Public Reason and Political Autonomy: Interview at the New Books Network

My book, Public Reason and Political Autonomy: Realizing the Ideal of a Civic People, was published last February by Routledge. 

Unfortunately, the hardcover version is ridiculously expensive. The e-book price, while pricey, is less absurd. Hopefully a softcover version will be published sometime next year. In any case, copies should now be available in most respectable university libraries.

Last May I talked about the book with Robert Talisse of Vanderbilt University. We covered the main claims of the book. The interview is available at the New Books Network website. I'm very grateful to Bob for guiding this pleasant and stimulating conversation!

Freedom, liberal egalitarianism, and democratic socialism

[Campaign buttons for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

Over the past couple of years ‘democratic socialism’ has been on the upswing in, of all places, that most anti-socialist of countries, the United States. This can be seen in, inter alia, the political successes of self-described ‘democratic socialists’ like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the skyrocketing growth in membership of the Democratic Socialists of America. Leaving aside the fact that the actual policy proposals championed by, for instance, Sanders during his 2016 campaign to become the Democratic Party candidate for the American presidency would be right at home in the ‘New Deal liberalism’ of FDR (or most versions of egalitarian liberalism), it is clear that the idea of democratic socialism is no longer beyond the pale in the United States, especially amongst younger citizens.

Corey Robin—professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center—has an interesting essay on “The New Socialists” in last Saturday’s New York Times (2018-08-25). Especially intriguing is Robin’s description of what he takes to be the core political ideal and goal of democratic socialism:

What the socialist seeks is freedom. 

Under capitalism, we’re forced to enter the market just to live. The libertarian sees the market as synonymous with freedom. But socialists hear “the market” and think of the anxious parent, desperate not to offend the insurance representative on the phone, lest he decree that the policy she paid for doesn’t cover her child’s appendectomy. Under capitalism, we’re forced to submit to the boss. Terrified of getting on his bad side, we bow and scrape, flatter and flirt, or worse — just to get that raise or make sure we don’t get fired. 

The socialist argument against capitalism isn’t that it makes us poor. It’s that it makes us unfree. When my well-being depends upon your whim, when the basic needs of life compel submission to the market and subjugation at work, we live not in freedom but in domination. Socialists want to end that domination: to establish freedom from rule by the boss, from the need to smile for the sake of a sale, from the obligation to sell for the sake of survival.

The account of ‘freedom’ that Robin describes here is (somewhat ironically) known these days within academic political philosophy as ‘republican’ freedom, that is, roughly, liberty as ‘non-domination.’ (The label ‘republican’ is meant to evoke the conception of ‘free citizens’ within the ancient Roman Republic, not the contemporary American Republican Party; indeed, one would be hard pressed to think of a mainstream political party more hostile to the ideal of non-domination, at least for everyday citizens, than the contemporary GOP.) One is ‘free,’ according to republicans, insofar as one is not subject to the arbitrary will and power of another (such as one’s master, boss, husband, priest, etc.). While some political theorists, such as Philip Pettit, claim that republican freedom is distinct from the kind of ‘negative liberty’ championed by liberals like John Rawls, it always has seemed clear to me (and other scholars) that in fact non-domination is an intrinsic part of the Rawlsian account of free citizens. (Moreover, as I have explained elsewhere, Rawls does not rely upon Isaiah Berlin’s concept of ‘negative liberty’ in his conception of justice.)

Given democratic socialism’s concern with non-domination, then, it should not be a surprise—despite how his theory was interpreted throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s—that John Rawls’s conception of liberal egalitarian justice, ‘justice as fairness,’ can be read as compatible with, and perhaps even requiring, a form of democratic socialism. Rawls’s Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (which came out about 17 years ago, shortly before his death in 2002, but draws upon lecture notes that he had used, and regularly revised, for many years) identifies ‘liberal democratic socialism’ as one of two political-economic systems capable of realizing the principles of justice as fairness. The other kind of regime is ‘property-owning democracy.’ In contrast to liberal democratic socialism and property-owning democracy, Rawls holds that ‘welfare-state capitalism’ (the political-economic system that most of us endure today), ‘laissez-faire capitalism’ (the form of society that lives in the dreams of libertarians), and (Soviet-style) ‘state socialism,’ are all incapable of realizing justice as fairness.

