ANÁLISIS E INTERPRETACIÓN DE LOS RESULTADOS DE LA ENCUESTA

So far this chapter has discussed two ways in which the restriction of principles of distributive justice to a territorially defined community like the state or nation- state is problematic. Primarily the claims made by advocates of these views have been justified on the basis of the political ties of citizenship, or the cultural ties of the nation. This section deals with similar claims that have been justified on the basis that it is the joint authorship of rules that restricts distributive justice to the state. This argument has most recently been articulated by Nagel (2005), although it has also been stated elsewhere (see for example Miller 1998 and Blake 2002). On this view, global distributive justice is also ruled out because it is thought that people must be part of some sort of established political relation, or subject to the same set of rules, in order to justify redistributive measures. Similarly to the previous two sections, this section will first provide a descriptive overview of Nagel‘s account, and then once again develop a critique that is based on his normative and empirical claims.

Nagel‘s starting point is the Hobbesian claim about the relationship between justice and sovereignty:

What creates the link between justice and sovereignty is something common to a wide range of conceptions of justice: they all depend on the coordinated conduct of large numbers of people, which cannot be achieved without law backed up by a monopoly of force ... This collective self-interest cannot be realized by the independent motivation of self-interested individuals unless each of them has the assurance that others will conform if he does. (2005: 115)

He articulates a political conception of justice that has sovereign states at its core; it is the existence of states that give the value of justice its application. Duties of justice are not owed to everyone in the world:

Justice is something we owe through our shared institutions only to those with whom we stand in a strong political relation … The full standards of justice, though they can be known by moral reasoning, apply only within the boundaries of a sovereign state, however arbitrary those boundaries may be. Internationally, there may well be standards, but they do not merit the full name of justice (Ibid: 121-122).

There is considerable overlap between what Nagel and Rawls advocate, the primary general difference being that Nagel specifically addresses the matter of global justice. However, he is of the view that Rawls was broadly correct; despite the moral appeal of cosmopolitan global egalitarian claims, Nagel believes that the political conception of justice is what most people hold to be correct, and is what works:

[…] the defence of the political conception of justice would have to hold that beyond the basic humanitarian duties, further requirements of equal treatment depend on a strong condition of associative responsibility, that such responsibility is created by specific and contingent relations such as fellow citizenship, and that there is no general moral requirement to take

responsibility for others by getting into those sorts of relations with as many of them as possible...This makes it a very convenient view for those living in rich societies to hold. But that alone does not make it false (Ibid: 126)

On Nagel‘s view, the choices surrounding global justice are either a cosmopolitan application of principles of distributive justice, mediated through a world government (Ibid: 119), or the political conception, which ensures distributive justice within states. On this latter conception, there can certainly be broad humanitarian concerns related to global poverty (which, as he argues, are so grim that relatively speaking justice itself may be a side issue - Ibid: 118), but these are distinct from duties of justice.

This restriction quite clearly leads to the charge that it is morally arbitrary, and such arbitrariness is unacceptable in the context of claims about distributive justice. For Nagel, it is the joint authorship of sovereignty that provides us with the necessary condition to justify his argument:

A sovereign state is not just a cooperative enterprise for mutual advantage. The societal rules determining its basic structure are coercively imposed: it is not a voluntary association. I submit that it is this complex fact - that we are both putative joint authors of the coercively imposed system, and subject to its norms, i.e., expected to accept their authority even when the collective decision diverges from our personal preferences - that creates the special presumption against arbitrary inequalities in our treatment by the system (Ibid: 129).

The thesis presents two central critiques of Nagel‘s argument. This first is empirical, and broadly argues that even if Nagel is correct to say that requirements of justice only apply between people who are related through the exercise of authority and the co-authorship of rules, he is wrong to argue that this

does not apply globally. The second point is normative, arguing that sovereignty is not necessary for justice to apply – requirements of justice can be triggered in circumstances where no one has been asked to obey any rules.

4.4.1 Empirical Critique

The empirical critique of Nagel‘s argument is similar to the points that have been made in previous sections. Nagel‘s view of global politics is that extensive institutional governance arrangements at the international level are significant enough to assert that we are clearly in some sort of institutional relation with one another globally, but that such relations are not significant enough to warrant the application of principles of distributive justice globally:

Current international rules and institutions may be the thin end of a wedge that will eventually expand to seriously dislodge the dominant sovereignty of separate nation-states, both morally and politically, but for the moment they lack something that according to the political conception is crucial for the application and implementation of standards of justice: They are not collectively enacted and coercively imposed in the name of all individuals whose lives they affect; and they do not ask for the kind of authorization by individuals that carries with it a responsibility to treat all those individuals in some sense equally (Ibid: 138).

