In her new book, Carol Gould, the author of the highly regarded and successful Rethinking Democracy, addresses the fundamental challenge of democratizing globalization, that is, of finding ways to open transnational institutions and communities to democratic participation by those widely affected by their decisions.The book develops a framework for expanding such participation in crossborder contexts, arguing for a strengthened understanding of human rights that can confront worldwide economic and social inequalities. It also introduces a new role for the ideas of care and solidarity at a distance. Reinterpreting the idea of universality to encompass a multiplicity of cultural perspectives, the author takes up a number of applied issues, including the persistence of racism, the human rights of women, the democratic management of firms, the use of the Internet to enhance political participation, and the importance of empathy and genuine democracy in understanding terrorism and responding to it.Clearly and accessibly written, this major new contribution to political philosophy will be of special interest to professionals and graduate students in philosophy, political science, women's studies, public policy, and international affairs, as well as anyone who wants to more fully comprehend the dilemmas of a globalized world.
The concept of solidarity has recently come to prominence in the healthcare literature, addressing the motivation for taking seriously the shared vulnerabilities and medical needs of compatriots and for acting to help them meet these needs. In a recent book, Prainsack and Buyx take solidarity as a commitment to bear costs to assist others regarded as similar, with implications for governing health databases, personalized medicine, and organ donation. More broadly, solidarity has been understood normatively to call for 'standing with' or assisting fellow community members and possibly also distant others in regard to their needs, whether for its own sake or in order to realize the demands of justice. I argue here that the understanding of solidarity in the existing bioethics literature is unduly restricted by not sufficiently theorizing the notion of structural (or systemic) injustice and its import for understanding solidarity. Extending traditional conceptions of labor and social movement solidarity, I contrast unitary solidarity within a given group with 'networking solidarities' across groups. I analyze the meaning of structural injustice and its significance for solidarity, including countering institutionally entrenched inequalities and economic exploitation. I then apply this broadened conception to healthcare, discussing structural problems with the U.S. insurance system and the solidarity movements addressing its deficiencies. I analyze some natural disasters and global health challenges that were aggravated by structural injustices, along with the solidarity movements they engendered. Finally, I revisit the questions of governing health databases and of personalized medicine with the enlarged conception of solidarity in view.
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