Lea Ypi | London School of Economics and Political Science (original) (raw)

Papers by Lea Ypi

Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 6, 2016

Perspectives on Politics, Feb 7, 2018

Reviewed by Jonathan White and Lea Ypi, London School of Economics Craiutu's book is an explorati... more Reviewed by Jonathan White and Lea Ypi, London School of Economics Craiutu's book is an exploration, and a cautious defence, of the virtue of moderation. He has in mind a political outlook rather different from conservatism, scepticism, or the centrist disposition to plump for the middle way. For Craiutu, the moderate can be a spirited defender of controversial views when the situation demands it. What defines the moderate is not so much the unwillingness to take a stand as the willingness to take it in a certain way: to question oneself, to avoid Manichean simplifications and ideological rigidities, to engage in dialogue with adversaries, and to resist the temptation of ethical monism (p.5, pp.20ff.). More a sensibility than a defined body of commitments, moderation takes different forms in different contexts. Moderates have worn many 'masks' over time (p.9), and the challenge for the scholar is to convey the similarities. Craiutu does this through a series of sympathetic profiles of (white, male) thinkers associated with the virtue in question-Aron, Berlin, Bobbio, Oakeshott and Michnik. Each of these faces of moderation, as Craiutu sees them, is the subject of a chapter that explores the contours and context of their political outlook. The book is framed by two more theoretical chapters that engage more abstractly with the concept of moderation, the methodological challenges of the project, andvery much in the spirit of moderationthe weaknesses to which the outlook may be prone (p.233). The author's selection of interlocutors underlines his contention that moderation is not to be assigned to any one ideological tradition. Bobbio and Oakeshott are presented as figures of the Left and Right respectively, and Berlin and Aron as thinkers 'in the middle' (p.10). Moderation it seems is a virtue that can be displayed across the political spectrum, andperhaps more intriguinglyis compatible with the possibility of placing an individual thereon. Liberalism is the category one might instinctively associate with several of these figures, but Craiutu describes moderation and liberalism as not quite the same. Moderates do not see freedom as the first value, any more than equality. Indeed, they are reluctant to see any value as prior to all others, preferring instead to set their priorities according to context (see e.g. p.158). And nor does moderation fit well with any '-ism', if this means a doctrine that can be systematised and written down. It is a virtue displayed in practicean art, as the subtitle has it. One of the book's challenges is how to write theoretically about a practical virtue, and the choice of a series of individual portraits is an intelligent response. It is surprising nonetheless that much of the focus is on thinkerson individuals who thought and wrote about politics, rather than people embroiled in other ways. Certainly, interventions in public debate demand the exercise of judgement and can be a form of political action, and some of Craiutu's interlocutors did more than just this. But one wonders whether the art of moderation is not practiced most critically in other placesby political representatives, decision-makers, constitutional drafters, or even just street-level bureaucrats. It would be interesting to think further about what moderation entails in these practical settings. It would be worthwhile to explore whether moderation can be exercised collectively, or whetheras the structure of the book might suggestit is the stuff of individuals acting

Perspectives on Politics, Feb 7, 2018

Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 6, 2016

Political Theory, Jan 15, 2018

Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 6, 2016

Political Theory, Oct 8, 2015

Contemporary political theory has made the question of the 'people' a topic of sustained analysis... more Contemporary political theory has made the question of the 'people' a topic of sustained analysis. This article identifies two broad approaches takennorm-based and contestation-basedand, noting some problems left outstanding, goes on to advance a complementary account centred on partisan practice. It suggests the definition of 'the people' is closely bound up in the analysis of political conflict, and that partisans engaged in such conflict play an essential role in constructing and contesting different principled conceptions. The article goes on to show how such an account does not lead to a normatively hollow, purely historical conception of 'the people', but rather highlights the normative importance of practices that, at the minimum, de-naturalise undesirable conceptions of the people and, at their best, give political legitimacy and a representative basis to those one might wish to see prosper. In democratic theory and practice, the concept of the people is used to evoke that agent in the name of whom power should be exercised if it is to be considered justified. Yet what a people is and how it can be legitimately constituted is a matter of enduring dispute. If we follow the larger part of democratic theory, we find two prominent approaches. The first tends to see political practice as secondary to a prior normative account of what counts as the people. Call this the norm-based approach to peoplehood. The second emphasises that the people can only truly be identified in the context of ongoing, if radically incomplete, adversarial encounters. Call this the contestation-based approach to the people. Norm-based accounts are often criticised for depoliticising the question, relegating the people to passive recipients of independently valid moral standards and neglecting the role of active political participation in shaping power and its justification. Contestation-based accounts are criticised for overly politicising the question, sacrificing normative criteria to an indiscriminate account of adversarial political exchange with little space for reflection on the plausibility of the claims advanced. This article defends an intermediate position. The question of the people, we suggest, is answered when evoked and given definition in an ongoing clash between political projects. Such projects must be of a principled nature, rooted in conflicting views about how power is legitimately exercised, and embedded in appropriate processes of public political justification. The relevant processes, we argue, are those where 'the people' is invoked by representative agents whose democratic function is to exercise power in the name of the people, and whose raison d'etre is to show on what normative grounds this exercise is justified.

Journal of Social Philosophy, Mar 1, 2019

I. Introduction Consider statements of the kind: "Citizens of poor countries are often plagued by... more I. Introduction Consider statements of the kind: "Citizens of poor countries are often plagued by corruption". "People who do not come from white middle class backgrounds tend to have less access to higher education opportunities". "Women in philosophy are disadvantaged compared to their male colleagues". Common to all these statements is the emphasis on how membership in particular groups renders members of those groups vulnerable to a particular form of disadvantage, one that is recursively implicated in a system of rules that persistently disempowers them. Call this form of disadvantage: structural injustice.

