Books by Alasia Nuti
This is the introduction of my book, which is published by CUP.
Demands for redress of histori... more This is the introduction of my book, which is published by CUP.
Demands for redress of historical injustice – injustices committed in the past – are a crucial component of contemporary struggles for social and transnational justice. However, understanding when and why an unjust history matters for considerations of justice in the present is not so straightforward. In this book, I develop a normative framework to identify which historical injustices we should be concerned about, conceptualise the relation between persistence and change and, thus, conceive of history as newly reproduced. Focusing on the condition of women in formally egalitarian societies, the book shows that history is important to theorise the injustice of gender inequalities and devise transformative remedies. Engaging with the activist politics of the unjust past, I also demonstrates that the reproduction of an unjust history is dynamic, complex and unsettling. It generates both historical and contemporary responsibilities for reparation and redress and it questions precisely those features of our order that we take for granted.
The book engages with many historical and present cases, including the history of the denial of reproductive injustice against African American women and prison abolitionism in the United States.
Papers by Alasia Nuti
The Journal of Politics
The victims of severe injustice are allowed to employ disruption and violence to seek political c... more The victims of severe injustice are allowed to employ disruption and violence to seek political change. This article argues for this conclusion from within Rawlsian political liberalism, which, however, has been criticised for allegedly imposing public reason’s suffocating norms of civility on the oppressed. It develops a novel view of the applicability of public reason in non-ideal circumstances – the “no self-sacrifice view” – that focuses on the excessive costs of following public reason when suffering from severe injustice. On this view, those treated in what Rawls describes as less than a reasonably just way are relieved of the duty of public reason and therefore entitled to employ disruption and violence. In contrast, their privileged fellow citizens must still obey public reason’s civility unless they have been authorised by the oppressed to join their fight. This article also starts exploring from within political liberalism the normative principles governing disruptive and violent protest.
Political Studies
This paper discusses the growth of the populist radical right as a concrete example of the scenar... more This paper discusses the growth of the populist radical right as a concrete example of the scenario where liberal democratic ideas are losing support in broadly liberal democratic societies. Our goal is to enrich John Rawls’s influential theory of political liberalism. We argue that even in that underexplored scenario, Rawlsian political liberalism can offer an appealing account of how to promote the legitimacy and stability of liberal democratic institutions provided it places partisanship centre-stage. Specifically, we propose a brand-new moral duty binding ‘reasonable’ partisans committed to pluralism. This duty establishes conditions where partisans must strategically transform society’s public reason (i.e., transform the visions for society their parties campaign on) in ways that promise to attract back support from illiberal and antidemocratic competitors. While this strategic behaviour might seem impermissible, we show that Rawls’s distinctive account of sincerity in democratic deliberation is uniquely placed to justify it as perfectly ethical.
Ethnicities
Originally proposed by John Rawls, the idea of reasoning from conjecture is popular among the pro... more Originally proposed by John Rawls, the idea of reasoning from conjecture is popular among the proponents of political liberalism in normative political theory. Reasoning from conjecture consists in discussing with fellow citizens who are attracted to illiberal and antidemocratic ideas by focusing on their religious or otherwise comprehensive doctrines, attempting to convince them that such doctrines actually call for loyalty to liberal democracy. Our goal is to criticise reasoning from conjecture as a tool aimed at persuasion and, in turn, at improving the stability of liberal democratic institutions. To pursue this goal, we use as case study real-world efforts to counter-radicalise at-risk Muslim citizens, which, at first glance, reasoning from conjecture seems well-placed to contribute to. This case study helps us to argue that the supporters of reasoning from conjecture over-intellectualise opposition to liberal democracy and what societies can do to counter it. Specifically, they (i) underestimate how few members of society can effectively perform reasoning from conjecture; (ii) overlook that the burdens of judgement, a key notion for political liberals, highlight how dim the prospects of reasoning from conjecture are; and (iii) do not pay attention to the causes of religious persons' opposition to liberal democracy. However, not everything is lost for political liberals, provided that they redirect attention to different and under-researched resources contained in Rawls's theory. In closing, we briefly explain how such resources are much better placed than reasoning from conjecture to provide guidance relative to counter-radicalisation in societies (i) populated by persons who do not generally hold anything close to a fully worked out and internally consistent comprehensive doctrine, and (ii) where political institutions should take responsibility for at least part of the existing alienation from liberal democratic values.