There are two points to be made here. The first is that Nagel goes on to observe that the majority of international rules and institutions are founded on state authority and involve some form of delegation of state authority in order to function (Ibid: 138-139). He also argues that the fact that such institutions are founded on state authority does not mean that the claims of justice that are applicable to the state are also applicable to international institutions that rely on

state sovereignty to exist. Moreover, he also mentions newer forms of international governance, such as global and regional networks, and views these to be similarly founded upon state authority and representative of the self- interested bargaining that takes place between states. If this is indeed the case – that all international governance is merely a partial transfer of state authority up one level, as it were – then surely on Nagel‘s own argument it follows that justice claims are applicable, precisely because (in his view) justice applies in sovereign relations.

Even if he is correct in saying that justice applies only in sovereign relations of authority, and that all international governance is based on state-based sovereign authority, the logical conclusion of this seems to be different to that which Nagel arrives at. If representatives of states within international institutions make decisions and bargain on behalf of their citizens, who live under the collectively imposed rules of such international institutions, it would seem that there is a relationship of authority between such citizens and institutions, and such authority is founded upon sovereign states. Thus there is a claim of distributive justice. Nagel argues there isn‘t, because it is an ―an indirect relation to citizens that is morally significant‖ (Ibid: 139). However, it is not really explained why this indirect relation is morally significant.

The second point is that Nagel‘s view is incorrect in relation to international governance, in terms of its make up as well as in terms of voluntariness. Of course he is correct that many institutions, or more particularly the ―old‖ institutions, such as the UN, the IMF or the World Bank, are founded on state

authority, and newer institutions such as networks of global governance also have states participating. However he is incorrect to say that institutions of international governance are constituted solely by states bargaining with one another. This perception of international governance neglects the fact that many interests at that level are not representative of one state function, or one state. All the international organisations he mentions allow civil society representation, which often are organised on the basis of a particular issue, or geographical region and so span across states. Regional governance bodies also form collective representative groups within international organisations; for instance, the EU bargains collectively in many instances. Business interests also form representative groups within international organisations, bargaining on behalf of industry interests that may be demarcated by region or industry type etc, but not by state. Cohen and Sabel characterise this scenario as global rule-making, elaboration and application, global contestation and reshaping of such rules, permanence of the rules, and the encouragement of conduct abiding by those rules by the creation of incentives, sanctions and a high cost of withdrawal (2006: 164-165). While this picture of global rule making does not involve the coercive imposition of rules, as in the state, it is significant enough to warrant attention from the point of view of justice.

So in relation to the first point, if international governance institutions are only made up of state authority then it is not clear why claims of justice are not applicable; in relation to the second point, the make up of international institutions of governance cannot be understood in terms of states bargaining with each other – global governance arrangements are much more complex than

that. This would seem to endorse Nagel‘s view about there being an indirect relation between such institutions and citizens that is of moral significance. After all, the more complex the arrangements, then presumably the more indirect the relation. However, this is where the argument about voluntariness is significant. Nagel‘s view is that states enter into international governance arrangements voluntarily and thus can exit such arrangements equally voluntarily. This seems a deviation too far from the world as we find it.

It is difficult to see how withdrawal of membership of any such organisations would be in any state‘s interest. Given Nagel‘s view that states enter into such arrangements in order to protect their own self interest, it seems unlikely that states would voluntarily withdraw. As was discussed in the previous chapter, international institutions of governance were founded as part of an ―embedded liberal compromise‖ that enabled states to participate in structures of global capitalism while protecting their domestic citizens. To posit that states can simply voluntarily leave such institutions is to suggest that such states withdraw from global capitalism. In terms of an empirical reality, this does not seem to be a very realistic or helpful conjecture. Furthermore, states participate in international institutions of governance in order to find solutions that they simply cannot solve alone – global climate change is the most obvious case in point. If states participate internationally purely in terms of self-interest, then it seems clear that it is in their interest to remain within such institutions.

Thus the picture Nagel paints of the nature of global politics can be disputed by reference to empirical knowledge about how global politics functions in present

circumstances. Globalising processes render the dichotomy drawn between sovereign states and international governance institutions quite problematic. He addresses this problematic dichotomy by introducing the idea of a ―sliding scale‖ of requirements of justice, which would relate to different degrees of engagement between individuals:

The claim would have to be that since we are both participating members of this network of institutions, this puts us in the same boat for purposes of raising issues of justice, but somehow a different and perhaps leakier boat than that created by a common nation-state (Ibid: 142).

