The Rights Kind of Politics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke A. Ackerly
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Transformative Politics ◽  
Taking Responsibility ◽  
Normative Political Theory

Just responsibility is a way of taking responsibility for all forms of global injustice (not just women’s human rights) and to all people, even those who consider themselves removed from the politics of global injustice (though they want to be engaged). Chapter 7 applies the theory to taking responsibility through the enactment of roles in the political economy—those of consumer, donor, worker, and activist—and beyond. It summarizes the view of political community, accountability, and leadership essential to transformative politics. Just responsibility is more than a normative theory of human rights principles. It is also a normative political theory of how to carry out those principles not only in the practices proscribed by our roles in the political economy, but also in imaginative practices that defy the boundaries of those roles in order to transform the political economy. Just responsibility is a human rights theory of global justice.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke A. Ackerly
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Power Relation ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Women's Human Rights ◽  
Taking Responsibility

Just responsibility is a transformative human rights politics for taking on the complexities, power inequalities, and social normalization of injustice itself. Just responsibility is a human rights theory of political responsibility in which we understand human rights as enjoyed and shared throughout political community (and human rights entitlements as a tool toward that end), political community as defined by its web of networks, not its boundaries, accountability as a political process of discernment, not a power relation, and leadership as a quality of political community, not of individuals within it. Found within and supported by the principles-in-practice of women’s human rights activists, this grounded normative theory of responsibility guides us in a human rights enhancing way to be accountable leaders in political transformation, taking responsibility for global injustice in a just way.

Just Responsibility

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke A. Ackerly
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Critical Methodology ◽  
Causal Responsibility ◽  
The World

When disaster strikes, what is the just thing to do? When local or global crisis threatens the human rights of large parts of humanity, what is the just thing to do? Can we respond to injustices in the world in ways that do more than simply address their consequences? Just Responsibility provides a human rights theory of global justice that guides how we, each in political community together, can take responsibility for injustices wherever they are. Using empirical research into the ways that women’s human rights activists have done so under conditions of little political privilege, Just Responsibility offers a theory of global injustice and political responsibility that can guide the actions of those who are relatively privileged in relation to injustice, whether they are citizens, activists, academics, policymakers, or philanthropists. We can take responsibility for the power inequalities of injustice, what, following John Stuart Mill, the author calls “injustice itself,” regardless of our causal responsibility for the injustice and regardless of the extent of our knowledge of the injustice. Using a feminist critical methodology, Just Responsibility offers a grounded normative theory for taking political responsibility. The book integrates these ways of taking political responsibility into a rich theory of political community, accountability, and leadership in which taking responsibility for injustice itself contributes to and transforms the fabric of our political life together.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke A. Ackerly
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
The Political ◽  
Self Advocacy ◽  
Garment Factory ◽  
Advocacy Network ◽  
Political Perspective ◽  
Key Features

In the introduction, the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS) provides a background for conceptualizing problems of global injustice (injustice itself), the methodology needed to theorize about how to take responsibility for injustice itself politically (grounded normative theory), and the key features and importance of a human rights approach to a political theory of responsibility. BCWS successfully cultivated arrangements with a Bangladeshi factory, RL Denim, to improve conditions there, with Metro Group to keep production in that garment factory, with workers to develop their understanding of their legal rights and strategies for self-advocacy, and with Clean Clothes Campaign (a worker advocacy network) and BSCI (a factory auditing firm) to support the workers’ desire to keep their jobs under improved factory conditions. The remainder of the chapter clarifies the political perspective of the approach.

Normative Political Theory and Global Migration Governance

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. e1176
Author(s):  
Marcelo Santos
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Important Advance ◽  
Global Migration ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
United Nations General Assembly ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Normative Political Theory

Based on the main contributions of normative political theory on global justice and migration ethics, this article assesses the global Compacts on refugees and migration, approved by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2018. The set of conclusions indicates that the Compacts constitute an important advance in global moral and political projects and commitments. However, the application of their predicted terms can bring about problems, distortions, and impasses in the sharing of responsibilities.

Is Democracy an Ethical Standard?

1990 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
James Turner Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Ethical Standard ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
The Political ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
The Family ◽  
American Heritage ◽  
Political Ethic

This article explores the Western cultural traditions of democracy and freedom which form a political ethic deeply rooted in the underlying philosophical and theological American heritage. Theories of Machiavelli, Montesqieu, and Niebuhr support the notion that the potential for virtue is found in all individuals, who, through their undeniable freedoms, responsibilities, and participation, have the capability to establish a political community based on democracy, justice, and respect for human rights. Virtue, justice, morality, ethics, freedom, and democracy are all necessary elements for establishing and maintaining the political community. Can history serve to uphold democracy as an ethical standard of governance? The author suggests that the basic and cross-temporal cornerstones of morality; the family and religion serve as “intermediate” social structures in attaining the central virtues of a moral democracy.

Political Theory and Political Economy

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Elkin
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Distribution Of Wealth ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Core ◽  
Democratic Societies

This article describes the connection between political theory and political economy. It argues that political theorists need to take account of political economy in theorizing about the contemporary world because capitalism is the most powerful force at work in shaping the modern sociopolitical world. It also explains that economic questions concerning economic growth, the distribution of wealth and income, and role of markets are at the core of the political life in democratic societies.

scholarly journals Neo-Kantian Cosmopolitanism and International Law: Modest Practicality?

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 605-629
Author(s):  
Peter Sutch
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Practical Approach ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Political Theory

AbstractThis article explores the practical approach to global justice advocated by the cosmopolitan political theorists Pogge, Beitz and Buchanan. Using a comparative exposition it outlines their reliance on international law and on human rights law in particular. The essay explores the neo-Kantian influence on the practical approach and offers an original critique of this trend in contemporary international political theory.

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