Global Justice and Transnational Politics

by Pablo De Greiff (Editor), Ciaran P. Cronin (Editor)

If globalization is to be a benefit and not a burden to humankind, itmust be governed by global institutions that are perceived by all people to bedemocratic and just. But before we can create such institutions, we must imaginethem, and that requires a rethinking and extension of normative political theory.Global Justice and Transnational Politics encourages and advances that work.Thebook's first part, "Weak Universalism," contains essays by Amartya Sen and LeifWenar that offer constructive developments of John Rawls's statement of theprinciples a liberal polity might reasonably propose to govern its relations withother peoples. The second part, "Strong Universalism and Transnational Commitments,"contains essays by J?rgen Habermas, David Luban, Martha Nussbaum, and Thomas Poggeexamining the normative sources and possible types of cross-border commitments. Inthe third part, "Transnational Politics and National Identities," Habermas discussesthe possibility of a democratic political order developing within the institutionalframework of the European Union; Thomas McCarthy draws on Kant to show howcosmopolitanism might be reconciled with the legacy of nationalism; and CraigCalhoun tries to retrieve a positive aspect of the tradition of nationalism, namelythat it provides large populations with a powerful way of imagining politicalcommunity across space and time.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2002