Ethics & International Affairs, 2018
Temporary labor migration (TLM) constitutes a significant trend of migration movements within the... more Temporary labor migration (TLM) constitutes a significant trend of migration movements within the European Union, especially after the 2004 and 2007 EU enlargements. However, compared to other forms of TLM, intra-EU TLM has received scant attention from normative theorists. By drawing on Iris Marion Young's conception of structural injustice, this paper analyzes the injustice of TLM within the EU. It argues that purely rights-based approaches are deficient and that a structural injustice approach is needed. The latter sheds light on the formal and informal processes that place EU temporary migrants in a condition of vulnerability and reveals the multiple individual and collective agents participating in such processes. Moreover, such an approach offers important insights into the agency of migrants by showing how they themselves reinforce structural processes that put not only (i) individual temporary migrants but also (ii) similarly positioned migrants and (iii) other members of the sending and receiving countries in a vulnerable position. A structural injustice approach does not deny that intra-EU temporary labor migrants should enjoy the rights and entitlements that they currently have in the host country as European citizens. Nor does it dispute that reducing the vulnerability of temporary migrants may require "special rights" accommodating the specific nature of their life plans. Instead, though such rights may be necessary, a structural injustice approach demonstrates how they are insufficient to tackle the injustice of intra-EU TLM and other forms of temporary labor migration more broadly.
Journal of Political Philosophy, 2018
Political Theory, 2016
This paper contends that postcolonial migrants have a right to enter their former colonizing nati... more This paper contends that postcolonial migrants have a right to enter their former colonizing nations, and that these should accept them. Our novel argument challenges well-established justifications for restrictions in immigration-policies advanced in liberal nationalism, which links immigration controls to the nation’s self-determination and the legitimate preservation of national identity. To do so, we draw on postcolonial analyses of colonialism, in particular on Said’s notion of “intertwined histories”, and we offer a more sophisticated account of national identity than that of liberal nationalists. On our view, the national identity of former colonizing nations cannot be understood in isolation from their ex-colonies. This entails that liberal nationalists cannot justify the restriction on the entrance of members of the nation’s former colonies by resorting to an argument about the preservation of national identity: the former colonized constitute an inseparable element of that national identity, because they are already historically part of it.
Journal of Political Philosophy
Ethics & Global Politics
David Miller has provided one of the most fully-fledged and sophisticated theories of redress for... more David Miller has provided one of the most fully-fledged and sophisticated theories of redress for historical injustice. In this paper we analyse his view and we demonstrate how his account of redress reveals some difficulties when it comes to offering redress for past injustices that are characterised by complex and interrelated structures, such as colonialism. This is because Miller would repair the colonial injustice through a “correspondence model of redress”, according to which redress should be obtained by identifying the type of reparations that corresponds to the nature of the past injustice at stake. By focusing on the case of colonial injustice, we show how a correspondence model of redress, like the one developed by Miller, is not fully equipped to theorise what redress for colonialism should amount to. The aim of the paper is not to prove Miller’s theory true or false, but rather to point at some of the shortcomings that its application to real cases of historical injustice would run into. Despite its sophistication, Miller’s theory does not acknowledge with sufficient depth the complexity of colonial injustice and its implications for thinking about redress. Such a complexity not only makes redress more difficult to be achieved through Miller’s correspondence model but also it brings to the forefront concerns about the process whereby redress is reached.
Feminist Theory
Over the centuries, feminists have noted the injustice of the institution of marriage and the asy... more Over the centuries, feminists have noted the injustice of the institution of marriage and the asymmetric power dynamics within gender-structured marriages. Recently, feminists seem to have found an unexpected supporter of this struggle against marriage in some liberal political theorists. In this paper, I argue that this new wave of interest in the wrongness of marriage within liberalism reveals shortcomings from a feminist perspective. While some liberals fail to realize that instead of being disestablished, the institution of marriage should be radically reformed, others do not recognize that such a reform should be theorised by starting from our non-idealised conditions of gender inequality and from an analysis of how the institution of marriage intersects with other spheres of gender injustice. This paper provides positive normative recommendations for the radical reform of marriage by following some fundamental methodological premises of feminist theory. To illustrate how the reform of marriage should be theorised, it focuses on the intersection between the sphere of gender injustice represented by immigration and that of marriage.
