Peer-Reviewed Articles by Lior Erez
Political Studies
States' right to exclude prospective members is the subject of a fierce debate in political theor... more States' right to exclude prospective members is the subject of a fierce debate in political theory, but the right to include has received relatively little scholarly attention. To address this lacuna, we examine the puzzle of permissible inclusion: when may states confer citizenship on individuals they have no prior obligation to include? We first clarify why permissible inclusion is a puzzle, then proceed to a normative evaluation of this practice and its limits. We investigate self-determination-a dominant principle in theories of the right to exclude-as a normative ground for limits on the right to include. We argue that states' duties to respect one another's self-determination yields limits on permissible inclusion. When inclusive policies for citizenship undermine the permissible scope of self-determination of other states, they are impermissible; they should either be prohibited or compensated for.
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Res Publica, 2024
Should facts about motivation play a role in the justification of political ideals? Many theorist... more Should facts about motivation play a role in the justification of political ideals? Many theorists argue that political ideals should be tailored to the limitations of human nature-"taking people as they are"-while others maintain that facts about motivation should be excluded. This article offers a critical intervention in this debate: the important question is not so much whether people can motivate themselves, or whether they are capable of being motivated, but what social mechanisms would be required to motivate them, and whether these mechanisms are legitimate. Re-framing the question of motivation as a political question of legitimacy, I argue that if people could only be motivated to act through illegitimate use of power, the ideal in question cannot be fully justified.
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World Development
Foreign aid donors often use, or are expected to use, the threat of aid suspensions in response t... more Foreign aid donors often use, or are expected to use, the threat of aid suspensions in response to human rights violations. The use of such conditionality seeks to pressure the 'recipient' government into ending or preventing rights abuses. This article argues that this approach tacitly relies on the assumption that most citizens in the recipient country oppose their government's rights violations. However, in recent years, and particularly linked to the rise of populism, there has been growing recognition of instances around the world in which significant parts of the public support government actions giving rise to human rights violations. Drawing in particular on the example of donor responses to recent efforts to introduce repressive anti-homosexuality legislation in Uganda, the article argues that such cases present donors with a dilemma that arises because the threat of aid suspensions serves two distinct but related purposes: an instrumental function ('the stick'), whereby the threat of withdrawing aid is used to pressure the 'recipient' government into ending the rights violation; and an expressive function ('the flag') that is often overlooked, whereby conditionality signals the donor government's commitment to international human rights norms. While typically these two functions of aid conditionality reinforce one another, we show that when faced with a 'complicit public', the stick and flag come apart, generating the dilemma for donors. The threat of aid sanctions is likely to trigger a public backlash but refraining from effective criticism will undermine support for international human rights norms. Based on this analysis, the article provides a framework for recognizing and evaluating potential responses to this dilemma that considers the salient political and ethical features of such contexts. In doing so, it demonstrates the importance of understanding the political ethics of aid suspensions and other donor responses to human rights violations.
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Political Research Quarterly
Should it be permissible for individuals to sell their own citizenship? In brief: no. Against rec... more Should it be permissible for individuals to sell their own citizenship? In brief: no. Against recent defenses of the idea of private citizenship markets, I argue that these markets cannot be legitimately established. First, I examine existing arguments in the literature in support of such markets, and argue that they do not present sufficient reasons for justifying the establishment of private citizenship markets. Second, I argue that the very idea of private citizenship markets is a non-starter, as the privatization of citizenship allocation undermines the justification for the collective right to exclude from membership. As a result, the case for private citizenship markets fails. Finally, I consider some possible objections to my argument and potential implications of it beyond the case of private citizenship markets.
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Jus Cogens
In recent decades, revisionist philosophers have radically challenged the orthodox just war theor... more In recent decades, revisionist philosophers have radically challenged the orthodox just war theory championed by Michael Walzer in the 1970s. This review considers two new contributions to the debate, Benbaji and Statman's War by Agreement and Ripstein's Kant and the Law of War, which aim to defend the traditional war convention against the revisionist attack. The review investigates the two books' respective contractarian and Kantian foundations for the war convention, their contrast with the revisionist challenge, and their points of disagreement. Building on the responses to Ripstein in the edited collection The Public Uses of Coercion and Force, and providing an overview of the broader debate, the review offers an analysis of the two books' positions on the relationship between the morality and laws of war, on just cause and the crime of aggression, and on the equality between just and unjust combatants.