While most of Rawls’s own discussion about these political-economic systems (limited as it is) focuses on property-owning democracy—and that is the system that has generated the most discussion in recent years—the political philosopher William A. Edmunson recently has published an important book that argues that Rawls’s principles of justice in fact favour democratic liberal socialism over property-owning democracy (see this recent article at Jacobin for a quick overview).

Despite my commitment to (a slightly modified version of) Rawls’s conception of justice as fairness, I remain generally agnostic on which particular political-economic system would best realize that conception. I’m even open to the possibility that an egalitarian form of welfare-state capitalism—a form of ‘social democracy’ instead of ‘democratic socialism’—might be capable of realizing the principles of justice as fairness. And it seems possible that a society might include a mix of democratic socialist, property-owning democratic, and welfare-state institutions. One of my main goals over the next couple of years is to sort through what has been written on this topic in order to gain deeper grasp of these issues.

It is exciting that there is a lot of interesting new work is being done on this topic: in addition to Edmundson’s recent book, for instance, there is Alan Thomas’s book on property-owning democracy. Yes, the well of Rawlsiana is quite deep!

Members of Parliament for non-resident citizens

Parliamentary democracy is based on territorial representation: Members of Parliament are elected to represent citizens who reside within certain geographically-defined electoral districts (called ‘ridings’ in Canada).

One problem with this system concerns the representation of citizens who reside abroad. Insofar as such persons remain citizens of the country in question—the state remains the ultimate protector of such citizens’ rights and interests; it is the one place that they can go to if denied residency elsewhere—it would seem that they should have some kind of representation in their country’s legislature.

Many countries allow non-resident citizens to continue to vote within the electoral districts wherein they last resided, at least for a certain period of time (currently, Canadians can vote in federal elections so long as they have not resided abroad for more than five years). But a better form of representation, I think, would be to allocate a certain number of MPs to represent directly non-resident citizens.

Or so I have proposed in the past—viz., that there should be a number of MPs within the Canadian federal Parliament to represent Canadians abroad. (Such forms of representation, it should be noted, already exist for French and Italian citizens.) Interesting, a Briton residing in Spain recently has made a very similar proposal, and has started a petition to get the proposal debated within the UK Parliament. I wish him luck!

Threat to democracy: Cambridge Analytica

This undercover report on Cambridge Analytica from Channel 4 News is well worth watching.

(It is, of course, no surprise that this vile organization was instrumental in helping Trump win the electoral college vote in the 2016 US election...)

UPDATE [2018-03-20]: Here is C4 News' report on the role of Cambridge Analytica in the Trump 2016 campaign.

The Anti-Trump Overlapping Consensus

Only 11 days into the new American regime and its cruelty and incompetence is manifestly clear. But as Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo notes, none of the horrible actions being taken by the Trump regime should surprise anyone. Trump ran on an anti-Muslim, anti-Mexican, pro-authoritarian, white nationalist agenda. What I find disorienting is not so much the horrific substance of what the Trump regime is doing (which I expected), but its breakneck pace and incompetence—that is, its sheer chaos.

With respect to the ham-fisted Muslim ban announced on Friday, its immorality and imprudence is well explained in this Vox interview with the prominent political theorist Joseph Carens. (Carens has produced more important work on the ethics of migration over the past four decades than anyone else.)

I’m gratified that the (US-based) professional organizations to which I belong—the American Association of University Professionals, the American Philosophical Association, and the Association for Political Theory—have all denounced Trump’s Muslim ban.

Here is the UWM (University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee) AAUP statement:

We, the UWM Chapter of the American Association for University Professionals, state our unequivocal condemnation of the immigration and travel ban enacted by President Trump on January 27, 2017, and affirm our support for our students and colleagues affected by it. We recognize the ban as part of a broader agenda that threatens the university and the very spirit of the Wisconsin Idea. 

Many colleagues, graduate and undergraduate students at our university are citizens of the seven countries affected by this executive order.  In Fall 2016, 104 graduate students from these nations attended UWM. Many other students are citizens of other Muslim-majority countries of the Middle East. All these people are full members of the university community; the university belongs to all of us. The travel restriction interferes with their studies, their work as intellectuals, and their freedom of movement as people. 

We affirm that public universities are places of free inquiry and collective endeavor for all people, regardless of race, religion, sexual identity, or national origin. We are a nation of immigrant entrepreneurs and refugees, travelers, slaves and indigenous occupants; at UWM, our diversity is our strength in research, teaching, and community service. 

