Who Counts? Dilemmas of Justice in a Postwestphalian World

Abstract

Who counts as a subject of justice? Not so long ago, it was widely assumed that those "who counted" were simply the citizens of a bounded territorial state. Today, however, as activists target injustices that cut across borders, that "Westphalian" view is contested and the "who" of justice is an object of hot dispute. This new situation calls for a new kind of justice theorizing, whose contours I sketch in this essay. Arguing, first, for a reflexive mode of theorizing, I introduce the concept of "misframing", which can subject the Westphalian "who" to critical scrutiny. Arguing, second, for the necessity of a substantive normative principle to evaluate competing "who's", I introduce the "all-subjected principle" as superior to three better known alternatives: namely, membership, humanism, and the all-affected principle.

What Food is to be Kept Safe and for Whom? Food-Safety Governance in an Unsafe Food System

“…In a post-Westphalian political order [108] and in the context of neoliberalization, the concept of public food-safety governance embodying the 'public good' or acting in the service of public health is ambiguous. Who is the public in such public governance?…”

“…What would new food-safety governance look like? Feminist theorists have particularly valuable contribution to make in thinking of governance in the context of diversity and the complexities of power [108,111,112]. Their work would encourage us to look beyond the limitations of the liability model and towards creating diverse institutional arrangements for safe (and ecological) food systems that are responsive to the complexities of power, difference, capacities and context rather than a globalized food-safe system that privileges the few.…”

The new politics of pastoralism: Identity, justice and global activism

“…The strategic formation and deployment of identity emerges as an important element in conferring legitimacy, contesting 'misframing' and hence in shaping justice claims (Fraser, 2009) with these new representations and opportunities in global spaces is not, however, without its dangers. Legitimacy, as recipients of procedural, cognitive and distributive justice, readily becomes intertwined with and premised on their capacity to deliver ecological justice; a precarious position given the instability of eco-political capital, in itself a potential misframing (Pieck, 2006).…”

“…9 'Misframing' refers to the question of who counts as a subject of justice; in particular how boundaries may be drawn around particular political or territorial spaces (Fraser, 2009). vertically" (Walker, 2009b, p. 370). In these spaces legitimacy, as the right to a voice, is often bounded through contested (and constructed) notions of identity, rather than shared membership of a polity.…”

15 Migrants’ Citizenship and Rights: Limits and Potential for NGOs’ Advocacy in Chile

“…In this vein, Yasemin Soysal (1997), for example, has argued that the notion of citizenship assumes rights and identities presaged by the boundaries of the nation-state, without taking into account that the public sphere is constituted transnationally and hence that claims emerge 'within' and 'beyond' the nation-state (Soysal 1997: 510-511). In this regard, Fraser (2009) proposes to go beyond conceptualizing justice as pertaining to all those affected nationally or transnationally, to a notion where it pertains to all those subjected to the same governance structure. Human rights and international law, including specifically articles 23 and 24 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) Organization, potentially provide a broad normative basis for the advancement of migrants' rights in the countries and societies in which they settle.…”