Self-determination, Non-domination, and Federalism

Abstract

This article summarizes the theory offederalism as non-domination Iris Marion Young began to develop in her final years, a theory of self-government that tried to recognize interconnectedness. Levy abo poses an objection to that theory: non-domination cannot do the work Young needed of it, because it is a theory about the merits of decisions not about jurisdiction over them. The artick concludes with an attempt to give Young the h s t word.Beginning with Inclusion and Democracy,' and running through several articles including the last article she published before her death,l Iris Marion Young turned a part of her scholarly attention to the topic of federalism, one much neglected in normative political theory. She was particularly interested in federalism as it applied to multiethnic states, including settler states with indigenous minorities, and as potentially applicable to ethnonational conflicts across state boundaries, as in Israel and Palestine. She was concerned to build a theory of federalism around, as Philip Pettit (1997) has it, non-domination rather than non-interference. Drawing on her understandings of injustice and social connectedness, she argued that respect for each community's ability to govern itself would require more active redressing of power imbalances than mere mutual non-interference could allow.In this article, I attempt to synthesize, as Young did not have the chance to do, the theory of federalism she had been developing in disparate writings over the past several years, and suggest what was original and interesting about that theory. 1 also pose an objection to that theory-that non-domination is an idea in the wrong register to fit fully a theory of federalism's foundations, because it defers decisions about jurisdiction until after deciding the merits of particular