We likewise affirm our support for the many students, faculty, and staff throughout the UW System and across the country, facing discriminatory and exclusionary migration policies. We reiterate AAUP-UWM’s advocacy for the rights of our undocumented students to security and privacy. We call on our university leadership to speak out whenever and wherever possible on these pressing issues.

Here is the APA statement:

American participation in the global exchange of ideas depends on free movement of students and scholars to and from institutions of higher education, academic conferences, and other venues for study, research, and scholarly interaction. The executive order issued on January 27 limiting entry into the United States by refugees and those from seven predominantly Muslim countries, and deterring travel abroad by immigrants in the US, disrupts the work of philosophers and scholars in all disciplines around the world and impedes students, teachers, and researchers from engaging in their educational and professional pursuits. 

The APA’s mission is to foster open dialogue and the free exchange of ideas. Inclusion and respect for diverse people, religions, cultures, and ideas are at the very core of our work. This order goes against these values—values on which the United States itself was founded. 

The APA is working to assess the impact of this executive order on our members and participants in our upcoming meetings. We will take steps to ensure that those affected are able to participate in our meetings to the fullest extent feasible and to advocate for and support philosophers whose lives and work are harmed by this order. 

We stand with learned societies, colleges and universities, and others around the world in calling on the President and Congress to reverse this executive order and to denounce religious intolerance in all its forms.

And here is the APT statement:

The Association of Political Theory condemns, in the strongest terms, the travel ban recently issued by the federal government and demands that it be immediately rescinded.  As clarified in our mission statement, the purpose of the APT is to promote the study of political theory and political philosophy in North America by advancing scholarly interaction, collaboration, and debate among political theorists from diverse intellectual perspectives. Our membership includes scholars from many different parts of the world including those covered by this travel ban. As an Association, we stand both with these scholars and in solidarity with all refugees and immigrants who have been negatively impacted and endangered by this executive order. We now commit to taking concrete actions to prevent the harms to our members that this policy threatens.  We will begin exploring ways to do this and we welcome suggestions from our members about how best to help.

I’m also relieved to note that I have yet to interact personally with any academic who is remotely sympathetic to the new Trump regime and its manifestly malevolent policies. To use a Rawlsian term, there seems to be an ‘overlapping consensus’—amongst liberal egalitarians, centrist liberals, classical liberals, libertarians, democratic socialists, etc.—against the quasi-fascist regime now wreaking havoc in Washington D.C.  

To conclude this post, this strikes me as a spot on representation of the real power at work in the White House:

[Comic from here.]

Coming soon: voting rights for non-resident Canadians

Over a year ago I wrote: (a) that Canadians who live abroad for five or more years should retain their right to vote in federal elections, and (b) that such Canadians should have special representation in Parliament (say, a dozen or so MPs) rather than voting for MPs in particular ridings. (See my post here or at In Due Course from August 2015.)

Well, it looks I got my wish for (a). Here is the official statement from the Canadian government.

So while 2016 has been a complete disaster politically in many parts of the world, at least something good is happening for people like me (the roughly 9 percent of Canadians who live abroad*).

(*One reason why I especially care about this issue is that while I work and live abroad, I spend roughly one-third of my time [about 4 months of the year] in Canada, so I find the 5-year limit on voting especially vexing given my strong, ongoing connection to the country.)

Is democracy coming to Wisconsin?

Finally, some good news for the sorry state of Wisconsin:

A federal court has ruled Wisconsin’s Republican-drawn legislative map unconstitutional, saying the plan constitutes a partisan gerrymander. 

In a 2-1 decision from a special panel of federal judges, authored by federal Judge Kenneth Ripple, the court agreed with a group of Democratic plaintiffs that the redistricting plan had systematically diluted the voting strength of Democratic voters.

(From Wisconsin's NPR website: "Wisconsin's GOP-Drawn Legislative Districts Unconstitutional." More information available at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.)

Thank Crom!

Update:

Key to the decision was this:

The Democrats contend that they have found a way to measure unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders that are designed to give an extreme and durable advantage in elections to one party, a measure that the U.S. Supreme Court has said it was lacking. The measure, called the efficiency gap, shows how cracking (breaking up blocs of Democratic voters) and packing (concentrating Democrats within certain districts) results in wasted votes -- excess votes for one party in safe districts and votes for losing candidates in those safe districts.

