either one must reckon with liberal states’ historically determined limitations in the management of changing social phenomena, or one should direct one’s frustration at the marriage of liberalism and the state, or the very existence of states is normatively problematic.
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In *How Propaganda Works* Jason Stanley argues that democratic societies require substantial material equality because inequality causes ideologically flawed belief, which, in turn, make demagogic propaganda more effective. And that is... more
In *How Propaganda Works* Jason Stanley argues that democratic societies require substantial material equality because inequality causes ideologically flawed belief, which, in turn, make demagogic propaganda more effective. And that is problematic for the quality of democracy. In this brief paper I unpack that argument, in order to make two points: (a) the non-moral argument for equality is promising, but weakened by its reliance on a heavily moralised conception of democracy; (b) that problem may be remedied by whole-heartedly embracing a more realistic conception of democracy. That conception is at least compatible with Stanley’s argument, if not implicit in parts of it.
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Should our factual understanding of the world influence our normative theorising about it? G.A. Cohen has argued that our ultimate normative principles should not be constrained by facts (e.g. about feasibility, human nature, and so on).... more
Should our factual understanding of the world influence our normative theorising about it? G.A. Cohen has argued that our ultimate normative principles should not be constrained by facts (e.g. about feasibility, human nature, and so on). Many others have defended or are committed to subsets of that claim. In this paper I dispute those positions by arguing that, in order to resist the conclusion that ultimate normative principles rest on facts about possibility or conceivability, one has to embrace an unsatisfactory account of how principles generate normative political judgments. So political theorists have to choose between principles ostensibly unbiased by our current understanding of human motivation and political reality, or principles capable of reliably generating political judgments. I conclude with wider methodological observations in defence of the latter option, and so of a return to political philosophy’s traditional blend of normative and descriptive elements.
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This paper outlines an account of political realism as a form of ideology critique. Our focus is a defence of the normative edge of this critical-theoretic project against the common charge that there is a problematic trade-off between a... more
This paper outlines an account of political realism as a form of ideology critique. Our focus is a defence of the normative edge of this critical-theoretic project against the common charge that there is a problematic trade-off between a theory's groundedness in facts about the political status quo and its ability to consistently envisage radical departures from the status quo. To overcome that problem we combine insights from three distant corners of the philosophical landscape: theories of legitimacy by Bernard Williams and other realists, Frankfurt School-inspired Critical Theory, and recent analytic epistemological and metaphysical theories of cognitive bias, ideology, and social construction. The upshot is a novel account of realism as empirically-informed diagnosis-critique of social and political phenomena. This view rejects a sharp divide between descriptive and normative theory, and so is an alternative to the anti-empiricism of some approaches to Critical Theory as well as to the complacency towards existing power structures found within liberal realism, let alone mainstream normative political philosophy, liberal or otherwise.
Research Interests: Critical Social Theory, Language and Ideology, Ideology, Ideology Critique, Raymond Geuss, and 10 moreFrankfurt School, Bernard Williams, Political Realism and Idealism, Political Realism, Marxism and critical realism, Critique of Ideology, Moralism and Realism In Political Philosophy, Bernard Williams, legitimacy, political realism., Critical Theory/Frankfurt School, and Ideologiekritik
In this paper we argue that Sen's defence of liberal democracy suffers from a moralistic and pro-liberal bias that renders it unable to take pluralism as seriously as it professes to do. That is because Sen’s commitment to respecting... more
In this paper we argue that Sen's defence of liberal democracy suffers from a moralistic and pro-liberal bias that renders it unable to take pluralism as seriously as it professes to do. That is because Sen’s commitment to respecting pluralism is not matched by his account of how to individuate the sorts of preferences that ought to be included in democratic deliberation. Our argument generalises as a critique of the two most common responses to the fact of pluralism in contemporary (i.e. post-Rawls) liberalism: a broadly procedural understanding of autonomy and the idea of deliberative democracy. That is to say, the difficulties with pluralism we identify can be traced back to the particular version of Kantian deontology prevalent in contemporary liberalism, and to the equally prevalent aspiration to ground political legitimacy in a moralised consensus.
