While Justice Everywhere takes a break over the summer, we recall from our archives some of our memorable posts from 2017-2018.
Here are three good reads on issues commonly associated with left-wing politics that you may have missed or be interested to re-read:
Lisa Herzog’s interview with Isabelle Ferreras on ‘Workplace Democracy‘
Lasse Nielsen’s ‘Sufficiency on Political Inequality‘
Miriam Ronzoni’s ‘On Striking as a Privilege‘
Why do we trust experts to take care of our health and not to take care of our interests in the political realm? This is a very old question of democratic theory. Epistocracy is a neologism frequently used in recent works to refer to a form of government by those who know more or are wiser than the mass.
Two different aspects might differentiate an epistocracy from a democracy: the absence of political equality in the selection of the rulers, or the absence of egalitarian accountability. In addition to these undemocratic aspects, an epistocracy would differ from other non-democratic regimes by some mechanism allowing people who distinguish themselves from the mass by their wisdom or expertise to rule or at least enjoy an important degree of political power. The best example and – to my knowledge – the most interesting challenge to our democratic convictions is Jason Brennan’s idea of an “epistocratic council”. Members of this council would be selected on a meritocratic basis, passing a competency exam. And all citizens would have an equal voice in the choice of the expertise criteria.
Leaving aside the practical challenges such as the choice of the people in charge of preparing the exam, what would be wrong with such an epistocratic council? (more…)
There is currently a lot of attention on the UK’s “housing crisis”. One issue here is 
the quantity of available housing. There are commitments to address the shortage of housing in the 2017 manifestos of both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. Another issue is the quality of housing. On this issue, the Labour Party have restated the commitment they made in a 2015 Homes Bill to require that all homes meet the standard of being “fit for human habitation”. In this post, I explore the reasons in favour of this commitment.
While Justice Everywhere takes a break over the summer, we recall from our archives some of our memorable posts from 2016-2017.
Here are four good reads in democracy and politicians that you may have missed or be interested to re-read:
Aveek Bhattacharya’s ‘What should voters look for in their politicians?‘
Jesper Pedersen’s ‘Should MPs be subject to mandatory deselection?‘
Miriam Ronzoni’s ‘Germany and European Solidarity‘
Luke Ulas’ ‘Why are you more angry about Trump’s state visit to the UK than about visits from leaders of China and Saudi Arabia?‘
The editors of Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric are pleased to announce the publication of the second re-launch issue of the journal: volume 9, issue 1.
The issue is devoted to the topic of “Global Justice and Non-Domination” and features the following original articles:
The whole issue, with all articles and reviews, can be freely accessed at Volume 9, Issue 1.
For more information about the journal, please see the journal homepage.
In reaction to the contemporary crisis of electoral democracy (marked by decreasing turnouts to elections, marginal party affiliation and general distrust towards politicians), there is a growing interest (from scholars, activists and politicians) in the idea of using random selection for selecting representatives, as was the case in ancient Greece and several Italian Republics in the Middle Ages.
Random selection cannot replace elections altogether. Despite all their shortcomings, elections are a very important democratic tool, in particular because they offer a space for wide participation to self-government, whereas active participation through random selection is limited to a very small section of the population. What is more, randomly selected representatives are not accountable to a constituency. This can have interesting effects in shifting decisions from the preferences of the median voter and reducing the short-termism inherent to elections. Yet it also dangerously impairs legitimacy if a government is not accountable.
For these reasons, the most plausible idea is to have only one chamber of representatives selected by lot (the other and the government remaining elected). What I want to do in this post is to identify the main challenges that such proposal faces. And I count on you to tell me whether you think that there are decisive or not, and if there are other important challenges that I’ve failed to consider. (more…)
Newcastle University & Durham University, 14-15 December 2016
Labour market injustice is a pressing problem both domestically and globally. None the less, there continues to be considerable disagreement about how to understand and locate the moral concerns involved. Many commentators understand labour market injustice in interactional terms, viewing it as a problem with the wage or contract terms employers offer their workers. But, there is also an emerging trend towards thinking about it in more structural terms. One such thread involves conceptualising labour market injustices as systemic problems, such as understanding exploitation or discrimination as group-to-group phenomena. Another thread involves articulating proposals to prevent labour market injustices through institutional and policy level responses.
This workshop will operate as a detailed discussion of a set of works-in-progress that consider these emerging angles on (domestic and global) labour market injustice. We invite submissions grounded in any area of political theory, including both applied work and more theoretical or methodological contributions, and also papers that consider the intersection with importantly related disciplines, such as law and economics. Topics may include, but are not limited to, areas such as:
Confirmed participants
Workshop Organisers
Submissions
Abstracts of up to 500 words, accompanied by contact details and institutional affiliation, should be sent to andrew.walton@ncl.ac.uk by 30th September 2016. We will notify accepted papers by 14th October.
For further information, please contact andrew.walton@ncl.ac.uk, tparr@essex.ac.uk, or elizabeth.kahn@durham.ac.uk
Newcastle University & Durham University, 14-15 December 2016
Labour market injustice is a pressing problem both domestically and globally. None the less, there continues to be considerable disagreement about how to understand and locate the moral concerns involved. Many commentators understand labour market injustice in interactional terms, viewing it as a problem with the wage or contract terms employers offer their workers. But, there is also an emerging trend towards thinking about it in more structural terms. One such thread involves conceptualising labour market injustices as systemic problems, such as understanding exploitation or discrimination as group-to-group phenomena. Another thread involves articulating proposals to prevent labour market injustices through institutional and policy level responses.
This workshop will operate as a detailed discussion of a set of works-in-progress that consider these emerging angles on (domestic and global) labour market injustice. We invite submissions grounded in any area of political theory, including both applied work and more theoretical or methodological contributions, and also papers that consider the intersection with importantly related disciplines, such as law and economics. Topics may include, but are not limited to, areas such as:
Confirmed participants
Workshop Organisers
Submissions
Abstracts of up to 500 words, accompanied by contact details and institutional affiliation, should be sent to andrew.walton@ncl.ac.uk by 30th September 2016. We will notify accepted papers by 14th October.
For further information, please contact andrew.walton@ncl.ac.uk, tparr@essex.ac.uk, or elizabeth.kahn@durham.ac.uk
Taxation is amongst the most hotly debated and politically contentious issues of the twenty-first century. It has long been an important component of state policy for funding public services and managing inequalities. Recently, it has increasingly been under the spotlight in virtue of international concerns – worries about multi-national companies shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions and wealthy ind
ividuals exploiting tax loopholes, often to the effect of reducing state tax revenues. Such realities raise important questions about the ethics of taxation in a globalised era and have been the focus of much work by Université de Montreal philosopher Peter Dietsch across his work in The Journal of Political Philosophy, Review of International Studies, Moral Philosophy and Politics, Ethical Perspectives, and the volume Global Tax Governance – What is Wrong With It and How to Fix It (co-edited with Thomas Rixen). In 2015, Peter published a book – Catching Capital: The Ethics of Tax Competition – on these issues and, when the opportunity presented itself, we took the chance to interview Peter about this work and heard some of his interesting reflections on the subject:
(source: wikimedia)
What a weird question, you may think. But consider:
