Zsolt Kapelner

Agenda setting is the process through which certain issues emerge as objects of collective attention in public discourse and policymaking. How the agenda is set is extremely important. Attention to a given issue is a precondition for political action; an issue can only be addressed either by the public or by policymakers if it is on the agenda. This raises the normative question of how the agenda should be set. Political philosophers have not yet extensively engaged with this question. Although vast empirical scholarship exists on how the agenda is set, the corresponding normative question of how the agenda should be set, remains largely unaddressed. In this paper I outline a theory of good agenda setting. I argue that good agenda setting, on the one hand, is organized so as to ensure the egalitarian distribution of agenda influence in society, and, on the other hand, it produces agendas which promote certain instrumental as well as non-instrumental values.

Illiberal and antidemocratic political forces, for example, in the form of far-right populism, are on the rise. Such politics, commonly referred to as ‘unreasonable’ in political philosophy, is widely seen as a threat to democracy. Many argue that an adequate response must involve listening to, that is, understanding and seriously considering the perspective of the unreasonable. I disagree. I argue that as democratic citizens, we should not listen to the unreasonable; we should, in a sense, ignore them, that is, refuse to understand and seriously consider their perspective, although continue to monitor their activities. Listening to the unreasonable is not instrumentally required for countering unreasonable politics. In addition, the unreasonable likely have no moral claim to be listened to. Finally, listening to them is disrespectful to reasonable citizens whose voice is ignored for the sake of paying attention to the unreasonable. For these reasons, we should ignore the unreasonable.

Structural injustice is injustice produced by largescale social structures and processes that create systemic disadvantages for large groups of people. Individuals have duties to counteract structural injustice. These duties are more demanding for people privileged by unjust social structures than for non-privileged individuals, even when the latter have equal ability to contribute. What explains this? I review and reject two common explanations, i.e., the Reparation Account and the Restitution Account. I offer a third view, the Domination Account; it holds that the privileged have more demanding duties because they pose a constant threat of domination to non-privileged individuals by virtue of their structural positions.

In Philosophizing the Indefensible Shmuel Nili proposes strategic political theory as a productive and respectful manner for political philosophy to engage with unreasonable political views. One objection to his proposal he considers is that strategic political theory gives ‘excessive attention' to unreasonable views. In this paper I offer a perspective on this objection which Nili does not consider and which, I believe, has important consequences for his account. The strategic theorist pays engaged and respectful attention to unreasonable views for the sake of showing respect and upholding ties of civic friendship with unreasonable citizens. Yet such attention might inadvertently disrespect and damage ties of civic friendship with those disadvantaged by the indefensible policies of the unreasonable. I consider how this consideration bears on Nili’s argument for strategic theorizing based on the practical necessity to alleviate what he calls ‘the burdens of politics'.

Many authors argue that refugees should be enfranchised independently of citizenship. The enfranchisement of refugees is often seen as crucial for affirming their agency in the politics of asylum. However, most arguments in the literature do not explain why precisely it matters that they exercise their agency in the realm of democratic decision-making, i.e. why it matters that refugees participate in collectively wielding the public power to which they are subjected, rather than passively enjoy protection against the excessive and intrusive exercise of this power. This leaves it unclear what value refugee enfranchisement realises precisely, and what function or role it is meant to play within the overall provision of asylum. My goal is to propose a plausible explanation of the significance of democratic inclusion from the viewpoint of refugees' agency. I argue that refugee enfranchisement affirms refugees' agency by advancing their interest in acting as makers of justice within the political context in which they find themselves.

Democracy is the form of government in which citizens have an equal say in political decision-making. But what does this mean precisely? Having an equal say is often defined either in terms of equal power to influence political decision-making or in terms of appropriate consideration, i.e., as a matter of attributing appropriate deliberative weight to citizens’ judgement in political decision-making. In this paper I argue that both accounts are incomplete. I offer an alternative view according to which having an equal say is having a say as an equal. That is, having an equal say is to be defined in terms of citizens’ occupying a role of political decision-makers, i.e., the political office of the democratic co-ruler of the polity, such that no citizen is a secondary or auxiliary decision-maker; they rule together as equals. This view aligns with the traditional understanding of democracy as rule by the people while providing a coherent conceptual framework for specifying what it means for democratic citizens to have an equal say which incorporates the strengths of alternative accounts and overcomes some of their challenges.

In this paper we discuss an often-neglected topic in the literature on the ethics of voting. Our aim is to provide an account of what states are obligated to do, so that voters may fulfil their role as public decision-makers in an epistemically competent manner. We argue that the state ought to provide voters with what we call a substantive opportunity for competence. This entails that the state ought to actively foster the epistemic capabilities that are necessary to achieve competent participation in political decision-making practices.

In recent years the view that the non-instrumental value of democracy is a relational value, particularly relational equality, gained prominence. In this paper I challenge this relational egalitarian version of non-instrumentalism about democracy’s value by arguing that it is unable to establish a strong enough commitment to democracy. I offer an alternative view according to which democracy is non-instrumentally valuable for it establishes relationships of mutual service among citizens by enlisting them in the collective project of ruling the polity justly together which is a self-standing source of value for them. Relating in the mode of mutual service is not a species of relating as equals; it is a distinct relational value. Democracy is uniquely suited to realize this relational value, for it renders citizens co-authors of the fundamental rules of the system of social cooperation under which they live, and only as co-authors of these rules are they able to mutually serve each other in a way that is appropriate within their relationship as citizens of the same polity. For this reason, a strong commitment to democracy can be based on the relational value of mutual service, which therefore better fits the theoretical purposes of non-instrumentalism than relational equality.

Structural injustice is injustice produced by largescale social structures and processes that create systemic disadvantages for large groups of people. Individuals have duties to counteract structural injustice. These duties are more demanding for people privileged by unjust social structures than for non-privileged individuals, even when the latter have equal ability to contribute. What explains this? I review and reject two common explanations, i.e., the Reparation Account and the Restitution Account. I offer a third view, the Domination Account; it holds that the privileged have more demanding duties because they pose a constant threat of domination to non-privileged individuals by virtue of their structural positions.

Oppressive governments that use violence against citizens, e.g. murder and torture, are usually thought of as liable to armed revolutionary attack by the oppressed population. But oppression may be non-violent. A government may greatly restrict political rights and personal autonomy by using surveillance, propaganda, manipulation, strategic detention and similar techniques without ever resorting to overt violence. Can such regimes be liable to revolutionary attack? A widespread view is that the answer is ‘no’. On this view, unless a government is or is likely to turn violent, revolution against it is disproportional. After all, revolution would involve launching potentially lethal attacks against oppressors who do not threaten the lives and bodily integrity of their subjects but pose only lesser threats. I argue that this claim of disproportionality is false. Armed revolution against Stably Non-violent Oppressive Regimes (which are neither violent, nor are likely to become violent) can be proportional under some circumstances, thus they may be liable to revolutionary attack. My argument relies on the Responsibility-Sensitive Account of Proportionality. This account holds that responsibility for posing threats renders agents liable to greater defensive harms than the harms with which they threaten. Even if non-violent oppressive regimes do not threaten citizens with murder, serious physical injury, or enslavement, their responsibility for creating an environment in which citizens’ political rights and personal autonomy are extremely restricted may loosen the proportionality requirement of inflicting defensive harm and render them liable to revolutionary attack.

Rainer Bauböck is among the most renowned scholars in the field of citizenship and democracy. In a recent volume, Democratic Inclusion, he—together with other authors—addresses the so-called democratic boundary problem. This book is an extremely valuable resource for anyone working on this problem; Bauböck presents a complex and sophisticated theory of the principles of democratic citizenship while his respondents put forward crucial questions not only about his theory, but also about the debate in general. At the same time, the volume also points to the limitations of this discourse and the formidable obstacles to reaching conclusive theoretical results about democratic inclusion.