Challenging boundaries to expand frontiers in gender and policy studies

Gender and policy studies needs to face challenges and cross boundaries if the discipline is to develop. This article argues that gender and policy studies needs to explicitly foreground the centrality of politics – the analysis of power – in approaching policy. The discipline confronts boundaries in relation to inclusivity, diversity and relevance. Inclusive gender equality demands challenging the hegemonising and marginalising boundaries in the field, which contributes to its relevance by placing politics and power centre stage. Openness to the diversity of gender and policy approaches, a more systematic and thoughtful application of intersectionality, cooperation with LGBTQI+, critical race studies and normative political theory provide opportunities to challenge boundaries and advance knowledge. We argue that explicit reflexivity about power dynamics and knowledge production, employing a plurality of approaches, will better equip the discipline to navigate major challenges and crises, and offer more nuanced democratic and egalitarian societal contributions.

Normative Political Theory and Global Migration Governance

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.

The Origins of Temporal Legitimacy

Historical analyses of the relations between political theory and time often hinge on two claims. The first is that political theorists have until recently put less emphasis on the future than the past when debating political legitimacy and obligation. The second is that the history of political theory draws a fundamental distinction between theories that invoke time to legitimate political structures and theories that reject temporal considerations in favor of timeless principles. This chapter disputes these two claims by maintaining that competing languages of legitimacy harbor different and interrelated conceptions of temporality. A survey of time conceptions in the history of political philosophy shows that normative political theory is inherently multitemporal, involving double regard for the past and the future. And, since even tenseless principles of legitimacy often depend on temporally related forms of formulation and application, considerations about time seem inescapable in normative political theory.

The Democratic Construction of Inherently Sovereign Functions

In this essay, I approach the question of privatization from a normative political theory perspective. Following Mégret's lead, I focus on the inter- or transnational domain, with the aim of making explicit the norms that undergird Mégret's analysis despite the functional approach he apparently adopts. I argue that the normative basis of the ideas of sovereignty and publicness he relies on is parasitic on the principles of democratic legitimacy developed on the level of the constitutional democratic state. Put differently, my concern is less with the potential demise of public international law that privatization seems to portend, and more with privatization's threat to democratic self-government under both domestic and international public law.

Realism, Values, and Development

The chapter identifies the core normative concern with transformative approaches to development: the coercion involved in generating capitalist development. It rejects a utilitarian solution to this problem and questions the idealism of mainstream normative political theory. It sets out a realist normative approach that accepts an antagonism in the values of development. It emphasizes how normativity is constructed not deduced and identifies the value-in-contention within development. It sets out a modified realist approach in which the basic legitimacy of developmentalism is based on both authoritative governance and the construction of a commonwealth. It finishes by making some illustrations of how norms can be understood in development contexts.

Managing Ethno-National Diversity in Cyprus: Asymmetrical Federalism

This article explains a normative political theory of asymmetrical federalism as it relates to the accommodation of national minorities within multinational states, using Cyprus as a case study. Many normative prescriptions emerging from traditional liberal and federal political theories and models rest on monist assumptions; therefore, there is a need to highlight the cultural and national limits of those theories and models in order to attain a democratic system in Cyprus that respects and promotes its bicommunal structure. It is suggested that multinational federalism in Cyprus necessitates constitutional asymmetry, which is likely to provide a basis for political accommodation. The article also demonstrates the necessity of multinational federalism to accommodate common and distinct identities by promoting a fuller understanding of the concept of “federal togetherness” and “federal separateness.” Such an understanding would better enable asymmetrical federalism to properly and feasibly adjust and regulate federal institutions in Cyprus.