Marta Wojciechowska

This methodological article explores “the local” as a distinct context for political theorizing, and considers its role in normative labor. In doing so, we examine how political theorists can “go local”; arguing that engagement with the local dimension of politics can play at least three distinct roles in political theorizing. First, the local can represent a distinct object of analysis, where local politics are the starting point for the construction and revision of normative theories. Second, the local can represent a distinct object of normative concern, where political theorists consider whether local actors, institutions, experiences, relationships, and ways of life carry specific normative values or normative obligations. Finally, the local can represent a distinct object of application, where political theorists apply normative insights to help interpret, and inform, real-world local politics. By drawing upon normative literature interested in local questions we demonstrate how such interest in the local dimension supports a more nuanced and comprehensive theoretical understanding of our complex and multidimensional political world.

Political theorists are often interested in the problems that arise in more than one context; for example, problems that arise on a global level or among different cultural contexts. However, when political theorists engage with such problems, they face a methodological challenge. They need to decide how to evaluate differences both across and within the contexts in which the studied problem arises and determine how to create theories that are sensitive to the pluralism of real-life experiences. This article investigates the methodological challenge of selection, and offers a method for accommodating difference across and within different contexts. To demonstrate both the significance of this challenge and the suitability of the proposed solution, this article focuses on a set of empirically inspired arguments concerned with the normative questions of urban life. Even though their authors declare an explicit focus on the pluralism of lived experiences when constructing a theory, the selected arguments reflect a surprisingly narrow scope of urban experiences. This article investigates this tension.