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This paper provides a realist analysis of the EU's legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams' theory of legitimacy, which we term critical responsiveness. For Williams, 'Basic Legitimation Demand + Modernity = Liberalism'.... more
This paper provides a realist analysis of the EU's legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams' theory of legitimacy, which we term critical responsiveness. For Williams, 'Basic Legitimation Demand + Modernity = Liberalism'. Drawing on that model, we make three claims. (i) The right side of the equation is insufficiently sensitive to popular sovereignty; (ii) The left side of the equation is best thought of as a 'legitimation story': a non-moralised normative account of how to shore up belief in legitimacy while steering clear of both raw domination and ideological distortions. (iii) The EU's current legitimation story draws on a tradition of popular sovereignty that sits badly with the supranational delegation and pooling of sovereign powers. We conclude by suggesting that the EU's legitimation deficit may be best addressed demoicratically, by recovering the value of popular sovereignty at the expense of a degree of state sovereignty.
Research Interests: Legitimacy and Authority, Ideology, Political Legitimacy, European Union, Political Realism and Idealism, and 14 morelegitimacy and accountability of the European union as an international actor, Democracy in the European Union, Popular sovereignty, Democratic Deficit of Eu, EU Legitimacy, Realism in political theory, EU democratic deficit, European Union Legitimacy, Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union, Legitimation and Authority, Moralism and Realism In Political Philosophy, Power, Authority and Legitimacy, Authority and Legitimacy, and Demoicracy
I argue that John Gray's modus vivendi-based justification for liberalism is preferable to the more orthodox deontological or teleological justificatory strategies, at least because of the way it can deal with the problem of diversity.... more
I argue that John Gray's modus vivendi-based justification for liberalism is preferable to the more orthodox deontological or teleological justificatory strategies, at least because of the way it can deal with the problem of diversity. But then I show how that is not good news for liberalism, for grounding liberal political authority in a modus vivendi undermines liberalism’s aspiration to occupy a privileged normative position vis-à-vis other kinds of regimes. So modus vivendi can save liberalism from moralism, but at cost many liberals will not be prepared to pay.
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In this review I try and show the ways in which Geuss’ new work may advance the (radical) realist programme. The main contribution in the new essays, as I see it, is the emphasis on the counterintuitively transformative potential of a... more
In this review I try and show the ways in which Geuss’ new work may advance the (radical) realist programme. The main contribution in the new essays, as I see it, is the emphasis on the counterintuitively transformative potential of a realist approach, as opposed to the false promise of highly moralised approaches. I also highlight some open questions about Geuss’ realism, primarily to do with his contextualism and with the role of feasibility constraints.
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Is there more to the recent surge in political realism than just a debate on how best to continue doing what political theorists are already doing? I use two recent books, by Michael Freeden and Matt Sleat, as a testing ground for... more
Is there more to the recent surge in political realism than just a debate on how best to continue doing what political theorists are already doing? I use two recent books, by Michael Freeden and Matt Sleat, as a testing ground for realism’s claims about its import on the discipline. I argue that both book take realism beyond the Methodenstreit, though each in a different direction: Freeden’s takes us in the realm of meta-metatheory, Sleat’s is a genuine exercise in grounding liberal normative theory in a non-moralistic way. I conclude with wider methodological observations. I argue that unlike communitarianism (the previous contender for the discipline’s renewal), realism has the potential to open new vistas, though their novelty is to a large extent relative to the last forty years or so: realism is best thought of as a return to a more traditional way of doing political philosophy.
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This paper provides a critical overview of the realist current in contemporary political philosophy. We define political realism on the basis of its attempt to give varying degrees of autonomy to politics as a sphere of human activity, in... more
This paper provides a critical overview of the realist current in contemporary political philosophy. We define political realism on the basis of its attempt to give varying degrees of autonomy to politics as a sphere of human activity, in large part through its exploration of the sources of normativity appropriate for the political, and so distinguish sharply between political realism and non-ideal theory. We then identify and discuss four key arguments advanced by political realists: from ideology, from the relationship of ethics to politics, from the priority of legitimacy over justice, and from the nature of political judgment. Next, we ask to what extent realism is a methodological approach as opposed to a substantive political position, and so discuss the relationship between realism and a few such positions. We close by pointing out the links between contemporary realism and the realist strand that runs through much of the history of Western political thought.
