[PHILOS-L] Call for Abstracts // Republican Political Philosophy and Contemporary Global Challenges // XXIJIFP Conference
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Jacopo Morelli
Jul 13, 2026, 2:28:32 PM (20 hours ago) Jul 13
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Dear colleagues,
We are delighted to share our call for papers for our Working Group at the XXI International Conferences on Political Philosophy: Crisis of the Global Order and Reconfiguration of (Geo)political Power, taking place on November 26–27, 2026, at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Barcelona. More information on the conference and its working groups can be found here: https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/astrolabio/jornadasfilosoficas
Our working group, entitled ‘Republican Political Philosophy and Contemporary Global Challenges’, aims to bring together researchers working on republican political theory and its bearing on the transformations of global order and power that the conference as a whole sets out to examine. We welcome proposals from across disciplines and sub-fields, but are particularly interested in hearing from political theorists, philosophers, and historians of ideas.
We are keen to foster dialogue across linguistic and disciplinary boundaries; to this end, for this working group we invite proposals and presentations in English or Spanish.
—
Working Group 2
Republican Political Philosophy and Contemporary Global Challenges
Republicanism, a long-standing tradition in political thought, has become widely influential in recent decades. This is mostly due to its view of freedom as the opposite of domination, conceived as the arbitrary capacity to interfere of one agent over another. Although the relevant literature tends to focus on the domination between individuals (horizontal domination or dominium) and on the state’s domination of its citizens (vertical domination or imperium), neither the tradition nor the contemporary debate is silent on the question of collective domination between nations or peoples.
Quentin Skinner argues that early modern republicans already defended the idea that freedom at the individual level could only be guaranteed by an undominated state in the international realm (Skinner, 1998, p. 49). Philip Pettit, perhaps the leading contemporary republican theorist, identifies as a fundamental condition of democratic self-government that a people not be subject to the will of any external power, including other peoples (Pettit, 2012, p. 281). In a renewed context of military intervention, information warfare, and technological and economic dependency, republicanism offers a distinct insight into the changing international distribution of power. Rather than focusing on particular interferences and their justification, it can question whether the mere capacity of the powerful to influence the choices of the powerless already constitutes unfreedom at both the collective and individual level.
There are diverse and sometimes competing strains of republican theory. For instance, neorepublicans like Pettit hold that only legitimate states fit to "speak for their people" have a valid claim to external non-domination, so that international pressure to topple an oppressive regime might be a justifiable "compensatory" measure to promote individual freedom (Pettit, 2010, p. 76). Conversely, critical republicans like Dorothea Gädeke maintain that any external domination of a state implies the unjustified domination of its people who, even if not yet incorporated through a representative government, remain an "aspirational group agent" whose capacity to (re-)constitute themselves as a reasoning entity is unduly interfered with (Gädeke, 2016, p. 17). This richness of perspectives within the tradition allows for meaningful debate on the basic questions of sovereignty, legitimacy and global dependency, among many others, such as:
- Can the inaction towards climate change be considered a form of domination towards the Global South?
- Can the UN be a republican institution? What kinds of reforms would it need? - Is the master-slave paradigm suitable for analysing international relationships?
- What can a republican analysis contribute to the field of international relations?
- What is the connection between individual and collective non-domination?
- Can the domination of oppressive states be justified?
- Is republicanism a viable alternative to liberalism in international relations?
References
Gädeke, D. (2016). The Domination of States: Towards an Inclusive Republican Law of Peoples. Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric, 9(1), 1–27.
Pettit, P. (2010). A Republican Law of Peoples. European Journal of Political Theory, 9(1), 70–94.
Pettit, P. (2012). On The People's Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy. Cambridge University Press.
Skinner, Q. (1998). Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge University Press.
We are delighted to share our call for papers for our Working Group at the XXI International Conferences on Political Philosophy: Crisis of the Global Order and Reconfiguration of (Geo)political Power, taking place on November 26–27, 2026, at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Barcelona. More information on the conference and its working groups can be found here: https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/astrolabio/jornadasfilosoficas
Our working group, entitled ‘Republican Political Philosophy and Contemporary Global Challenges’, aims to bring together researchers working on republican political theory and its bearing on the transformations of global order and power that the conference as a whole sets out to examine. We welcome proposals from across disciplines and sub-fields, but are particularly interested in hearing from political theorists, philosophers, and historians of ideas.