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Journal of Social Philosophy, 2020
As even those who endorse it concede, cosmopolitanism has a motivational problem. There is a need... more As even those who endorse it concede, cosmopolitanism has a motivational problem. There is a need for strategies to generate support of global norms conducive to cosmopolitanism, but which do not rely primarily on the motivating force of the moral argument. This article makes the case for civic vigilance as an answer to this problem. It argues that support for cosmopolitan norms could be advanced by encouraging a recognition of the 'boomerang effect': the ways in which global injustice undermines the freedom of one's own political community. The article offers evaluative criteria for different motivational strategies, assesses prominent alternatives to moral motivation, and finally defends the appeal to civic vigilance.
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Ethics & Global Politics
In Political Self-Deception, Galeotti considers (and rebuts) two "realist" objections. Galeotti's... more In Political Self-Deception, Galeotti considers (and rebuts) two "realist" objections. Galeotti's realist argues that there is no need for the overly complex concept of self-deception, since self-serving lies and manipulation are descriptively sufficient and normatively preferable; and that in any case, deception in democratic politics is sometimes justifiable. In response, Galeotti offers explanatory, moral, and normative reasons why self-deception is a helpful concept in international politics: it helps us better understand the political reality of deception, and guides us in how to avoid or mitigate it. In this comment, I wish to revisit the realist objections, and to provide a more nuanced and more robust version of them. In doing so, I will raise questions about the relationship between self-deception and the failure of political judgement, about the moral evaluation of deception in democratic politics, and about the normative implications of Galeotti's analysis for political responsibility and for prophylactic measures.
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American Journal of Political Science
Recent theoretical debates have questioned the compatibility of patriotism with global political ... more Recent theoretical debates have questioned the compatibility of patriotism with global political responsibilities, as identified by cosmopolitan theory. In response, several authors claim that a cosmopolitan patriotism is both possible and desirable. In this Article, we propose two desiderata for cosmopolitan patriotism as a civic ideal, which existing accounts fail to meet. First, arguments for cosmopolitan patriotism should provide an account of collective identification, supporting the relation between the actions of one's country and one's appropriate reactive attitudes. Second, such a theory should be able to explain the patriot's commitment to critical engagement with her country's actions. We then offer a critical appraisal of two accounts linking patriotism with global responsibility-Permissible Partialism and Globally Responsible Nationalism-and demonstrate how they fall short. Finally, we propose an account of civic republican patriotism, which better explains how cosmopolitanism and patriotism can be brought together.
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Moral Philosophy and Politics
While many argue investment-based criteria for immigration are wrong or at least problematic, ski... more While many argue investment-based criteria for immigration are wrong or at least problematic, skill-based criteria remain relatively uncontroversial. This is normatively inconsistent. This article assesses three prominent normative objections to investment-based selection criteria for immigrants: (i) that they wrongfully discriminate between prospective immigrants (ii) that they are unfair, and (iii) that they undermine political equality among citizens. It argues that either skill-based criteria are equally susceptible to these objections, or that investment-based criteria are equally shielded from them. Indeed, in some ways investment-based criteria are less normatively problematic than skill-based criteria. Given this analysis, the resistance to investment-based migration criteria, but not to skill-based criteria, is inconsistent.
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Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
Critics and defenders of liberal nationalism often debate whether the nation-state is able to acc... more Critics and defenders of liberal nationalism often debate whether the nation-state is able to accommodate cultural and political pluralism, as it necessarily aspires for congruence between state and nation. In this article, I argue that both sides of the debate have neglected a second homogenising assumption of nationalism. Even if it is possible for the nation-building state to accommodate multiple political and cultural communities, it is not obvious that is possible or desirable for it to accommodate individuals belonging to more than one nation. With the rise of international migration, and the growing number of multinational individuals, this flaw is a serious one. I advance an internal critique of liberal nationalism to demonstrate that, from within its own logic, this theory must either reject multiple national identities, or accommodate them at the cost of the normative justifications of nationalism it provides. By analysing David Miller's influential analysis of national identity in divided societies, I demonstrate how this framework is unable to support an accepting attitude towards multiple national identities.
