Against Restitution

Recently, states and other institutions have undertaken to make restitution for past abuses. Distinctions need to be made between various kinds of restitutive practices that rest on quite different normative grounds. Moreover, the core idea of restitution, in attaching obligation to particular historically grounded relationships, is questionable, and what is being attempted is better explained and justified in terms of a number of standard principles of justice of a non-restitutive kind; for although there is, in principle, a clear case of restitutive justice, its elements rarely, if ever, exist in the real world in an unmixed state. Although there are significant objections to deriving local obligations from principles of universal justice, they have no force in this case. Policies termed 'restitutive' may well be justifiable, but they are misdescribed.     

Liberals, Democrats and the Agenda of Politics

Democrats sometimes wonder why liberalism, as a theory which values choice, should seek to restrict democratic choices by limiting the political agenda. This article tries to answer this question by emphasizing a value which is common to liberal and democratic arguments: that as far as possible states should rest on persuasion rather than compulsion. On this basis, it is argued that personal and political choice situations are not analogous, that not all the arguments for personal freedom are exhausted by the arguments for fair democratic procedure, that it is not irrational to fear that one might be in an unpersuaded minority, and that even democratic political outcomes cannot be substituted for personal conclusions. Some democratic theories do not accept the value assumed here: but they pay too high a price.     

The British General Election of 2015 and the Rise of the Meritocracy

Many on the left hoped that the 2015 general election in Britain would prove a social democratic moment. Instead, it proved a nationalist moment, since the only parties radically to increase their vote were UKIP and the SNP. This mirrored trends on the Continent, where nationalist parties on the right and the left have been the beneficiaries of the financial collapse of 2008. These parties exploit a new social cleavage between those who benefit from globalisation and those left behind. The new parties exploit issues of identity rather than economics, and these issues—whether Britain remains in the European Union, whether mass immigration continues and whether Scotland remains in the United Kingdom—are likely to dominate the 2015 parliament.