Republicanism and Global Justice
| Date | 01 January 2010 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885109349404 |
| Published date | 01 January 2010 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
48
Republicanism and Global Justice
A Sketch
Cécile Laborde University College London
abstract: The republican tradition seems to have a blind spot about global justice.
It has had little to say about pressing international issues such as world poverty or
global inequalities. According to the old, if apocryphal, adage: extra rempublicam nulla
justitia. Some may doubt that distributive justice (as opposed to freedom or citizenship)
is the primary virtue of republican institutions; and at any rate most would agree that
republican values have traditionally been realized in the polis not in the (oxymoronic)
cosmopolis. The article sketches a republican account of global non-domination which
suggests that duties of distributive justice are not bounded to the institutions of a
single society. In particular, it argues that republicans have good reasons to seek
to curb those global inequalities which underpin what I call capability-denying
domination.
key words: capabilities, domination, freedom, free states, global inequality, republicanism
self-government, world poverty
Prima facie, republicanism has a blind spot about global justice. The republican
tradition seems to have little to say about pressing international issues such as
world poverty or global inequalities. According to the old, if apocryphal, adage:
extra rempublicam nulla justitia. Some may doubt that distributive justice (as
opposed to freedom or citizenship) is the primary virtue of republican institu-
tions; and at any rate most would agree that republican values have traditionally
been realized in the polis not in the (oxymoronic) cosmopolis. In this article, I sketch
a republican account of global non-domination which suggests that duties of dis-
tributive justice are not necessarily bounded to the institutions of a single society.
In particular, I argue that republicans have good reasons to seek to curb those glo-
bal inequalities which underpin what I call capability-denying domination. Because
my main purpose is to set out an agenda for research in a still largely unexplored
area, I can only provide here a preliminary sketch of this republican argument for
global justice. In fact, it is not part of my claim that the republicanism offers a
full, coherent account of global justice; nor that republicanism is a more attractive
article
Contact address: Cécile Laborde, Department of Political Science, University College
London, 29/30 Tavistoch Square, London, WC1H 9QU.
Email: c.laborde@ucl.ac.uk
EJPT
European Journal of Political Theory
9(1) 48–69
© The Author(s), 2010
Reprints and permission: http://www.
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
[DOI: 10.1177/1474885109349404]
http://ejpt.sagepub.com
Laborde: Republicanism and Global Justice
49
theory than existing liberal cosmopolitan theory. I merely attempt to conceptual-
ize the distinctive features of a republican approach to global justice, leaving a full
assessment of its merits for subsequent enquiry.
Republican Citizenship and Justice: Preliminary
Clarifications
The attempt to apply republican theory to issues of global distributive justice
invites scepticism on two fronts: first, republicanism is only a theory of bounded
citizenship and, second, republicanism is not a theory of distributive justice. Let
me address these two doubts in turn.
Objection 1: Republicanism is Essentially a Theory of Bounded
Citizenship
There are three republican commitments (the three Vs) which at first sight make
republicanism an unlikely candidate for the articulation of principles of global
justice: voice, vernacular, virtue. When combined, they underpin a particular
understanding of freedom as citizenship in a bounded community. The first V is
‘voice’, which sees freedom as a form of power, or (in Philip Pettit’s term) anti-
power.1 On this view, freedom is essentially a political condition which involves
not being subjected to arbitrary power. Traditionally, this was seen to be pos-
sible only through practices of self-government, or ‘voice’, in a bounded political
community. Cosmopolitan republicanism, then, is an oxymoron because there
is no global political community which would allow global citizens to govern
themselves democratically. The second V is ‘vernacular’, which sees freedom as
a particular and contingent achievement. Republics are rooted in time and space;
they are local, parochial and fragile achievements, maintained through specific
institutional arrangements, historically associated with the stabilization of politics
within nation states. Insofar as cosmopolitanism seeks to invent new forms of
political association, it is too utopian to be accommodated by republicanism. The
third V is ‘virtue’, which sees freedom as an inter-subjective bond. This empha-
sizes the psychological underpinnings of democratic governance: republics rely
not only on good laws but also on good mores, and are maintained through the
mutual trust, civility and spirit of reciprocity exhibited by their citizens. Such
virtues can hardly be replicated globally, as people have little psychological life in
common with distant strangers. In sum, the traditional argument would conclude,
republican cosmopolitanism is an oxymoron because, at the global level, it is not
possible to reproduce the practices, institutions and virtue essential to founding
and maintaining republics.2 At best, republicanism would generate a statist, or
social liberal, theory of justice: like Thomas Nagel3 or John Rawls,4 it conceives
of justice exclusively as a property of social relations among citizens of states.
I think that this appearance is misleading. The three Vs, if suitably interpret-
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