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British Journal of Political Science, 2019
Donor governments often face a dilemma when providing development aid to states that violate huma... more Donor governments often face a dilemma when providing development aid to states that violate human rights. While aid may contribute to positive development outcomes, it may also contribute to rights violations committed by these regimes. This article provides a conceptual framework for donors to address this dilemma in a normatively justified way. Drawing on recent methodological advancements in normative political theory, we develop a distinctively political framework of dilemmas, suggesting three models: complicity, double effect and dirty hands. We consider this framework in the context of development aid, discussing the relevant considerations for donors in different cases. We demonstrate that an approach to development assistance that acknowledges political realities does not have to be normatively silent.
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This article presents a new understanding of the problem of cosmopolitan motivation in war, and a... more This article presents a new understanding of the problem of cosmopolitan motivation in war, and argues that it could be usefully compared to the motivational critique of social justice cosmopolitanism. I argue against meta-ethical and ethical interpretations of the problem, and maintain that the salient issue is not whether an individual soldier is able to be motivated by cosmopolitan concerns, or whether being motivated by cosmopolitanism would be too demanding. Rather, the problem is a political one: given considerations of legitimacy in the use of political power, a democratic army has to be able to motivate its soldiers to take on the necessary risks without relying on coercion alone. Patriotic identification offers a way to achieve this in wars of national defense, but less so in armed humanitarian interventions (AHIs). I consider the implications of this argument for states’ responsibility to engage in humanitarian interventions.
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This article reconstructs the political motivation argument against cosmopolitanism, according to... more This article reconstructs the political motivation argument against cosmopolitanism, according to which the extension of social justice beyond bounded communities would be motivationally unstable, and thus unjustified. It does so through an analysis of the stability problem, and a reconstruction of the three most prominent anti-cosmopolitan arguments- Rawlsian statism, liberal nationalism, and civic republicanism-as solutions to this problem. It then examines, and rejects, three prominent objections, each denying a different level of the argument. The article concludes that the civic republican version of the argument is the most plausible, and implications for cosmopolitanism are considered.
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Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 8(1): pp. 43-55, Mar 2015
David Axelsen has recently introduced a novel critique of the motivational argument against cosmo... more David Axelsen has recently introduced a novel critique of the motivational argument against cosmopolitanism: even if it were the case that lack of motivation could serve as a normative constraint, people’s anti-cosmopolitan motivations cannot be seen as constraints on cosmopolitan duties as they are generated and reinforced by the state. This article argues that Axelsen's argument misrepresents the nationalist motivational argument against cosmopolitanism: the nationalist motivational argument is best interpreted as an argument about normative feasibility rather than as an argument about the technical feasibility. Nationalists' objection to cosmopolitanism arises not from the impossibility of cosmopolitan motivation, but from the moral costs of achieving and sustaining it. Given this interpretation, this article argues that Axelsen fails to demonstrate that nationalists would have to accept cosmopolitan conclusions from their own premises.
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'The Legacy of Richard Rorty' Special Issue , May 2013
This article provides a new interpretation of Richard Rorty’s notion of the private-public distin... more This article provides a new interpretation of Richard Rorty’s notion of the private-public distinction. The first section of the article provides a short theoretical overview of the origins of the public-private distinction in Rorty’s political thought and clarifies the Rortian terminology. The main portion of the article is dedicated to the critique of Rorty’s private-public distinction, divided into two thematic sections: (i) the private-public distinction as undesirable and (ii) the private-public distinction as unattainable. I argue that Rorty’s formulation provides plausible answers to the first kind of criticism, but not to the second. Finally, a reformulation of the private-public distinction will be suggested, which both mitigates the second line of criticism and better coheres with Rorty’s general theory.
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Chapters in Edited Collections by Lior Erez
Investment Migration: The Law of Citizenship and Money (Kochenov and Surak, eds. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), 2021
Critics of investment citizenship often appeal to the idea that citizenship should not be commodi... more Critics of investment citizenship often appeal to the idea that citizenship should not be commodified. This chapter clarifies how the different arguments in support of this Commodification Objection are best understood as versions of wider claims in the literature on the moral limits of markets (MLM). Through an analysis of the three main objections-The Wrong Distribution Argument, The Value Degradation Argument, and the Motivational Corruption Argument-it claims that these objections rely on flawed and partial interpretations of the broader debates. As such, they do not in fact support the conclusions critics of investment citizenship wish to draw from them. The paper concludes that the commodification objection to investment citizenship should therefore be abandoned, and that normative resistance to the practice should be made on other grounds.
