Suchergebnisse

Is global democracy possible? The most prominent institutional manifestations of this concept-the UN, WTO, IMF and World Bank-have been skewered as cloistered anti-democratic institutions by anti-globalization activists. Meanwhile, proponents of globalization advocate reforming these institutions to make them more transparent. Michael Goodhart argues that both views fail to recognize the complex link between modern democracy and the sovereign state and the degree to which globalization challenges the modern conceptualization of democracy. Original and historically informed, Democra

Abstract
Jack Snyder's book Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times is less a theory of human rights than a political sociology of liberal modernization. Focusing on that account, this article argues that the story of liberal modernization Snyder's book presents is a distortional fable and, as such, undermines its own claims to pragmatism. This review further contends that this fable of liberal modernization creates a fantasy in which the solution to the problems of contemporary liberal states and the liberal international order is more liberalism. The review concludes by suggesting that any pragmatic account must at least take seriously the possibility that liberalism is part of the problem and, therefore, that it might not be the solution.

This article theorizes the politics of responsibility—activist struggles over who will be held accountable for structural injustices like the "catastrophic" changes underway in our climate. To do so, it develops a politicized conception of responsibility, one that treats responsibility as a social construct and a terrain of contestation. Building on the work of feminist philosophers of responsibility and on the praxis of "kayaktivism," this politicized account treats responsibility as a social practice of interrogating and contesting shared ethico-political judgments. On this understanding, taking responsibility or stepping up is a way ofmakingresponsibility—literally of (re)constructing those social practices and judgments through conscious efforts to persuade others, challenge prevailing norms and interpretations, change people's beliefs about how the world works, revise popular expectations of social actors and institutions, and disrupt business as usual. The article highlights the centrality of norms and power to social practices of responsibility and suggests alternative perspectives on familiar philosophical worries about blame, complexity and agency, and justification.