Book Chapters by Alasia Nuti
What is Structural Injustice, 2024
Routledge Handbook of Ethics and Public Policy (edited by Annabelle Lever and Andrei Poama)
The issue of redressing historical wrongs has received much recent attention in political theory,... more The issue of redressing historical wrongs has received much recent attention in political theory, sparking a heated debate over the normative reasons for repairing past injustices. Although questions of justification are important and stimulating, they do not exhaust the range of pressing normative challenges that reparations raise. In this paper, we concentrate on the largely neglected ethical issues arising in the process of devising reparations programmes. When the ethical issues surrounding the design of reparations programmes are ignored, their implementation is likely to leave the injustice in need of repair unscathed and – even worse – compound existing forms of exclusion, power imbalances, and marginalisation. In light of this, we identify three ethical concerns that should be faced while designing reparations programmes. The first issue – call it the problem of political instrumentalization – revolves around a worry often expressed by reparation claimants and victims of injustice, i.e., that reparations can seem to be a way for the governments to legitimize their political power, rather than to achieve justice. This worry seems to be particularly well-founded when the very content of reparations is decided without listening to what “victims” of injustice would regard as an appropriate form of reparation for the injustice they suffered from. We argue that in order not to turn reparations programmes into political tools, such programmes should actively involve claimants. A second issue – call it the problem of exclusion – also arises from a worry that real world reparations claimants express, and has to do with the documentation and filing process. In devising reparations programs, it is necessary to implement procedures to determine who has a valid claim and put up safeguards against fraud. Yet due to short-sightedness, excessive rule-boundedness, or poor procedural design, individuals with seemingly valid claims may be turned away. Though outcomes like these are not always foreseen, they can also signify bad intentions, and in the extreme case, there may emerge a perceived “hierarchy of victims” based on whose claim is recognized and whose is not. A final issue – call it the problem of inclusion – arises because, quite naturally, not all individuals with a potential claim to redress will be actively mobilized in making a reparations demand. For some individuals, this is because they themselves are reparations critics, thus it is natural to not be mobilized in making a reparations demand. There may also be conflicts that mirror power imbalances within the group, purely substantive disagreements about what reparative justice demands, indifference, and lack of awareness as to the fact that a reparations movement exists. Do the mobilized individuals who enjoy political clout and legitimacy have standing to claim redress on behalf of the entire group?
The arguments of the paper are made with reference to a wide range of real-world cases.
Book Reviews by Alasia Nuti
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2020
In Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics, Lu argues that justice and reconciliation are an... more In Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics, Lu argues that justice and reconciliation are analytically distinct but both needed after political catastrophes like colonialism. I argue that Lu’s compelling reconceptualisation of reconciliation precisely shows the contrary by making the project of reconciliation indistinguishable from the task of realising structural justice and that we should reject the language of reconciliation in some contexts. Moreover,
I contend that, in an important sense, alienation (i.e., the wrong that, according to Lu, reconciliation aims to tackle) must be generated to move towards a structurally just world. Indeed, the project of creating a structurally unjust
order does require the alienation of agents from the existing background conditions of their actions.
Critical Dialogue between Alasia Nuti's Injustice and the Reproduction of History: Structural Ine... more Critical Dialogue between Alasia Nuti's Injustice and the Reproduction of History: Structural Inequality, Gender, and Redress and Inés Valdez's Transnational Cosmopolitanism: Kant, Du Bois, and Justice as a Political Craft.
European Journal of Political Theory
As a Western citizen, am I responsible for the serious injustices, such as sweatshop labour, char... more As a Western citizen, am I responsible for the serious injustices, such as sweatshop labour, characterising our global economy? Benjamin McKean's terrific new book, Disorienting Neoliberalism: Global Justice and the Outer Limit of Freedom, shows why this is a misleading question-one that will not properly orient us in relation to the neoliberal economy. McKean argues that we need to recognise that we are unfree under unjust transnational economic institutions and thus we have a shared interest in resisting neoliberalism. This means that we should become disposed to heed the calls for solidarity by others across the world whose freedom is also impaired by neoliberal institutions. McKean's book offers a powerful and persuasive new account of global (in)justice and solidarity; it is an inspiring call to arms for egalitarian theorists. Although I will raise two friendly critical observations about McKean's argument, I recognise that this book is a major contribution to international political theory and that it sets a superb example of how to combine scholarly rigour with what might be called activist theorising.
