Constructivism and Reflexive Constitution-Making Practices

The practice-dependent approach to global justice makes a welcome attempt to steer a course between egalitarian liberal cosmopolitanism, on the one hand, and statism and nationalism, on the other. In so doing, it seeks to reconcile the universality of justice with the particular role principles of justice play within the context of different social practices. In this paper, I argue, however, that the “practice turn” in theorising about justice has not gone far enough, either methodologically or substantively. Methodologically, it is necessary to move beyond the residual positivism of the practice-dependent approach to an interpretive approach that takes account of the reflexive, developmental nature of social practices. Substantively, focusing on the reflexivity of social practices, and particularly practices of reflexive constitution-making, provides a framework for a republican approach to international justice concerned with reconciling Kant’s idea of the universality of justice with the emphasis on popular sovereignty of Rousseau and Hegel.