Pietro Maffettone

The Law of Peoples: Beyond Incoherence and Apology:

The essay provides a reconstruction of Rawlss The Law of Peoples that makes sense of three main discontinuities between Rawlss domestic theory of justice and his international outlook, namely the absence in the latter of: a) individualism, b) egalitarianism, and c) structural justice. The essay argues that while we can make sense of such differences without charging Rawlss account of blatant inconsistency, we can nonetheless criticize such an outlook from an internal perspective. There is a middle way between claiming that no significant differences are present between A Theory of Justice and The Law of Peoples and, on the other hand, that the differences between the two are so large as to make them totally incompatible. Furthermore, to argue in favour of Rawlss consistency does not, as many seem to have thought, entail agreeing with his overall conclusion for justice in international relations. The final part of the essay illustrates this point by analyzing the case of trade.

Moral Cosmopolitanism and Democratic Values

In the past four decades topics related to the moral evaluation of global politics have occupied a central part of the philosophical debate. The first three sections of this essay provide a reconstruction of the defining features of the globalization of politics and of the ways in which the latter have contributed to the increased philosophical attention on the moral aspects of global affairs. In sections four to six, we move to the current debate in global political theory. Moral cosmopolitanism has come to articulate the boundaries of reasonable disagreement in global political theory and has implied a deep form of commitment to basic human rights. However, we argue in section six, agreement on basic human rights has not evolved into widespread convergence on a range of central political concepts such as distributive justice and legitimacy. Against this backdrop, in sections 7 to 10, we move on to consider the role of democracy in global politics. The main conclusion that the essay will put forward is that the complexity of the institutional landscape beyond traditional state borders does not automatically lend itself to the mechanical application of democratic institutional forms, but that democratic values can still play an important role.

Two views of assistance

The article makes two substantive contributions to the existing literature on the ethics of international assistance and global justice. First, it builds what we take to be a widely held set of propositions about international assistance into a consistent view (i.e. the relief view), and articulates a strong case against its desirability. Second, it sketches a more attractive alternative (i.e. the development view). To do so the article uses Sen’s idea of agent-oriented development as a starting point while at the same time providing a generalization of Sen’s account and a justificatory framework that does not rely on the capability approach.

Classifying states: instrumental rhetoric or a compelling normative theory?

ABSTRACT Many states use a classificatory approach to foreign policy: they put other states into particular categories and structure their engagement and relations partly as a result. There is one prominent modern international political theory – Rawls’ Law of Peoples – that seems to adopt this approach as an account of justified state behaviour. But should we expect this type of theory ultimately to prove attractive, justified and philosophically distinct compared to more instrumentalist rivals? This paper explores the challenges generic to any such account, not merely those relating to Rawls’ specific version, and surveys possible responses and their shortcomings.

Benevolent absolutisms, incentives and Rawls’ The Law of Peoples

Rawls’ The Law of Peoples does not offer a clear principled account of the way in which liberal and decent peoples should deal with benevolent absolutisms. Within the Rawlsian framework, benevolent absolutisms are a type of society that respects basic human rights and is not externally aggressive. Rawls rules out the use of coercion to engage with benevolent absolutisms but does not provide an alternative strategy. The article develops one, namely, it argues that liberal and decent peoples should use positive incentives to induce benevolent absolutisms to make their transition to the status of well-ordered peoples. In so doing, it offers a principled way to expand Rawls’ international nonideal theory and, in the process, provides a more nuanced approach to the promotion of political participation in international society. The article draws on the literature on economic statecraft and political theory and constructs an incentive model with seven distinct parameters attached to its definition of incentives. Finally, the article provides a real-world example, of how to concretely implement the incentive mechanism.

Toleration, Decency and Self-Determination in The Law of Peoples

In this article I address two objections to Rawls’ account of international toleration. The first claims that the idea of a decent people does not cohere with Rawls’ understanding of reasonable pluralism and sanctions the oppressive use of state power. The second argues that liberal peoples would agree to a more expansive set of principles in the first original position of Law of Peoples. Contra the first I argue that it does not properly distinguish between the use of state power aimed at curtailing difference and the oppressive use of state power. Contra the second I argue that transposing a liberal egalitarian set of principles in Law of Peoples would entail the unnecessary duplication of entitlements within different levels of governance and affect liberal peoples’ self-determination. The article also highlights how these criticisms are premised on the assumption that all societies should be liberal and that the correct view of global justice is a cosmopolitan one.

Book Review: Gary P. Sampson (ed.), The WTO and Global Governance: Future Directions (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2008, 277 pp., £19.99 pbk)

The analysis of the external perceptions of the EU is carried out within a theoretical framework that combines insights from Social Identity Theory, International Relations and Foreign Policy Analysis, with the final goal of identifying those variables that shape external images. In general, the factors that influence others’ perceptions are both longterm variables, such as historical memories and socially constructed conceptions of the world, and more contingent features, such as preferences, interests and political interaction. These variables are tested in several case studies that examine the perceptions of political and economic elites, public opinion, civil society organisations and the media in powerful, emerging and developing countries as well as the image of the EU that international organisations and regional institutions have. What emerges from the case studies is a fragmented image that does not match the self-portrait the EU offers to the world. Rather, a clear discrepancy between rhetoric and practice seems to be the dominant feature that characterises external perceptions of the EU. Moreover, Lucarelli and Fioramonti identify ‘a potentially inverse relation between “positive image” and “policy effectiveness”’ (p. 223), in that the policies in which the EU is less effective, namely, the political ones, are those where the EU’s self-representation is closer to the external perceptions. One major risk of an edited volume is the lack of a thorough application of a theoretical framework and methodology. However, such a risk is overcome in this book. It provides a coherent sequence of chapters that fit the theoretical framework delineated by the editors. Each chapter is also a valuable piece by itself and can be read individually as a clear and detailed explanation of the perceptions related to the specific geographical area considered. Nevertheless, sometimes the reader becomes lost in the copious amount of data that each chapter provides, thus threatening the broader picture in which any case study should be understood. The briefly sketched theoretical picture provided in the first chapter, despite being clear, could have been developed more, so that readers would have benefited from a more informed and detailed background. However, the book is still convincing in demonstrating that the ‘distinctiveness’ theory needs to be readdressed with more critical reflections and by taking into account the perceptions of external actors. By shedding light on this under-researched aspect of the EU’s external dimension, the book contributes to filling a gap in the literature and in opening up new patterns for further research.