(From the Wisconsin State Journal.)

Liberal democracy in a darkening world

There are some interesting observations from Joe Heath (Philosophy, University of Toronto) on the US election in his recent post at In Due Course.

This comment especially troubled me:

"Perhaps I am overreacting, but I do feel as though yesterday was one of those moments, like the fall of the Berlin Wall, that alters the trajectory of civilization. That’s because the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. Presidency is deeply discrediting to Western-style democracy. In fact, I think the big winner, globally, from Tuesday’s election, is Chinese-style authoritarianism."

I think that the possibility that what happened on Tuesday will be perceived in the way that Heath describes is a real danger. It reminded me of the following observation by John Rawls:

"If we take for granted as common knowledge that a just and well-ordered society is impossible, then the quality and tone of [political] discussions will reflect that knowledge. A cause of the fall of Weimar’s constitutional regime was that none of the traditional elites of Germany supported its constitution or were willing to cooperate to make it work. They no longer believed a decent liberal parliamentary regime to be possible. Its time had past." 

(From the Preface to the paperback edition of Political Liberalism [my emphasis].)

The soul of a tyrant

Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen draws upon the Epic of Gilgamesh and Plato's Republic to diagnose Donald Trump as "a walking, talking example of the tyrannical soul."

Indeed.

Trump confirmed (yet again) his malignant nature in tonight's debate when he threatened to imprison Hillary Clinton should he be elected president. That is an attack on the very heart of liberal democracy.

November 8th cannot come soon enough.

Update on the Wisconsin GOP's unending efforts to thwart democracy

This is just a quick follow-up to my earlier post on the real aim of the recent GOP-passed Wisconsin 'voter ID laws': namely, to suppress the franchise amongst Democratic-leaning voters.

These laws presently are being challenged in court, and the former chief of staff to then-Senator Dale Schultz (Republican), Todd Allbaugh, has named names and presented some of the comments made by key Republican legislators in a 2011 closed caucus meeting. As Allbaugh makes clear, preventing (practically nonexistent) 'voter fraud' had nothing to do with the law; rather, it was all about suppressing the ability of people to vote in Milwaukee and on college campuses. Apparently, many GOP legislators were 'giddy' at the prospect of preventing many citizens from voting. (Unsurprisingly, the dim-witted and contemptible Glenn Grothman said this: "What I’m concerned about is winning. [...] [W]e better get this done while we have the opportunity"[.])

Update 1: Some further coverage at The New York Times and Talking Points Memo.

Update 2: My favourite American political commentator, Charles P. Pierce, has weighed in on the matter: "Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their Midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, has conspired with his pet state legislature to make it harder for Wisconsinites to vote."

The banana republicanisation of Wisconsin continues

[Cartoon from here.]

In recent years Republicans around the United States have been pushing for and passing demanding new ‘voter ID’ laws. Wisconsin, under the malign leadership of Governor Scott Walker, has been no exception. Republicans claim that such laws are necessary to deal with the menace of ‘in-person’ voter fraud. But such crimes are exceptionally rare: far, far more people are struck by lightning than commit voter fraud by impersonation. And implementing voter ID laws costs money (something about which Republicans often pretend to express concern). So what is the actual rationale for these laws? It is no mystery: to suppress the ability to vote of people who tend to support Democratic candidates, such as students, the poor, and members of minority communities.

Of course Republican politicians are careful to avoid making explicit the fact that voter ID laws are about disenfranchising their political opponents. But following last Tuesday’s election in Wisconsin, one especially nasty and dim-witted congressman, Glenn Grothman, noted that voter ID would help the GOP in Wisconsin this November: “now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well." Apparently Grothman forgot that he was not supposed to explain the real reason for Wisconsin’s voter ID law on television!

At the same time, former Republican Todd Albaugh explained that he had abandoned the Wisconsin GOP in disgust in 2011 over precisely this issue:

“[T]his was the last straw: I was in the closed Senate Republican Caucus when the final round of multiple Voter ID bills were being discussed. A handful of the GOP Senators were giddy about the ramifications and literally singled out the prospects of suppressing minority and college voters. Think about that for a minute. Elected officials planning and happy to help deny a fellow American's constitutional right to vote in order to increase their own chances to hang onto power.”

