Classifying states: instrumental rhetoric or a compelling normative theory?

Abstract

Many states use a classificatory approach to foreign policy: they put other states into particular categories and structure their engagement and relations partly as a result. There is one prominent modern international political theory-Rawls' Law of Peoplesthat seems to adopt this approach as an account of justified state behaviour. But should we expect this type of theory ultimately to prove attractive, justified and philosophically distinct compared to more instrumentalist rivals? This paper explores the challenges generic to any such account, not merely those relating to Rawls' specific version, and surveys possible responses and their shortcomings.

Prolegomena to a critical theory of the global order

“…For it is certainly possible to argue that different kinds of institutional systems are further away or closer to what justice (however defined) requires. To illustrate, and barring problems of classification, it is certainly possible to compare different existing political communities as more or less just, based on a specification of the meaning of justice (see Doyle 2006; see also Coakley and Maffettone 2016). The point is, in our view, slightly more subtle, and pertains to whether it makes sense to claim that the only (or even the most salient) judgement we can offer whenever we examine a system of institutions is its 'distance' from a single benchmark.…”