The injustices of global justice scholarship
| Author | Jonathan Havercroft |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14748851211000604 |
| Published date | 01 January 2023 |
| Date | 01 January 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Review Articles |
Review Article EJPT
The injustices of global
justice scholarship
Jonathan Havercroft
University of Southampton, UK
Duncan Bell (ed.), Empire, Race and Global Justice, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge,
2019; 284 pp. £75.00: ISBN: 9781108427791 (hbk)
Abstract
Duncan Bell’s Empire, Race and Global Justice is an edited volume that makes an impor-
tant intervention in philosophical debates about global justice. Its contributors argue
that global justice scholarship has paid insufficient attention to the role of imperialism
and racism in generating global hierarchies. This review considers the contributions of
this volume from three perspectives: as a critique of the global justice literature, as a
guide for what methods global justice scholars should use and as a reconsideration of
what texts should be incorporated into the global justice canon. Empire is an important
book for anyone who researches and teaches in the area of global justice because it
demonstrates both why a different approach to this topic is necessary and how a
different approach is possible.
Keywords
Compensatory justice, critical race theory, global justice, imperialism, political theory
methods
I wish this book had existed when I was a graduate student. While studying for my
PhD at Minnesota, I wanted to write on a project that combined the normative
theorizing of my political theory classes with the pressing issues of global injustice
I was learning about in my international relations classes. A sympathetic teacher
suggested I read Charles Beitz’s Political Theory and International Relations.
I found the book, however, disappointing. Its account of the international
Corresponding author:
Jonathan Havercroft, University of Southampton, Building 58, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK.
Email: j.havercroft@soton.ac.uk
European Journal of Political Theory
!The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/14748851211000604
journals.sagepub.com/home/ept
2023, Vol. 22(1) 161–170
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