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""Public justification-based accounts of liberal legitimacy rely on the idea that a polity’s basic structure should, in some sense, be acceptable to its citizens. In this paper I discuss the prospects of that approach through the lens of... more
""Public justification-based accounts of liberal legitimacy rely on the idea that a polity’s basic structure should, in some sense, be acceptable to its citizens. In this paper I discuss the prospects of that approach through the lens of Gerald Gaus’ critique of John Rawls’ paradigmatic account of democratic public justification. I argue that Gaus does succeed in pointing out some significant problems for Rawls’ political liberalism; yet his alternative, justificatory liberalism, is not voluntaristic enough to satisfy the desiderata of a genuinely democratic theory of public justification. Moreover I contend that—pace Gaus—rather than simply amending political liberalism, the claims of justificatory liberalism cast serious doubts on the sustainability of the project of grounding liberal-democratic legitimacy through the idea of public justification.
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One of the main challenges faced by realists in political philosophy is that of offering an account of authority that is genuinely normative and yet does not consist of a moralistic application of general, abstract ethical principles to... more
One of the main challenges faced by realists in political philosophy is that of offering an account of authority that is genuinely normative and yet does not consist of a moralistic application of general, abstract ethical principles to the practice of politics. Political moralists typically start by devising a conception of justice based on their pre-political moral commitments; authority would then be legitimate only if political power is exercised in accordance with justice. As an alternative to that dominant approach I put forward the idea that upturning the relationship between justice and legitimacy affords a normative notion of authority that does not depend on a pre-political account of morality, and thus avoids some serious problems faced by mainstream theories of justice. I then argue that the appropriate purpose of justice is simply to specify the implementation of an independently-grounded conception of legitimacy, which in turn rests on a context- and practice-sensitive understanding of the purpose of political power.
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Can political theory be action-guiding without relying on pre-political normative commitments? I answer that question affirmatively by unpacking two related tenets of Raymond Geuss’ political realism: the view that political philosophy... more
Can political theory be action-guiding without relying on pre-political normative commitments? I answer that question affirmatively by unpacking two related tenets of Raymond Geuss’ political realism: the view that political philosophy should not be a branch of ethics, and the ensuing empirically-informed conception of legitimacy. I argue that the former idea can be made sense of by reference to Hobbes’ account of authorization, and that realist legitimacy can be normatively salient in so far as it stands in the correct relation to a theory of justice and problematizes its sources of value through what Geuss terms ‘political imagination’.
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Is genuinely normative political theory necessarily informed by distinctively moral values? Eva Erman and Niklas Möller (2013) answer that question affirmatively, and highlight its centrality in the debate on the prospects of political... more
Is genuinely normative political theory necessarily informed by distinctively moral values? Eva Erman and Niklas Möller (2013) answer that question affirmatively, and highlight its centrality in the debate on the prospects of political realism, which explicitly eschews pre-political moral foundations. In this comment we defend the emerging realist current. After briefly presenting Erman and Möller's position, we (i) observe that freedom and equality are not obviously moral values in the way they assume, and (ii) argue that a non-moral distinction between politics and sheer domination can give us a distinctively political normativity. The two points are related but freestanding.
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In this rejoinder to Erman and Möller’s reply to our “Political Norms and Moral Values” we clarify the sense in which there can be specifically political values, and expound the practice-dependent notion of legitimacy adopted by our... more
In this rejoinder to Erman and Möller’s reply to our “Political Norms and Moral Values” we clarify the sense in which there can be specifically political values, and expound the practice-dependent notion of legitimacy adopted by our preferred version of political realism.
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Could the notion of compromise help us overcoming – or at least negotiating – the frequent tension, in normative political theory, between the realistic desideratum of peaceful coexistence and the idealistic desideratum of justice? That... more
Could the notion of compromise help us overcoming – or at least negotiating – the frequent tension, in normative political theory, between the realistic desideratum of peaceful coexistence and the idealistic desideratum of justice? That is to say, an analysis of compromise may help us moving beyond the contrast between two widespread contrasting attitudes in contemporary political philosophy: ‘fiat iustitia, pereat mundus’ on the one side, ‘salus populi suprema lex’ on the other side. More specifically, compromise may provide the backbone of a conception of legitimacy that mediates between idealistic (or moralistic) and realistic (or pragmatic) desiderata of political theory, i.e. between the aspiration to peace and the aspiration to justice. In other words, this paper considers whether an account of compromise could feature in a viable realistic conception of political legitimacy, in much the same way in which consensus features in more idealistic conceptions of legitimacy (a move that may be attributed to some realist theorists, especially Bernard Williams). My conclusions, however, are largely sceptical: I argue that grounding legitimacy in any kind of normatively salient agreement does require the trappings of idealistic political philosophy, for better or – in my view – worse.
