Some recent studies have concentrated on the scope of political normativity, i.e. on the relevant collective. In the wake of processes of increasing de-nationalisation, trans-national movements and cosmopoliticisation, it no longer goes without saying for whom political decisions are normative. The reason for this lies in multiple incongruences, between territories, populations, communities, addressees and/or beneficiaries of norms. Discussions have focussed on what the relevant collective is to which political norms are to apply (all-affected vs. all-subjected principle, territoriality vs. sectorality, identification by moral standing vs. by community membership), but the consequences of such developments for political normativity itself have not been examined. In theories of justice, both “political” and “cosmopolitical” conceptions purport to deliver norms capable of a politically binding character and not just moral principles. However, they disagree over what constitutes a genuine political relation and what its preconditions are, whether causal and/or other types of relations are necessary or sufficient conditions to establish a realm for political normativity.
The binding character of political norms has been problematised in two dimensions, with some studies debating the specific character of binding political norms (type of norms), while others debate how their binding force is justified (basis or source of normativity). As to the type of political norms, traditional accounts have only included decisions backed by credible threats, with the concept of legitimacy bridging the dimensions of presumtive justifiability and forcible compliance. However, both 20th century developments and historical studies of political coordination have challenged the definitional identification of political normativity with the command over resources of violence. If a coercion-free political normativity is at least conceivable in some cases, this cannot leave traditional notions of political legitimacy unchanged. Political legitimacy, for theorists from Kant through Weber to Rawls, has always entailed that political decisions could be enforced against dissenters. Where enforcement of compliance is no longer envisaged in political decisionmaking, should we still be asking about the legitimacy of the resulting norms? Or would less demanding notions and standards be acceptable, and thereby our understanding of political normativity no longer be wedded to the notion of legitimacy?
Finally, an ongoing debate concerns the basis or source of validity of political norms. Philosophical discussions have tended toward the assumption that there is one and only one source of normativity, which in turn is the same for morality and politics. Here, Hobbesian, Humean, Kantian, utilitarian and other approaches compete directly with each other. In political theory, however, from Weber to Waldron the sense that various co-existing sources of political normativity must be admitted has always played a large role, and has sometimes been taken to account for the specificity of political relationships. Much of recent political theory has been marked by the conviction that political normativity can coexist with dissent over the most fundamental issues of what makes life valuable, and some authors have argued that the set of admissible reasons for collective decisionmaking ought to be limited, and a concept of “public justification” tailored to suit. Such limits to public reasoning or public justification are to accomodate social, cultural and ethical diversity.
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