James Fishkin

Political Theory Without Borders offers a comprehensive survey of the issues that have shaped political theory in the wake of social and environmental globalization. Focuses on specific questions that arise from issues of global spillovers like climate change and pollution, international immigration, and political intervention abroad Includes chapters written by some of the best new scholars working in the field today, along with key texts from some of the most well-known scholars of previous generations Illustrates how the classics concerns of political theory – justice and equality, liberty and oppression – have re-emerged with renewed significance at the global level The newest volume in the distinguished philosophy, politics & society series, initiated by Peter Laslett in 1956.

Liberalism has often been viewed as a continuing dialogue about the relative priorities between liberty and equality. When the version of equality under discussion requires equalization of outcomes, it is easy to see how the two ideals might conflict. But when the version of equality requires only equalization of opportunities, the conflict has been treated as greatly muted since the principle of equality seems so meager in its implications. However, when one looks carefully at various versions of equal opportunity and various versions of liberty, the conflict between them is, in fact, both dramatic and inescapable. Each version of the conflict poses hard choices which defy anysystematicpattern granting priority to one of these basic values over the other. In this essay, I will flesh out and argue for this picture of fundamental conflict, and then turn to some more general issues about the kinds of answers we should expect to the basic questions of liberal theory.

This paper examines the potential role of deliberative democracy in constitutional processes of higher law-making, either for the founding of constitutions or for constitutional change. It defines deliberative democracy as the combination of political equality and deliberation and situates this form of democracy in contrast to a range of alternatives. It then considers two contrasting processes—elite deliberation and plebiscitary mass democracy (embodied in referenda) as approaches to higher law-making that employ deliberation without political equality or political equality without deliberation. It finally turns to some institutional designs that might achieve both fundamental values at the same time, or in the process of realizing a sequence of choices.