Global democracy and feasibility

ABSTRACT

While methodological and metatheoretical questions pertaining to feasibility have been intensively discussed in the philosophical literature on justice in recent years, these discussions have not permeated the debate on global democracy. The overall aim of this article is to demonstrate the fruitfulness of importing some of the advancements made in this literature into the debate on global democracy, as well as to develop aspects that are relevant for explaining the role of feasibility in normative political theory. This is done by pursuing two arguments. First, to advance the work on the role of feasibility, we suggest as intuitively plausible two metatheoretical constraints on normative political theorizing – the ‘fitness constraint’ and the ‘functional constraint’ – which elucidate a number of aspects relevant in determining proper feasibility constraints for an account in political theory. Secondly, to illustrate the usefulness of this feasibility framework, we sketch an account of global democracy consisting of normative principles which respond differently to these aspects and thus are tied to different feasibility constraints as well as exemplify how it may be applied in practice.     

The Texture of Livelihoods: Migration and Making a Living in Hanoi

Abstract

Through the experience of 30 rural migrants to Hanoi, this paper reconstructs their livelihood histories, linking the experience of our migrant subjects with wider transformations in Vietnam’s economy and society. We argue for an ‘everyday’ political economy that recognises the fluid connections between the state, society and economy, and the individual. While highlighting the indeterminacy and contingency of life, we recognise the wider context that contributes to the production of the livelihood textures we discern. The characteristic livelihood pathways of the migrant households are shown to echo research undertaken in rural, often less economically vibrant, contexts.     

African corporate lawyering and globalization

Influenced by processes of globalization and localization, many fields of social and commercial practice – including legal services – across Africa are undergoing rapid transformation. It should come as no surprise that these processes of globalization and transformation include the ongoing transformation of corporate lawyering. Lawyers from Johannesburg to Algiers – not to mention Khartoum and Ouagadougou – are experiencing and participating in rapid global change in their profession and everyday work. This article identifies some of the questions and issues that emerge from this process, as well as providing a vignette of the South African corporate legal sector and tentatively outlining the emergence of an African corporate lawyering field. It does so in order to propose a research agenda into the trends and potential pathways of growth in this field. It does so in four steps, moving from a theoretical frame to one of the Global South to a portrait of the South African jurisdiction and ending with an agenda for African corporate lawyering.