My Research
China and the Demands of International Justice
Despite being the world’s second superpower, and the world’s largest trading state, little has been written by political philosophers about China’s rise, nor about its international responsibilities now that it is a major power. By and large, the literature focuses on the duties of rich, liberal, democratic states – none of those descriptions fits with China, and yet it surely has some duties of international justice, albeit they are likely to be somewhat different. My goal over the next several years is to rectify this oversight in the literature, by producing the first treatment of China’s international responsibilities, focusing on the economic sphere. This project will combine first-order philosophical theory about the demands and nature of international justice, with detailed country-level analysis of China’s economic policies, its international footprint, and its outstanding development challenges. An overview of the project was recently published in Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (see publications). Another paper – on how China’s rise upends existing frameworks of international distributive justice – was published in Philosophy & Public Affairs. A paper discussing the ways in which economic development might contribute to political legitimacy, including a case study of Reform-era China, was recently accepted for publication in European Journal of Political Theory. Other in-progress papers discuss China’s responsibilities as a green energy superpower, the ethics of superpower competition, and China’s distinctive economic model. Please reach out if you’re interested in reading any of these or discussing this ongoing project more broadly.
International Trade Justice
My PhD thesis, ‘A Political Approach to International Trade Justice, developed a novel neo-republican account of trade justice, one which accounted for states’ procedural as well as distributive duties towards one another. The thesis was particularly concerned the claims of least-developed countries (LDCs) which, I argued, ought to be distinguished more clearly in the international justice literature from those of developing countries. Several papers have come out of the thesis: one on the international economic duties of states during COVID-19, one on how inter-state dependence grounds justice claims in trade, one on domination in trade negotiations and how to reduce it, and one on the distributive duties that states have to LDCs and how such duties might be fulfilled. I am currently working on a paper on the ‘resource curse’, again with a focus on LDCs. While the political implications of states’ excessive reliance on natural resources has been the subject of considerable philosophical attention, I argue that the economic volatility that states suffer by virtue of such reliance is itself a moral problem. This is especially so for LDCs given their extraordinarily high levels of commodity dependence.
The International Responsibilities of Business Corporations
Major multinational corporations are second only to states in shaping and upholding the deep international economic integration that characterises our current era. Several of my works on corporate responsibilities focus on their duties to the global poor. While some of this focuses on their duties to relocate to poorer regions where doing so is consistent with their existing ethical obligations, what is particularly novel about my work in this area is the focus on corporations as potential sources of cosmopolitan sensitization – that is, as agents that can sensitize populations in developed countries to their outstanding duties to those in least-developed states. More broadly, I am interested in the political responsibilities of corporations – their duties to contribute to public debate and to take stands on public issues. In line with that, I have published on corporate duties to withdraw from Russia in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine, and on their duties to highlight ongoing international injustices within the domestic spaces of developed countries.
Confucianism, republicanism, and Affective Public Life
Returning to my earlier interest in neo-republicanism, I am currently exploring synergies between this tradition and Confucian political thought. While the most evident commonality between the two is their shared emphasis on virtue, I believe that the Confucian tradition’s thicker account of the affective dimensions of public life could enrich contemporary republican thought. Confucianism articulates a conception of the public that is not exhausted by formal mechanisms, but is instead constituted through trust grounded in practices like civility and tact, as well as shared affective and pleasurable forms of participation in common life. On this view, the republic is not merely a juridical or institutional object, but a lived social practice the value of which is partly realised in the qualitative experience of acting well together in public contexts. By foregrounding this affective and, in some cases, aesthetic dimension of publicness, I intend to develop a distinctive form of Confucian republicanism and to draw out its advantages. In particular, I believe it provides attractive and distinctive responses to issues including the role of public art and festivals, more open forms of democracy, and a critique of platform-mediated sociality. While these supplement rather than replace more familiar republican commitments, in doing so they greatly sharpen the contrast between republicanism and liberal visions of society.