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In this paper I argue that equal respect-based accounts of the normative basis of tolerance are self-defeating, insofar as they are unable to specify the limits of tolerance in a way that is consistent with their own commitment to the... more
In this paper I argue that equal respect-based accounts of the normative basis of tolerance are self-defeating, insofar as they are unable to specify the limits of tolerance in a way that is consistent with their own commitment to the equal treatment of all conceptions of the good. I show how this argument is a variant of the longstanding ‘conflict of freedoms’ objection to Kantian-inspired, freedom-based accounts of the justification of systems of norms. I criticise Thomas Scanlon’s defence of ‘pure tolerance’, Anna Elisabetta Galeotti’s work on the relationship between tolerance, equal respect and recognition, and Arthur Ripstein’s recent response to the ‘conflict of freedoms’ objection. The upshot of my argument is that, while valuing tolerance for its own sake may be an appealing ideal, it is not a feasible way of grounding a system of norms. I close with a thumbnail sketch of two alternative, instrumental (i.e. non-Kantian) approaches to the normative foundations of tolerance.
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In this paper we analyse the connection between the contested ethno-cultural labelling of Gipsy-Travellers in Wales and their position of social marginalisation, with special reference to spatial issues, such as the provision of... more
In this paper we analyse the connection between the contested ethno-cultural labelling of Gipsy-Travellers in Wales and their position of social marginalisation, with special reference to spatial issues, such as the provision of campsites and public housing. Our main aim is to show how the formal and informal (mis)labelling of minority groups leads to a number of morally and politically questionable outcomes in their treatment on the part of political authorities. Our approach combines a close reading of official policy documents, government-commissioned and independent empirical research with a theoretical framework drawn mainly from contemporary political philosophy, and especially from the debate on redistribution and recognition.
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Agonist theorists have argued against deliberative democrats that democratic institutions should not seek to establish a rational consensus, but rather allow political disagreements to be expressed in an adversarial form. But democratic... more
Agonist theorists have argued against deliberative democrats that democratic institutions should not seek to establish a rational consensus, but rather allow political disagreements to be expressed in an adversarial form. But democratic agonism is not antagonism: some restriction of the plurality of admissible expressions is not incompatible with a legitimate public sphere. However, is it generally possible to grant this distinction between antagonism and agonism without accepting normative standards in public discourse that saliently resemble those advocated by (some) deliberative democrats? In this paper we provide an analysis of one important aspect of political communication, the use of slippery slope arguments, and show that the fact of pluralism weakens the agonists’ case for contestation as a sufficient ingredient for appropriately democratic public discourse. We illustrate that contention by identifying two specific kinds of what we call pluralism slippery slopes, i.e. mechanisms whereby pluralism reinforces the efficacy of slippery slope arguments.
Research Interests: Deliberative Democracy, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Democracy, Les critiques réalistes des théories de la justice (Raymond Geuss, Chantal Mouffe, Pierre Manent), Political Realism and Idealism, and 4 moreAgonism, Deliberative Democracy, Divided Societies, Democratic Participation, Slippery Slope Arguments, and Moralism and Realism In Political Philosophy
A polity is grounded in a modus vivendi (MV) when its main features can be presented as the outcome of a virtually unrestricted bargaining process. Is MV compatible with the consensus-based account of liberal legitimacy, i.e. the view... more
A polity is grounded in a modus vivendi (MV) when its main features can be presented as the outcome of a virtually unrestricted bargaining process. Is MV compatible with the consensus-based account of liberal legitimacy, i.e. the view that political authority is well grounded only if the citizenry have in some sense freely consented to its exercise? I show that the atraction of MV for consensus theorists lies mainly in the thought that a MV can be presented as legitimated through a realist account of public justification. Yet I argue that, because of persistent ethical diversity, that realism problematically conflicts with the liberal commitments that underpin the very ideas of consensus and public justification. Tus, despite the interest it has recently atracted from critics of political liberalism and deliberative democracy, MV is not an option for those wishing to ground liberal political authority in some form of consensus. So if realist and agonistic critiques are on target, then the fact that modus vivendi is not an option casts some serious doubt on the viability of the consensus view of liberal legitimacy.