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Liberal Nationalism and Its Critics: Normative and Empirical Questions (Gustavsson & Miller, eds.), Oxford University Press, 2019
This chapter offers an internal critique of liberal nationalism as a normative political theory. ... more This chapter offers an internal critique of liberal nationalism as a normative political theory. It argues that, even in its most inclusive form, liberal nationalism cannot accommodate individuals belonging to more than one nation. Drawing on the philosophical literature on social trust, the chapter reconstructs the case for national identity as the basis for trust in a wide scale, anonymous society. Liberal nationalists appeal to cultural conceptions of national identity to avoid the exclusionary implications of the civic and ethnic conceptions, but this move comes at a cost for the political equality of multinational individuals. Using cultural markers as evidence for trustworthiness, trust in multinational individuals remains conditional and uncertain, rendering their status as citizens unequal. With its implicit assumption that each individual belongs to only one nation, this chapter argues that liberal nationalism is ill-equipped for the social and political reality of multinational belongings.
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Springer Handbook of Patriotism (Mitja Sardoc ed.), 2018
This chapter offers a critical examination of the motivational critique of cosmopolitanism. While... more This chapter offers a critical examination of the motivational critique of cosmopolitanism. While the objection that cosmopolitanism is motivationally deficient is common in defenses of patriotism and compatriot partiality, this chapter argues that it is often ambiguous, as it conflates three analytically distinct arguments. It then offers a framework with which to analyze each version of the motivational critique separately, distinguishing between the meta-normative, the ethical, and the political. Meta-normative arguments focus on the limits of human nature and motivational capacities; ethical arguments focus on the demandingness of moral requirements; and political arguments focus on the stability preconditions of social justice institutions. Demonstrating the flaws in the first two versions, it is argued that only the latter is plausible as a critique of cosmopolitanism: cosmopolitans have yet to explain what will maintain institutional stability, while the leading solutions to the problem of stability – liberalism, nationalism, and republicanism – all have anti-cosmopolitan implications. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of this analysis for cosmopolitans and their critics.
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Working Papers by Lior Erez
DLP Research Paper no. 35
Development aid donors are often faced with a dilemma when giving aid to non-democratic developme... more Development aid donors are often faced with a dilemma when giving aid to non-democratic developmental states. Giving aid to governments that are committed to achieving development seems desirable, yet such assistance can also be seen as condoning or even supporting rights violations committed by non-democratic regimes.
This paper suggests a conceptual framework to help donors to address this dilemma in a normatively justified way. It suggests that there are three analytically distinct types of ‘donor’s dilemma’: complicity, double effect and dirty hands.
It seeks to show that a ‘thinking and working politically’ (TWP) approach to the donor’s dilemma does not have to be normatively silent; on the contrary, analysing and understanding political contexts and constraints is indispensable for normative evaluations of the dilemmas generated by development aid.
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"Charges of labor rights abuses and environmental harm are common for major brands that source fr... more "Charges of labor rights abuses and environmental harm are common for major brands that source from global supply chains. However, brand attempts to police supply chains to enforce company standards seldom serve as an effective long-term solution. Frustrated with the limitations of a typical compliance oriented approach and after committing significant human and financial resources with senior management buy-in, apparel retailer Gap Inc. undertook a strategy of stakeholder engagement.
Stakeholder theory suggests that such an approach should be more effective in fulfilling corporate social responsibility and other business goals than focusing on compliance, but many companies continue to focus on policing supply chain labor and environmental standards. Gap’s successful experiment with stakeholder engagement confirmed academic intuition about the value of stakeholder engagement.
For Gap, the transition to a strategy of stakeholder engagement helped build its image as a caring company and improve outcomes for subcontractor employees after labor violations were discovered. After just a few years of this practice, Gap succeeded in both further improving the working conditions of its contractors’ employees and reducing the company’s status as a target for anti-globalization protesters and other activists.