As well as being impractical, Nagel rejects this idea as morally unfeasible, less plausible than either the political conception he advocates, or a full-scale cosmopolitan conception of global justice. This is because he sees sovereignty as central to justice and on this sliding scale of interactions that individuals may have with institutions of international governance, there is no consistently identifiable sovereign relation. Thus, a middle ground approach according to Nagel is not possible.

4.4.2 Normative Critique

This leads to the normative critique of Nagel‘s argument. Of course if sovereignty is viewed to have such a central role in regard to distributive justice, the ―sliding scale‖ Nagel outlines is a non-starter. However, the argument presented in this thesis leads to a different discussion, (the second objection to Nagel‘s conception of global justice), which is that in focussing on the condition of sovereignty in relation to global justice, Nagel focuses on the wrong thing, and asks the wrong questions. If the central criterion surrounding global justice

relates to how it might be integrated with traditional notions of sovereignty, the political conception of justice appears the more appealing one. Yet Nagel mentions the moral appeal of a cosmopolitan conception, and acknowledges the morally distressing nature of the questions a theory of global justice would presumably address. In fact it seems there is an interest in taking global justice further, but the constraints of the political conception does not allow for this.

The point here is that it is not necessarily the case that sovereignty is so crucial to trigger requirements of distributive justice. The previous sections argued that the political ties of citizenship and the cultural ties of the nation are not central determining factors when it comes to the scope of distributive justice. In the case of the former, it was argued the priority given to liberal toleration is not justifiable. In the case of the latter, the priority given to national self- determination is also not justifiable. In terms of Nagel‘s argument, the priority given to sovereignty is equally problematic. It is not clear from Nagel‘s position why sovereignty or the co-authorship of rules is necessary to trigger principles of distributive justice.

What defines sovereignty as this special trigger of norms of justice, according to Nagel, is the co-authorship of rules within a society – all members of a society are subject to coercively imposed rules, with which they are involuntarily associated, and which require the ―active engagement‖ of their will in order to be justifiable. He states

holds us responsible for obeying its laws and conforming to its norms, thereby supporting the institutions through which advantages and disadvantages are created and distributed. Insofar as those institutions admit arbitrary inequalities, we are, even though the responsibility has been simply handed to us, responsible, and we therefore have standing to ask why we should accept them (Ibid: 128-129).

Thus co-citizens are asked to accept as legitimate forms of state coercion in order that the arbitrary inequalities of that system can be mitigated, through principles of distributive justice; Nagel argues that it is only within a state, not at the global level that this occurs; a similar argument is also made by Blake (2002: 265). Yet this seems an arbitrary way in which to think about justice, and surely leaves out many circumstances of injustice, merely because people‘s will has not been actively engaged in accepting rules that are imposed on them.

Pevnick argues that this ―double jeopardy‖ is troublesome for two reasons: first that it makes justice dependent on states‘ leverage in pre-institutional power structures (or that strong states are able to ensure that there is no coercively imposed system to which parties must agree because it may be to their advantage to do so); following on from that, secondly, is that this allows strong states to ignore claims of justice from weaker ones (2007: 404-405). Thus Pevnick views Nagel‘s conception as problematic for a state-based conception of international governance, in which unequal states engage in bargaining at the international level. Caney also points out that Nagel‘s argument does not necessarily lead us where he wants to go – states acting ―in the name of‖ their citizens at the international level might also be legitimately expected to take on a cosmopolitan political morality of acting honourably and justly, and not necessarily act purely from reasons of self-interest (2008: 513). Thus it is not the case that states should

not be expected to allow claims of justice at the international level. As Caney asserts, cosmopolitan egalitarians could claim this is a requirement of state behaviour.

However, it is the contention here that this problem extends beyond the unequal status and behaviour of states engaged with each other at the international level. The thesis argues that what is of concern for a conception of distributive justice is in situations where an institution has a profound and unavoidable effect on an individual‘s life chances. As has been argued in this chapter, the thesis perceives global politics to be constituted by a more complex picture of interaction than that of states bargaining with each other. Global governance structures involve a wide variety of actors and groups in the development of rules, standards and norms that do not fit into this inter-state conception of global politics. Whilst Nagel to an extent acknowledges these global governance structures, as was argued above, he is incorrect to assert that all behaviour in this context can be explained by representatives of states bargaining with each other from a position of state based self-interest. However, in normative terms, in a situation where there are rules that are imposed on people, that have a profound effect on life chances, but do not engage the ―active will‖ of those people on whom they are imposed, it is still the case that principles of distributive justice are applicable.