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A critical discussion of Toula Nicolacopoulos' 'The Radical Critique of Liberalism'. I analyse her methodology of 'critical reconstructionism' and argue that considerations about the epistemic status of the inquiring practices leading to... more
A critical discussion of Toula Nicolacopoulos' 'The Radical Critique of Liberalism'. I analyse her methodology of 'critical reconstructionism' and argue that considerations about the epistemic status of the inquiring practices leading to the formulation of liberal political theory need not affect the viability and desirability of liberal political practice, especially if we adopt a historically-informed realist account of the foundations of liberalism.
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This paper provides an interpretation of the licensing provisions envisaged under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 as a model for a rule and exemption-based procedural strategy for the adjudication of potential ethical... more
This paper provides an interpretation of the licensing provisions
envisaged under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 as a model for a rule and exemption-based procedural strategy for the adjudication of potential ethical controversies, and it offers an account of the liberal-democratic legitimacy of the procedure's outcomes as well as of the legal procedure itself. Drawing on a novel articulation of the distinction between exceptions and exemptions, the paper argues that such a rule and exemption mechanism, while not devoid of attractions, is not immune from the criticisms often levied against procedural approaches to the management of pluralism: it either has to fall back on substantive justification in ways that are not helpful when trying to arbitrate a moral controversy, or it appears justificatorily groundless.
envisaged under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 as a model for a rule and exemption-based procedural strategy for the adjudication of potential ethical controversies, and it offers an account of the liberal-democratic legitimacy of the procedure's outcomes as well as of the legal procedure itself. Drawing on a novel articulation of the distinction between exceptions and exemptions, the paper argues that such a rule and exemption mechanism, while not devoid of attractions, is not immune from the criticisms often levied against procedural approaches to the management of pluralism: it either has to fall back on substantive justification in ways that are not helpful when trying to arbitrate a moral controversy, or it appears justificatorily groundless.
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Many theorists claim that liberal democracy ought to be reformed or rejected for not being sufficiently 'inclusive' towards diversity; others argue that, on the contrary, liberalism is desirable because it accommodates (some level of)... more
Many theorists claim that liberal democracy ought to be reformed or rejected for not being sufficiently 'inclusive' towards diversity; others argue that, on the contrary, liberalism is desirable because it accommodates (some level of) diversity. Moreover, it has been argued that concern for diversity should lead us to favour (say) neutralistic over perfectionist, universalistic over particularistic, participative over representative versions of liberal democracy. This paper provides a conceptual framework to situate those debates, and argues that there are two fundamental ways in which diversity constitutes a challenge to the justificatory status of liberal democracy: consistency (whereby diversity causes clashes between the prescriptions generated by normative political theories), and adequacy (whereby diversity generates a rift between our experience of what is considered valuable and what the theory treats as such).
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In this paper I analyze the theory of legitimacy at the core of John Rawls’ political liberalism. Rawls argues that a political system is well grounded when it is stable. This notion of stability embodies both pragmatic and moral... more
In this paper I analyze the theory of legitimacy at the core of John Rawls’ political liberalism. Rawls argues that a political system is well grounded when it is stable. This notion of stability embodies both pragmatic and moral elements, each of which constitutes a key desideratum of Rawlsian liberal legitimacy. But those desiderata are in tension with each other. My main claim is that Rawls’ strategy to overcome that tension through his theory of public justification is ultimately unsuccessful, because the account of consensus it envisages is unstably placed between the extremes of moralized redundancy and pragmatic free-for-all. In other words, what counts as consensus is either regulated too tightly, or not enough.
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Questo saggio è una critica del 'transmodernismo'. Mostro che, se vi è un’entità teoretica caratterizzabile con il termine ‘transmodernità’, essa oscilla fra il piano descrittivo dell’osservazione quasi antropologica e il piano normativo... more
Questo saggio è una critica del 'transmodernismo'. Mostro che, se vi è un’entità teoretica caratterizzabile con il termine ‘transmodernità’, essa oscilla fra il piano descrittivo dell’osservazione quasi antropologica e il piano normativo della difesa di uno specifico progetto culturale. Sostengo quindi due tesi principali. (i) Sul piano normativo l’idea del transmoderno non trova spazio per un’articolazione coerente: il transmoderno non è una via media tra razionalismo moderno e antifondazionalismo postmoderno, ma semmai un’esasperazione dell’anarchismo epistemologico antifondazionalista. (ii) Sul piano descrittivo l'idea di transmodernità sembra rispecchiare la diffusione frammentaria degli standard epistemologici e assiologici della modernità. Tuttavia sostengo che ciò non è un fenomeno nuovo, ma semplicemente una fase della graduale, incompleta e non sempre lineare affermazione del progetto illuminista della modernità.
