Michael Goodhart
University of Pittsburgh, Political Science, Faculty Member
- Michael Goodhart is Professor of Political Science and Gender Studies, and he holds a courtesy appointment in Philoso... moreMichael Goodhart is Professor of Political Science and Gender Studies, and he holds a courtesy appointment in Philosophy. He was Director of Pitt's Global Studies Center in 2015 and from 2016-21. He was an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow in 2008-09 and a Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) in 2021-22. He is currently writing a book on human rights that doubles as a book on method in political theory. Goodhart's core intellectual interests include justice and injustice, responsibility and accountability, climate justice and adaptation, the theory and practice of democracy and human rights in the context of globalization, and methods in political theory.
Dr. Goodhart is author of Injustice: Political Theory for the Real World (Oxford 2018), Democracy as Human Rights: Freedom and Equality in the Age of Globalization (Routledge, 2005), contributing editor of Human Rights: Politics and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2009, 2012, 2016), and contributing co-editor of Social Movements and World-System Transformation (Routledge 2017, forthcoming) and Human Rights in the 21st Century: Continuity and Change since 9/11 (Palgrave, 2011). He is also author of numerous articles and book chapters. Visit his profile and learn more about his scholarship at www.michaelgoodhart.net.edit
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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... more
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.
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Injustice offers a radical alternative to familiar ways of thinking about problems of justice and injustice, one motivated by the urgency of concrete struggles over injustice in the real world. It rejects the paradigm of ideal moral... more
Injustice offers a radical alternative to familiar ways of thinking about problems of justice and injustice, one motivated by the urgency of concrete struggles over injustice in the real world. It rejects the paradigm of ideal moral theory, which suffers from theoretical paralysis, distortional thinking, and a reflexive tendency to subordinate politics to morality. Instead, this book proposes an innovative approach that integrates realistic analysis of conflict, power, and politics with substantive normative critique and prescription. It does so by developing a bifocal theoretical framework that treats claims about justice and injustice as ideological claims. This framework enables theorists to shift their focus between two complementary perspectives, distinguishing the work of analyzing politics and advocating for particular substantive points of view. The book outlines a substantive democratic account of injustice and uses it to show what practical difference it makes if one adopts the approach it recommends. Injustice describes the work that political theory and political theorists can do to combat injustice and illustrates it through a novel reconceptualization of responsibility for injustice.
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Quentin Skinner's method for studying the history of political thought has been widely and heatedly debated for decades. This article takes a new tack, offering a critique of Skinner's approach on the grounds he has himself... more
Quentin Skinner's method for studying the history of political thought has been widely and heatedly debated for decades. This article takes a new tack, offering a critique of Skinner's approach on the grounds he has himself established: consideration of his historical work as exemplifying the theory in practice. Three central assumptions of Skinner's method are briefly reviewed; each is then evaluated in the context of his writings on Hobbes. The analysis reveals problems and ambiguities in the specification and implementation of the method and in its underlying philosophy. The essay concludes by examining the broader practical and philosophical implications of adopting this approach to the study of political ideas: the method operationalizes a set of philosophical commitments that transforms ideological choices into questions of proper method.
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John Hoffman. Sovereignty. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Stephen Krasner. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999 Daniel Philpott. Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped... more
John Hoffman. Sovereignty. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Stephen Krasner. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999 Daniel Philpott. Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. David A. Smith, Dorothy J. Solinger, and Steven C. Topik, eds. States and Sovereignty in the Global Economy. New York: Routledge, 1999.
