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Global political actors of all kinds exert influence in societies beyond their own in myriad ways, including via public criticism, consumer boycotts, divestment campaigns, sanctions, and forceful intervention. Often, they do so in the name of justice-promotion. These attempts to promote justice in foreign societies raise several moral questions. For example, are there ways to promote one's own ideas about justice in another society while still treating its members tolerantly? Are there ways to do so without disrespecting their legitimate political institutions or undermining their collective self-determination? This book addresses these and other questions to develop ethical principles we can use to determine whether a proposed attempt to promote justice in a foreign society is morally permissible.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Beyond the State, Beyond War: Re-Conceptualizing Reform Intervention
- Chapter 2: Toleration as Engagement
- Chapter 3: Degrees of Legitimacy
- Chapter 4: Collective Self-Determination without Isolation
- Chapter 5: Chaos and Consequences: Promoting Justice in a Non-Ideal World
- Chapter 6: Conclusion
- References
About the author
Lucia M. Rafanelli is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at The George Washington University. Rafanelli's primary research interests include contemporary political theory, global justice, theories of human rights, and the ethics of resistance. She also has interests in collective agency and the ethics of artificial intelligence. Her work has appeared in outlets such as The Journal of Political Philosophy and Political Studies.
Summary
Global political actors, from states and NGOs to activist groups and individuals, exert influence in societies beyond their own in myriad ways--including via public criticism, consumer boycotts, divestment campaigns, sanctions, and forceful intervention. Often, they do so in the name of justice-promotion. While attempts to promote justice in other societies can do good, they are also often subject to moral criticism and raise several serious moral questions. For example, are there ways to promote one's own ideas about justice in another society while still treating its members tolerantly? Are there ways to do so without disrespecting their legitimate political institutions or undermining their collective self-determination?
To understand the ethics of justice-promoting intervention, Lucia M. Rafanelli moves beyond the traditional focus of other scholarship in this area on states waging wars or employing other conventional tools of coercive foreign policy. Specifically, Rafanelli constructs a philosophically-grounded and nuanced ethics of intervention to determine when attempts to promote justice in foreign societies are morally permissible.
Promoting Justice Across Borders develops ethical standards for justice-promoting intervention that call on us to rethink received notions about the ordinary bounds of politics, and to abandon the thought that politics does and should take place primarily within the state. These ethical standards also give us a model for how to engage in political struggles for justice on a global scale--not only in conditions of supreme emergency, but in the ordinary circumstances of everyday global politics. They therefore form the basis of a cosmopolitanism that is neither premised upon nor aimed at bringing about the end of politics. Ultimately, Rafanelli shows how the promotion of justice everywhere can be the legitimate (political) concern of people anywhere.
Additional text
Lucia Rafanelli offers a groundbreaking account of transnational politics that theoretically unpacks the state, the international system, and the range of foreign influence practices. Rafanelli centers boycotts, divestment campaigns, and other neglected forms of transnational activism to offer a nuanced model of intervention. This book opens exciting new paths forward.