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In questo articolo analizziamo la struttura e il ruolo delle argomentazioni del piano inclinato frequentemente utilizzati nel dibattito su questioni di bioetica. Proponiamo una tassonomia di tali argomentazioni e suggeriamo alcune forme... more
In questo articolo analizziamo la struttura e il ruolo delle argomentazioni del piano inclinato frequentemente utilizzati nel dibattito su questioni di bioetica. Proponiamo una tassonomia di tali argomentazioni e suggeriamo alcune forme di regolamentazione normativa e architettura istituzionale che possano ridurre le conseguenze negative del ricorso al piano inclinato nel dibattito pubblico.
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A collection of new papers, edited by Ester Herlin-Karnell and Enzo Rossi. The Kantian project of achieving perpetual peace among states seems (at best) an unfulfilled hope. Modern states' authority claims and their exercise of power... more
A collection of new papers, edited by Ester Herlin-Karnell and Enzo Rossi.
The Kantian project of achieving perpetual peace among states seems (at best) an unfulfilled hope. Modern states' authority claims and their exercise of power and sovereignty span a spectrum: from the most stringently and explicitly codified-the constitutional level-to the most fluid and turbulent-acts of war. The Public Uses of Coercion and Force investigates both these individual extremes and also their relationship. Using Arthur Ripstein's recent work Kant and the Law of War as a focal point, this book explores this connection through the lens of the (just) war theory and its relationship to the law.
The Public Uses of Coercion and Force asks many key questions: what, if any, are the normatively salient differences between states' internal coercion and the external use of force? Is it possible to isolate the constitutional level from other aspects of the state's coercive reach? How could that be done while also guaranteeing a robust conception of human rights and adherence to the rule of law? With individual replies by Ripstein to chapters, this book will be of interest to students and academics of constitutional law, justice, philosophy of law, criminal law theory, and political science.
The Kantian project of achieving perpetual peace among states seems (at best) an unfulfilled hope. Modern states' authority claims and their exercise of power and sovereignty span a spectrum: from the most stringently and explicitly codified-the constitutional level-to the most fluid and turbulent-acts of war. The Public Uses of Coercion and Force investigates both these individual extremes and also their relationship. Using Arthur Ripstein's recent work Kant and the Law of War as a focal point, this book explores this connection through the lens of the (just) war theory and its relationship to the law.
The Public Uses of Coercion and Force asks many key questions: what, if any, are the normatively salient differences between states' internal coercion and the external use of force? Is it possible to isolate the constitutional level from other aspects of the state's coercive reach? How could that be done while also guaranteeing a robust conception of human rights and adherence to the rule of law? With individual replies by Ripstein to chapters, this book will be of interest to students and academics of constitutional law, justice, philosophy of law, criminal law theory, and political science.
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Contributors: Emanuela Ceva, Gerald F. Gaus, John Horton, Simon Cabulea May, Sebastiano Mafettone, Glen Newey, Valeria Ottonelli, Enzo Rossi. The essays in this collection consider (i) the extent to which it is plausible to separate the... more
Contributors: Emanuela Ceva, Gerald F. Gaus, John Horton, Simon Cabulea May, Sebastiano Mafettone, Glen Newey, Valeria Ottonelli, Enzo Rossi.
The essays in this collection consider (i) the extent to which it is plausible to separate the legitimacy and justice of a polity, in the twofold sense that unjust institutions may still exercise legitimate political authority, and illegitimate institutions may issue just commands and (ii) the ways in which the challenge of ethical diversity affects the normative standing and the proper exercise of political authority, depending on whether such authority is understood primarily in terms of justice or in terms of legitimacy.
The essays in this collection consider (i) the extent to which it is plausible to separate the legitimacy and justice of a polity, in the twofold sense that unjust institutions may still exercise legitimate political authority, and illegitimate institutions may issue just commands and (ii) the ways in which the challenge of ethical diversity affects the normative standing and the proper exercise of political authority, depending on whether such authority is understood primarily in terms of justice or in terms of legitimacy.
