Democratic Authority and the Boundary Problem

Simmons, A. John

doi:10.1111/raju.12017

Cited by 37 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The 'particularity problem' is also discussed by various authors in a symposium on territorial rights in International Theory 1(6), 2014. 9 A. John Simmons (2013), for instance, has recently reframed his 'particularity problem' known from earlier work on political authority as a 'boundary problem' concerned with territorial jurisdiction. 10 In order to draw this analogy, I do not intend to deny the important difference between first-order rights over objects (including entitlements to use, transfer, and exclude others) and second-order powers to make the rules that define these rights (and to interpret and enforce those rules over the territory in which the object is contained), which is well-rehearsed in the literature (Miller 2011;Stilz 2009, pp.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

No right to unilaterally claim your territory: on the consistency of Kantian statism

Huber¹

2016

Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosoph

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Abstract:The paper examines the consistency of recent Kantian justifications of state authority through reflection on the normative implications of states' territorial nature. I claim that their conceptual structure leaves these accounts unable to close the justificatory gap that emerges at the transition from legitimate authority simpliciter, to legitimate state authority. None of the strategies Kantian statists have come up with in order to solve this problem -based on the proximity, occupancy, and permissive principles -provides the needed grounds on which to carve up the earth's surface into jurisdictional domains. Yet, I conclude that this does not require Kantians to cede statist grounds altogether but to take a distinctly 'global perspective' on states.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

No right to unilaterally claim your territory: on the consistency of Kantian statism

Huber¹

2016

Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosoph

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“…Nothing in the preceding account implies that committing enough wrongs suffices to establish legitimate rule over persons and lands, as suggested by Simmons (2013, 351). On the pure functionalist view, past wrongdoing obviously cannot be the source of the right to exercise jurisdiction.…”

Section: Pure Functionalism and The Irrelevance Of Historymentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Since current borders between jurisdictions typically are the contingent results of violent historical events, the argument of the previous section might seem morally problematic and open to the rejoinder that the pure functionalist theory is insensitive to historical injustices. For instance, Simmons claims that given the morally tainted history of present territorial divisions, to reject an historical dimension to theories of political authority is to admit that states can “gain legitimate political authority over persons and lands simply by having committed great enough wrongs” (Simmons 2013, 351). The main purpose of the remaining sections of this article is to show that the pure functionalist theory is not susceptible to objections of this kind.…”

Section: The Pure Functionalist Case Against Annexationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Irrelevance of History: In Defense of a Pure Functionalist Theory of Territorial Jurisdiction

Mikalsen

2020

Ratio Juris

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This article defends a pure functionalist theory of territorial jurisdiction according to which a state's moral right to rule over a territory rests on its present moral performance as a freedom-enabling institutional structure. A common objection against functionalist theories is that they cannot explain why it matters that one particular state has exclusive jurisdiction over a certain territory. This deficiency is often associated with the annexation challenge, which is supposed to show that functionalist theories cannot deal adequately with cases of annexation. Against this line of criticism, I argue that the pure functionalist justification of the right to rule is capable of tackling challenges related to particularity and annexation. First, the pure functionalist theory explains why it is important that one particular state rules over a given territory. It also tells us what set of laws and what government we should comply with. Second, the pure functionalist justification of the right to rule entails sufficient conceptual resources to account for the wrongdoing involved in annexation. Although the theory deems past wrongs irrelevant for the justification of the right to exercise jurisdiction on a territory, it is adequately sensitive to historical injustice.

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“…Yet even among those who believe that a solution can be found, there is disagreement about how the problem is best characterised. For some, it is about the physical positioning of the boundaries within which a democracy is going to operate: Where should we draw the lines of political division on the map, so to speak (see, e.g., Simmons, 2013). For others, it is about who should or should not be included in the constituency of persons who are entitled to participate in making decisions, on the assumption that the boundaries within which those decisions will apply are already fixed.…”

Section: The Boundary Problem's Three Dimensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconceiving the democratic boundary problem

Miller¹

2020

Philosophy Compass

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The democratic boundary problem arises because it appears that the units within which democratic decision procedures will operate cannot themselves be constituted democratically. The study argues that setting the boundaries of democracy involves attending simultaneously to three variables: domain (where and to whom do decisions apply), constituency (who is entitled to be included in the deciding body) and scope (which issues should be on the decision agenda). Most of the existing literature has focussed narrowly on the constituency question, endorsing either the All-Affected Interests Principle or the All Subjected Principle, but neither is satisfactory as a general solution. In particular, the former fails to explain why having interests at stake in a decision necessarily gives you the right to participate in making it, and the latter, although more plausible on that count, assumes that the domain and scope issues have already been settled. To make progress, we need to bring democratic values to bear on the boundary problem. The units we favour should be those that are likely to promote political equality and solidarity among members of the demos. Although this approach will often justify existing territorial states as sites of democracy, it can also generate arguments for making boundary changes along one or other dimension. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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Democratic Authority and the Boundary Problem

Cited by 37 publications

References 19 publications

No right to unilaterally claim your territory: on the consistency of Kantian statism

No right to unilaterally claim your territory: on the consistency of Kantian statism

The Irrelevance of History: In Defense of a Pure Functionalist Theory of Territorial Jurisdiction

Reconceiving the democratic boundary problem

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