The Philosophical Quartely
Edited collections/Special Issues by Alasia Nuti
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
Demands calling for reparations for historical injustices – injustices whose original victims and... more Demands calling for reparations for historical injustices – injustices whose original victims and perpetrators are now dead – constitute an important component of contemporary struggles for social and transnational justice. Reparations are only one way in which the unjust past is salient in contemporary politics. In my book, Injustice and the Reproduction of History: Structural Inequalities, Gender and Redress, I put forward a framework to conceptualise the normative significance of the unjust past. In this article, I will engage with the insightful comments and try to address the concerns of the contributors to the symposium on my book. I will discuss (i) whether and in what sense my framework incorporates past-regarding duties, (ii) how it is different from causal interpretations of the relationship between past and present injustice, (iii) whether it can carve out a greater place for blame in our thinking about responsibility for (historical) structural injustice, (iv) whether such a responsibility needs to hinge upon an account of solidarity, and (v) how de-temporalising injustice can cast new light on immigration politics. In particular, I will stress and further clarify the importance that the notion of ‘structural debt’, which my book develops to reflect on historical responsibility, can play in thinking about what is owed to an unjust history.
This is the introduction to the special issue on 'Global Justice: Radical Perspectives', publishe... more This is the introduction to the special issue on 'Global Justice: Radical Perspectives', published in Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric
Call for Papers by Alasia Nuti
CFP for special issue of Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric. What can radical approaches br... more CFP for special issue of Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric. What can radical approaches bring to the global justice debate?
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Books by Alasia Nuti
Demands for redress of historical injustice – injustices committed in the past – are a crucial component of contemporary struggles for social and transnational justice. However, understanding when and why an unjust history matters for considerations of justice in the present is not so straightforward. In this book, I develop a normative framework to identify which historical injustices we should be concerned about, conceptualise the relation between persistence and change and, thus, conceive of history as newly reproduced. Focusing on the condition of women in formally egalitarian societies, the book shows that history is important to theorise the injustice of gender inequalities and devise transformative remedies. Engaging with the activist politics of the unjust past, I also demonstrates that the reproduction of an unjust history is dynamic, complex and unsettling. It generates both historical and contemporary responsibilities for reparation and redress and it questions precisely those features of our order that we take for granted.
The book engages with many historical and present cases, including the history of the denial of reproductive injustice against African American women and prison abolitionism in the United States.
Papers by Alasia Nuti
Book Chapters by Alasia Nuti
The arguments of the paper are made with reference to a wide range of real-world cases.
Book Reviews by Alasia Nuti
I contend that, in an important sense, alienation (i.e., the wrong that, according to Lu, reconciliation aims to tackle) must be generated to move towards a structurally just world. Indeed, the project of creating a structurally unjust
order does require the alienation of agents from the existing background conditions of their actions.
Edited collections/Special Issues by Alasia Nuti
Call for Papers by Alasia Nuti
Demands for redress of historical injustice – injustices committed in the past – are a crucial component of contemporary struggles for social and transnational justice. However, understanding when and why an unjust history matters for considerations of justice in the present is not so straightforward. In this book, I develop a normative framework to identify which historical injustices we should be concerned about, conceptualise the relation between persistence and change and, thus, conceive of history as newly reproduced. Focusing on the condition of women in formally egalitarian societies, the book shows that history is important to theorise the injustice of gender inequalities and devise transformative remedies. Engaging with the activist politics of the unjust past, I also demonstrates that the reproduction of an unjust history is dynamic, complex and unsettling. It generates both historical and contemporary responsibilities for reparation and redress and it questions precisely those features of our order that we take for granted.
The book engages with many historical and present cases, including the history of the denial of reproductive injustice against African American women and prison abolitionism in the United States.
The arguments of the paper are made with reference to a wide range of real-world cases.
I contend that, in an important sense, alienation (i.e., the wrong that, according to Lu, reconciliation aims to tackle) must be generated to move towards a structurally just world. Indeed, the project of creating a structurally unjust
order does require the alienation of agents from the existing background conditions of their actions.