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Introduction Part 1: The Limits of Modern Democracy 1. States of Confusion: Democracy in an Age of Globalization 2. Sovereignty and the Modern Configuration of Rule 3. Sovereign Democracy 4. Globalization and the Paradox of Sovereign... more
Introduction Part 1: The Limits of Modern Democracy 1. States of Confusion: Democracy in an Age of Globalization 2. Sovereignty and the Modern Configuration of Rule 3. Sovereign Democracy 4. Globalization and the Paradox of Sovereign Democracy 5. The Limits of Modern Democracy Part 2: Democracy as Human Rights 6. The Emancipatory Tradition of Democratic Theory 7. Democracy as Human Rights 8. Institutionalizing Democracy as Human Rights 9. Implementing Democracy as Human Rights Conclusion: Globalization, Neoliberalism, and Democratization
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Introduction Part 1: The Limits of Modern Democracy 1. States of Confusion: Democracy in an Age of Globalization 2. Sovereignty and the Modern Configuration of Rule 3. Sovereign Democracy 4. Globalization and the Paradox of Sovereign... more
Introduction Part 1: The Limits of Modern Democracy 1. States of Confusion: Democracy in an Age of Globalization 2. Sovereignty and the Modern Configuration of Rule 3. Sovereign Democracy 4. Globalization and the Paradox of Sovereign Democracy 5. The Limits of Modern Democracy Part 2: Democracy as Human Rights 6. The Emancipatory Tradition of Democratic Theory 7. Democracy as Human Rights 8. Institutionalizing Democracy as Human Rights 9. Implementing Democracy as Human Rights Conclusion: Globalization, Neoliberalism, and Democratization
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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... more
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.
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... political theorists can probably contribute little of use to the debate on democracy and ... Adamantia Pollis, "Cultural Relativism Revisited: Through a State Prism," Human Rights Quarterly 18 ... Specifically, there is an... more
... political theorists can probably contribute little of use to the debate on democracy and ... Adamantia Pollis, "Cultural Relativism Revisited: Through a State Prism," Human Rights Quarterly 18 ... Specifically, there is an almost hypocritical silence about how measures needed to protect ...
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... On the contrary, it was always an exaggeration, blending description and prescription; as Kobrin has observed, absolute territorial sovereignty has always been easier to imagine than to construct.54 That said, for sovereignty to be... more
... On the contrary, it was always an exaggeration, blending description and prescription; as Kobrin has observed, absolute territorial sovereignty has always been easier to imagine than to construct.54 That said, for sovereignty to be persuasive it had to represent at least a ...
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Research Interests: Law and Human Rights
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... 1. See Michael Goodhart, Democracy, Globalization, and the Problem of the State, 33 POLITY 527ff ... The Relativist Challenge and Related Matters, 19 HUM. ... Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Current Islamic Thinking on Human Rights, inHUMAN... more
... 1. See Michael Goodhart, Democracy, Globalization, and the Problem of the State, 33 POLITY 527ff ... The Relativist Challenge and Related Matters, 19 HUM. ... Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Current Islamic Thinking on Human Rights, inHUMAN RIGHTS IN AFRICA: CROSS-CULTURAL ...
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This article criticizes the increasingly popular idea that global civil society (GCS) represents an appealing model of or strategy for global democracy. After briefly reviewing the arguments for conceiving global democracy and... more
This article criticizes the increasingly popular idea that global civil society (GCS) represents an appealing model of or strategy for global democracy. After briefly reviewing the arguments for conceiving global democracy and democratization in terms of GCS, it ...
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... landscape. Kobrin has observed that absolute territorial sovereignty was always easier to imagine than to construct(Kobrin 1998, 384). This is an important point: the reality was never quite as neat as the concept would suggest. ...
Chapter 3 engages with realist political theory throughcritical dialogues with leading realist theorists. It argues that realist political theories are much more susceptible to conservatism, distortion, and idealization than their... more
Chapter 3 engages with realist political theory throughcritical dialogues with leading realist theorists. It argues that realist political theories are much more susceptible to conservatism, distortion, and idealization than their proponents typically acknowledge. Realism is often not very realistic either in its descriptions of the world or in its political analysis. While realism enables the critical analysis of political norms (the analysis of power and unmasking of ideology), it cannot support substantive normative critique of existing social relations or enable prescriptive theorizing. These two types of critique must be integrated into a single theoretical framework to facilitate emancipatory social transformation.
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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... more
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 of making responsibility—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...