We are keen to foster dialogue across linguistic and disciplinary boundaries; to this end, for this working group we invite proposals and presentations in English or Spanish.
—
Working Group 2
Republican Political Philosophy and Contemporary Global Challenges
Republicanism, a long-standing tradition in political thought, has become widely influential in recent decades. This is mostly due to its view of freedom as the opposite of domination, conceived as the arbitrary capacity to interfere of one agent over another. Although the relevant literature tends to focus on the domination between individuals (horizontal domination or dominium) and on the state’s domination of its citizens (vertical domination or imperium), neither the tradition nor the contemporary debate is silent on the question of collective domination between nations or peoples.
Quentin Skinner argues that early modern republicans already defended the idea that freedom at the individual level could only be guaranteed by an undominated state in the international realm (Skinner, 1998, p. 49). Philip Pettit, perhaps the leading contemporary republican theorist, identifies as a fundamental condition of democratic self-government that a people not be subject to the will of any external power, including other peoples (Pettit, 2012, p. 281). In a renewed context of military intervention, information warfare, and technological and economic dependency, republicanism offers a distinct insight into the changing international distribution of power. Rather than focusing on particular interferences and their justification, it can question whether the mere capacity of the powerful to influence the choices of the powerless already constitutes unfreedom at both the collective and individual level.
There are diverse and sometimes competing strains of republican theory. For instance, neorepublicans like Pettit hold that only legitimate states fit to "speak for their people" have a valid claim to external non-domination, so that international pressure to topple an oppressive regime might be a justifiable "compensatory" measure to promote individual freedom (Pettit, 2010, p. 76). Conversely, critical republicans like Dorothea Gädeke maintain that any external domination of a state implies the unjustified domination of its people who, even if not yet incorporated through a representative government, remain an "aspirational group agent" whose capacity to (re-)constitute themselves as a reasoning entity is unduly interfered with (Gädeke, 2016, p. 17). This richness of perspectives within the tradition allows for meaningful debate on the basic questions of sovereignty, legitimacy and global dependency, among many others, such as:
- Can the inaction towards climate change be considered a form of domination towards the Global South?
- Can the UN be a republican institution? What kinds of reforms would it need? - Is the master-slave paradigm suitable for analysing international relationships?
- What can a republican analysis contribute to the field of international relations?
- What is the connection between individual and collective non-domination?
- Can the domination of oppressive states be justified?
- Is republicanism a viable alternative to liberalism in international relations?
References
Gädeke, D. (2016). The Domination of States: Towards an Inclusive Republican Law of Peoples. Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric, 9(1), 1–27.
Pettit, P. (2010). A Republican Law of Peoples. European Journal of Political Theory, 9(1), 70–94.
Pettit, P. (2012). On The People's Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy. Cambridge University Press.
Skinner, Q. (1998). Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge University Press.
—
Please submit proposals (500–1000 words, excluding references) exclusively through the official conference form: https://linktr.ee/crisisdelarazonpractica.ub (is the first link labelled "formulario").
Deadline: September 9, 2026.
For questions about this working group, please contact
jacopomorel...@gmail.com
Please submit proposals (500–1000 words, excluding references) exclusively through the official conference form: https://linktr.ee/crisisdelarazonpractica.ub (is the first link labelled "formulario").
Deadline: September 9, 2026.
For questions about this working group, please contact
jacopomorel...@gmail.com
We look forward to receiving your proposals, and would be grateful if you could share this call with anyone who may be interested.
Best wishes,
Jacopo Morelli
Best wishes,
Jacopo Morelli
Philos-L "The Liverpool List" is run by the Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy/philos-l/ Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html. Recent posts can also be read in a Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/PhilosL/ Follow the list on Twitter @PhilosL. Follow the Department of Philosophy @LiverpoolPhilos To sign off the list send a blank message to philos-l-unsub...@liverpool.ac.uk.
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