(There is an interview with Albaugh here. And for an amusing takedown of these kinds of laws, check out this video by Seth Myers.)

Of course, the voter ID disenfranchisement strategy is but one symptom of Wisconsin’s collapse as a legitimate democracy under the Republican Party. The judicial election on Tuesday was pretty much decided by ‘dark money’ spending, which favoured the right-wing homophobe (and winner) Rebecca Bradley by 4:1.

Every day I find myself stunned (at least for a few moments) at how badly this state has declined since I began my job at UWM in 2008. It has been transformed from a reasonably politically progressive place (at least for an American Midwestern state) – one with strong anti-corruption institutions and laws, and the best protections of academic freedom within the country – into a corrupt, plutocratic, economically stagnant backwater with only faux tenure for professors within the UW system. The ‘Wisconsin Idea’ and the legacy of ‘Fightin Bob’ LaFollette and other Wisconsin progressives have been thoroughly shredded.

An open letter regarding the campaign tactics of the Conservative Party of Canada

The following letter was published today in the Ottawa Citizen:

We are a diverse group of academics with different political views and different political allegiances. We are united by a common interest in the integrity of democratic processes and a concern about the ugly and dangerous turn we have recently witnessed in the election campaign. 

In democratic electoral politics there is an ethical line that distinguishes spirited partisan strategy from cynical tactics that betray the values of mutual respect and toleration that lie at the heart civil democratic discourse. Honourable politicians do not cross that line even when they think doing so will be politically advantageous. Disreputable politicians ignore the line when they find it convenient to do so. 

The Conservative Party under Stephen Harper has already come perilously close to this line by suggesting that religion is an appropriate basis to select refugees and by fanning fears of terrorism as a pretext for revoking citizenship from some Canadians. Distinguishing ‘old-stock’ Canadians from new ones was also divisive and problematic. Increasingly, the Conservatives seem to have been opting for a particularly nasty form of “wedge politics.” 

However, by injecting the inflammatory rhetoric of “barbaric cultural practices” into the current campaign, the Conservative Party has flagrantly crossed the line. The repeated use of this phrase along with a proposed tip line to root out undesirables are cynically calculated to distract and divide citizens by insinuating that some law abiding and peaceful members of the community are freedom-hating barbarians who threaten Canadian society. The Conservatives know that Canada faces no such threat and that the vast majority of citizens, irrespective of their religious commitments or cultural backgrounds, embrace the basic rights and liberties upon which our democracy is based. By conjuring up a phantom menace to the country and implying that some immigrants and religious minorities are enemies, the Conservatives hope to pit Canadians against one another. Like many sophisticated forms of vicious propaganda, the invocation of barbarism is meant to create fear and anxiety rather than to identify a real problem.

We enjoy the rule of law in Canada and it requires the equal application of the law. Those who break the law should be treated within a common system of criminal justice. A special mechanism that targets some minorities for extra scrutiny is as unnecessary as it is odious. The devious strategists who have devised this campaign know that their objectives are not well served by employing racist or anti-religious epithets, so they ask us to imagine unspecified but supposedly real barbarians. So we are encouraged to demonize those who are different from ourselves and whose religious or cultural practices we do not share or understand. In the present context, this is hate mongering, and it has no place in Canadian democracy. 

We do not deny that there is room to discuss and debate how contemporary democracies should respond to religious, cultural and linguistic pluralism. Indeed, Canadian legal and political theory is at the forefront of exploring such matters. But a common point of departure for these debates and discussions is a commitment to civility, decency and toleration. 

Toleration does not require that one like or endorse the cultural or religious practices of others, but it does require that we refrain from insulting the dignity of those with whom we disagree. The Conservatives have shown contempt for a politics of mutual respect. We condemn the unethical Conservative strategy that brings shame to Canadian politics. We hope that Canadians will join us in repudiating the politics of hate. Instead let us embrace a nobler vision of civil discourse that is truly oriented to achieving the common good for all Canadians. 

By Avigail Eisenberg (University of Victoria), Colin Macleod (University of Victoria), Jocelyn Maclure (Université Laval), and Daniel Weinstock (McGill University). At time of posting, this letter has had over 530 signatories.

(The full list of signatures is here.)

For some background on this issue, this post by Joseph Heath may be helpful.