Enzo Rossi
I'm a political theorist. I study how power distorts our understanding of reality, and what that says about the legitimacy of social and political structures. I address this question from an epistemic rather than moral angle. I try to show that there are empirically observable phenomena that yield normative political judgments. More specifically, I try to arrive at empirically-grounded evaluative judgments driven by epistemic normativity. The rough idea is this. When we believe in the legitimacy of a power structure as a result of the workings of that very power structure, epistemically flawed ideologies become prevalent, and this is normatively suboptimal insofar as it impairs our capacity to make good political decisions.
More generally, I'm concerned with the relationship between the descriptive and the normative study of society and, therefore, with questions of method in political theory. I maintain that 'ethics first', moralistic political theory often misses what's most important about politics, and is at risk of ideological distortion. I see my research as contributing to the radical realist programme: an approach that is suspicious of moral argument in politics and embraces empirical evidence, but without foreclosing far-reaching social and political change.
My recent work has appeared in venues such as the American Political Science Review and The Journal of Politics. Most of my publications and preprints can be freely downloaded from this site.
I work at the University of Amstedam, where I'm an associate professor (universitair hoofddocent) in the Department of Political Science, and the co-director of the Challenges to Democratic Representation Programme Group. I also co-edit the European Journal of Political Theory, and I'm a director of the Radical Critical Theory Circle. I have held various grants as (co-)principal investigator (Dutch Research Council Vidi, 2016-2022; Gerda Henkel Foundation, 2024-2027), and as a member of consortia (EU FP7 and Horizon schemes, and others). I did my PhD in philosophy, at St Andrews.
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Address: Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam
Roeterseilandcampus, Postbus 15578, 1001NB Amsterdam, The Netherlands
More generally, I'm concerned with the relationship between the descriptive and the normative study of society and, therefore, with questions of method in political theory. I maintain that 'ethics first', moralistic political theory often misses what's most important about politics, and is at risk of ideological distortion. I see my research as contributing to the radical realist programme: an approach that is suspicious of moral argument in politics and embraces empirical evidence, but without foreclosing far-reaching social and political change.
My recent work has appeared in venues such as the American Political Science Review and The Journal of Politics. Most of my publications and preprints can be freely downloaded from this site.
I work at the University of Amstedam, where I'm an associate professor (universitair hoofddocent) in the Department of Political Science, and the co-director of the Challenges to Democratic Representation Programme Group. I also co-edit the European Journal of Political Theory, and I'm a director of the Radical Critical Theory Circle. I have held various grants as (co-)principal investigator (Dutch Research Council Vidi, 2016-2022; Gerda Henkel Foundation, 2024-2027), and as a member of consortia (EU FP7 and Horizon schemes, and others). I did my PhD in philosophy, at St Andrews.
_________
Address: Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam
Roeterseilandcampus, Postbus 15578, 1001NB Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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that Brennan’s account of competent decision-making is blind to forms of oligarchic power that work against the very ideals of justice and epistemic virtue that competence is meant to safeguard. Thirdly, we muster empirical evidence to argue that, in the real world, democracy just isn’t about making decisions and selecting policies, in which case Brennan's argument misses its mark.
that Brennan’s account of competent decision-making is blind to forms of oligarchic power that work against the very ideals of justice and epistemic virtue that competence is meant to safeguard. Thirdly, we muster empirical evidence to argue that, in the real world, democracy just isn’t about making decisions and selecting policies, in which case Brennan's argument misses its mark.
The Kantian project of achieving perpetual peace among states seems (at best) an unfulfilled hope. Modern states' authority claims and their exercise of power and sovereignty span a spectrum: from the most stringently and explicitly codified-the constitutional level-to the most fluid and turbulent-acts of war. The Public Uses of Coercion and Force investigates both these individual extremes and also their relationship. Using Arthur Ripstein's recent work Kant and the Law of War as a focal point, this book explores this connection through the lens of the (just) war theory and its relationship to the law.
The Public Uses of Coercion and Force asks many key questions: what, if any, are the normatively salient differences between states' internal coercion and the external use of force? Is it possible to isolate the constitutional level from other aspects of the state's coercive reach? How could that be done while also guaranteeing a robust conception of human rights and adherence to the rule of law? With individual replies by Ripstein to chapters, this book will be of interest to students and academics of constitutional law, justice, philosophy of law, criminal law theory, and political science.
The essays in this collection consider (i) the extent to which it is plausible to separate the legitimacy and justice of a polity, in the twofold sense that unjust institutions may still exercise legitimate political authority, and illegitimate institutions may issue just commands and (ii) the ways in which the challenge of ethical diversity affects the normative standing and the proper exercise of political authority, depending on whether such authority is understood primarily in terms of justice or in terms of legitimacy.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/taking-the-racism-out-of-capitalism-isnt-good-enough-11598555456?mod=mw_latestnews&link=sfmw_tw
Meanwhile, the New University has a life of its own.