Gap’s long supply chain is not uncommon, nor is the challenge of monitoring the social performance of thousands of subcontractors. Proactive stakeholder engagement can help avert problems in the supply chain (and elsewhere), solve problems sooner when they do appear and enhance the company’s credibility and effectiveness through partnerships with labor, environmental activists and the broader public."
Paper could also be found here:
http://www.bsr.org/files/How_Gap_Engaged_with_stakeholders1.pdf
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Peer-Reviewed Articles by Lior Erez
Chapters in Edited Collections by Lior Erez
Working Papers by Lior Erez
This paper suggests a conceptual framework to help donors to address this dilemma in a normatively justified way. It suggests that there are three analytically distinct types of ‘donor’s dilemma’: complicity, double effect and dirty hands.
It seeks to show that a ‘thinking and working politically’ (TWP) approach to the donor’s dilemma does not have to be normatively silent; on the contrary, analysing and understanding political contexts and constraints is indispensable for normative evaluations of the dilemmas generated by development aid.
Stakeholder theory suggests that such an approach should be more effective in fulfilling corporate social responsibility and other business goals than focusing on compliance, but many companies continue to focus on policing supply chain labor and environmental standards. Gap’s successful experiment with stakeholder engagement confirmed academic intuition about the value of stakeholder engagement.
For Gap, the transition to a strategy of stakeholder engagement helped build its image as a caring company and improve outcomes for subcontractor employees after labor violations were discovered. After just a few years of this practice, Gap succeeded in both further improving the working conditions of its contractors’ employees and reducing the company’s status as a target for anti-globalization protesters and other activists.
Gap’s long supply chain is not uncommon, nor is the challenge of monitoring the social performance of thousands of subcontractors. Proactive stakeholder engagement can help avert problems in the supply chain (and elsewhere), solve problems sooner when they do appear and enhance the company’s credibility and effectiveness through partnerships with labor, environmental activists and the broader public."
Paper could also be found here:
http://www.bsr.org/files/How_Gap_Engaged_with_stakeholders1.pdf
This paper suggests a conceptual framework to help donors to address this dilemma in a normatively justified way. It suggests that there are three analytically distinct types of ‘donor’s dilemma’: complicity, double effect and dirty hands.
It seeks to show that a ‘thinking and working politically’ (TWP) approach to the donor’s dilemma does not have to be normatively silent; on the contrary, analysing and understanding political contexts and constraints is indispensable for normative evaluations of the dilemmas generated by development aid.
Stakeholder theory suggests that such an approach should be more effective in fulfilling corporate social responsibility and other business goals than focusing on compliance, but many companies continue to focus on policing supply chain labor and environmental standards. Gap’s successful experiment with stakeholder engagement confirmed academic intuition about the value of stakeholder engagement.
For Gap, the transition to a strategy of stakeholder engagement helped build its image as a caring company and improve outcomes for subcontractor employees after labor violations were discovered. After just a few years of this practice, Gap succeeded in both further improving the working conditions of its contractors’ employees and reducing the company’s status as a target for anti-globalization protesters and other activists.
Gap’s long supply chain is not uncommon, nor is the challenge of monitoring the social performance of thousands of subcontractors. Proactive stakeholder engagement can help avert problems in the supply chain (and elsewhere), solve problems sooner when they do appear and enhance the company’s credibility and effectiveness through partnerships with labor, environmental activists and the broader public."
Paper could also be found here:
http://www.bsr.org/files/How_Gap_Engaged_with_stakeholders1.pdf
When: 10th-12th September 2018
Convenor: Dr. Lior Erez, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Tel Aviv University
Deadline: 24 May 2018
In a paper presented at a 1983 symposium on 'the social responsibility of intellectuals', Rorty first laid down the foundations for his political thought. He argued there that we should defend the institutions and practices of 'the rich North Atlantic democracies' without recourse to the philosophical views used to justify these institutions since their inception. Rorty terms this view with what he admits to be, on first hearing, an oxymoronic name: postmodernist bourgeois liberalism. My aim in this presentation is to unpack what this kind of liberalism might mean, and to provide a brief introduction to Rorty’s political thought, as developed in Contingency, Irony and Solidarity and Rorty’s writings in the two decades that followed it.