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The powerful have the most to lose from ordinary people’s ability to speak their mind freely. Recognising this fact means recognising that we need content-neutral standards of academic freedom and freedom of speech, supported by a broad... more
The powerful have the most to lose from ordinary people’s ability to speak their mind freely. Recognising this fact means recognising that we need content-neutral standards of academic freedom and freedom of speech, supported by a broad coalition.
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The standard notion of ceasefire envisaged by the international law of armed conflict is not a good fit for the political reality in Israel and Palestine. Only a politically ambitious, permanent, and third party-enforced ceasefire... more
The standard notion of ceasefire envisaged by the international law of armed conflict is not a good fit for the political reality in Israel and Palestine. Only a politically ambitious, permanent, and third party-enforced ceasefire agreement with a pathway towards complete demilitarization of all factions stands a chance — however small — of establishing a lasting peace between the river and the sea.
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An opinion piece on ideology
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Andreas Busen / Alexander Weiß: This special section, and the contributions in it, revolve around the question of how to square democratic theory with realism. To what extent, or so we put the question in our introduction, should... more
Andreas Busen / Alexander Weiß: This special section, and the contributions in it, revolve around the question of how to square democratic theory with realism. To what extent, or so we put the question in our introduction, should democratic theorizing take into account reality, or specific elements of our existing reality (such as economic constraints, the digital transformation of society, or the fact that certain natural resources are finite)? And, more specifically, what kind of impact should the resulting realism have on our theory-building? In your work, you are both interested in finding ways of incorporating reality into political theorizing which do take the effects of existing realities seriously, yet still offer at least some perspective as to how things might be transformed, as it were, for the better. Let us start with questions to each of you to give us an idea of where you are coming from, what your perspective is and what your contribution to this discussion might be. Let us start with Lisa. Lisa, your work is located at the intersection of political philosophy and economics-a field that you have been working on for quite a long time. To what extent, in your opinion, do philosophers and economists refer to reality differently, and what does this mean for your own idea of how theorizing should reflect reality?
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While there is an upper- and managerial-class woke aesthetic that mainly aims at sugarcoating the perpetuation of capitalism, this supervenes on some real structural changes. However, these do not threaten the stability of the capitalist... more
While there is an upper- and managerial-class woke aesthetic that mainly aims at sugarcoating the perpetuation of capitalism, this supervenes on some real structural changes. However, these do not threaten the stability of the capitalist system nor even of some of the most longstanding linkages between race and class. It follows that the politics of representation should not be regarded as a vehicle for the agenda of the materialist left. We propose instead a responsive universalist approach—responsive to racism and all other forms of marginalization and different from the homogenizing universalism of class-only politics.
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Il metodo d'analisi di Graeber ha cambiato la nostra comprensione del passato remoto, e con essa la possibilità di futuro
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When consumption determines social inclusion, looting is a form of direct action against a system that denies many people the opportunities for social integration.
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Racial capitalism is a thing, but so is woke capitalism, and the latter, in our minds, poses the ascendant threat today.... more
Racial capitalism is a thing, but so is woke capitalism, and the latter, in our minds, poses the ascendant threat today.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/taking-the-racism-out-of-capitalism-isnt-good-enough-11598555456?mod=mw_latestnews&link=sfmw_tw
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/taking-the-racism-out-of-capitalism-isnt-good-enough-11598555456?mod=mw_latestnews&link=sfmw_tw
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Il saccheggio a fini personali e l’occupazione a scopi di assistenza ai più vulnerabili possono essere viste come manifestazioni dello stesso fenomeno. Il fenomeno in questione è l’azione diretta contro un sistema che nega strutturalmente... more
Il saccheggio a fini personali e l’occupazione a scopi di assistenza ai più vulnerabili possono essere viste come manifestazioni dello stesso fenomeno. Il fenomeno in questione è l’azione diretta contro un sistema che nega strutturalmente a moltissime persone opportunità concrete per avere uno stile di vita che il sistema stesso indica come non soltanto desiderabile, ma necessario all’integrazione sociale.
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"We are not striking to fill our pockets. But to demand an end to the bossing around of our universities by politicians and bureaucrats."
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For those in Red Square, the Winter Palace is not in Amsterdam, but in the Dutch seat of government.
Meanwhile, the New University has a life of its own.
Meanwhile, the New University has a life of its own.
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It has been two weeks since the first occupation of the Bungehuis, one of the main buildings of the University of Amsterdam (UvA)...