American Political Science Review, Apr 27, 2011

Political justification figures prominently in contemporary political theory, notably in models o... more Political justification figures prominently in contemporary political theory, notably in models of deliberative democracy. This paper articulates and defends the essential role of partisanship in this process. Four dimensions of justification are examined in detail: the constituency to which political justifications are offered, the circumstances in which they are developed, the ways they are made inclusive, and the ways they are made persuasive. In each case, the role of partisanship is probed and affirmed. Partisanship, we conclude, is indispensable to the kind of political justification needed to make the exercise of collective authority responsive to normative concerns. 1

Non c’e dubbio che ormai da diversi anni la forma partito sia in crisi e in molti ne hanno annunc... more Non c’e dubbio che ormai da diversi anni la forma partito sia in crisi e in molti ne hanno annunciato (e talvolta auspicato) la definitiva scomparsa. Ma e davvero possibile fare politica sul lungo periodo senza una struttura organizzata, che si richiami a un preciso orizzonte di ideali e valori e che si riconnetta a una storia e a una tradizione? E come possono i partiti imparare la lezione dei movimenti? L’interessante caso del Partito laburista inglese.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 6, 2016

Perspectives on Politics, Feb 7, 2018

Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 6, 2016

Political Theory, Jan 15, 2018

Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 6, 2016

Political Theory, Oct 8, 2015

Journal of Social Philosophy, Mar 1, 2019

American Political Science Review, Apr 27, 2011

For a century at least, parties have been central to the study of politics. Yet their typical con... more For a century at least, parties have been central to the study of politics. Yet their typical conceptual reduction to a network of power-seeking elites has left many to wonder why parties were ever thought crucial to democracy. This book seeks to retrieve a richer conception of partisanship, drawing on modern political thought and extending it in the light of contemporary democratic theory and practice. Looking beyond the party as organization, the book develops an original account of what it is to be a partisan. It examines the ideas, orientations, obligations, and practices constitutive of partisanship properly understood, and how these intersect with the core features of democratic life. Such an account serves to underline in distinctive fashion why democracy needs its partisans, and puts in relief some of the key trends of contemporary politics.

This article critically engages with Rainer Forst’s recent book Justification and Critique: Towar... more This article critically engages with Rainer Forst’s recent book Justification and Critique: Towards a Critical Theory of Politics, focusing in particular on his account of utopia in the last part of it.

The idea of freedom as non-domination, familiar in the history of political thought since classic... more The idea of freedom as non-domination, familiar in the history of political thought since classical republican Rome, has enjoyed a splashing revival in recent contemporary political theory. No one has done as much to advance the republican debate from a normative perspective as Philip Pettit, whose sophisticated and erudite scholarship has set the parameters against which any new contribution has to measure itself. His latest books, On the People's Terms (PT) and Just Freedom (JF), articulate the ideal of freedom as non-domination in a compelling philosophical account distinct from both the liberal idea of freedom as non-interference and from the communitarian idea of freedom as collective self-realisation. They then also examine the institutional implications of this ideal for the relations of citizens to each other (the republican conception of social justice), for the relations of citizens to the state (the republican conception of political legitimacy as instantiated in a democratic account of political institutions) and, in Just Freedom, also for the relations among different states (the republican conception of sovereignty).

Rosa Luxemburg is well known for her political activism in the revolutionary movements in Poland,... more Rosa Luxemburg is well known for her political activism in the revolutionary movements in Poland, Russia and Germany, and as a leading Marxist member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. She is also well known for her economic work on capital accumulation. But although she formulated important arguments in political economy, the theory of revolution, and council democracy her contributions to political philosophy are less than fully appreciated in the contemporary academic community. Marking the hundredth anniversary of Luxemburg's murder in January 1919, this conference turns towards her political philosophy and discusses her philosophical arguments at the intersection with more strategic, historical, and sociological considerations. We invite paper proposals for papers on, but not limited to, the following topics:

Suppose a gang of Mafiosi manages to fence off a part of common land and by sheer recourse to vio... more Suppose a gang of Mafiosi manages to fence off a part of common land and by sheer recourse to violence and oppression convinces everyone around them that they have acquired legitimate property. What could justify their descendants’ right to exclude given the tainted origins of first acquisition? One answer is to appeal to the doctrine of ‘adverse possession’ in law. The doctrine is often invoked to claim de facto title on holdings arguing that wrongful occupants of land might nevertheless establish a right to it after a sufficient period of time has elapsed, provided that the property has not been contested.
Adverse possession is often invoked to discuss the rights of irregular migrants to naturalise in countries in which they have entered via illegal channels (thus committing an original wrong). Some authors have suggested that the doctrine of adverse possession only works if it combines a claim to continuous enjoyment of access to land with indifference from others whose rights are violated by such wrongful and unilateral taking of property. In this paper I explore the implications of the doctrine of adverse possession for states’ rights to exclude irregular migrants in light of their tainted history of unjust appropriation of the territories they occupy. I suggest that if the doctrine of adverse possession is insufficient to provide irregular migrants with a justification of the right to settle even after some lapse of time, it also does not justify the territorial rights of states whose claims to jurisdiction and the related right to exclude is built on an analogous (and in fact much worse) form of unilateral occupation of territory. I then review the temporal significance of social membership ties and explore potential objections to this argument.

This is the core syllabus for an MSc course on Marx and Marxism.