Prof. Dr. Francis Cheneval
francis.cheneval@philos.uzh.ch
Prof. Dr. Silja Häusermann
silja.haeusermann@ipz.uzh.ch
Prof. Dr. Stefanie Walter
walter@ipz.uzh.ch
MA Seminar
Theories of justice and distributive conflict in capitalist democracies
VVZ 2535
Room: AFL-E-020
Wednesday, 12.15-13.45
1. General course description
In this seminar, we study key theories of distributive justice in political philosophy, as well as the
core theories and empirical studies on distributive conflict from international and comparative
political economy. In particular, we ask how contractualist and utilitarian principles of justice are
reflected in today’s capitalist production regimes, trade regulations and welfare states. We also
discuss the normative, political and economic challenges of defining the boundaries of solidarity.
In other words: who belongs and who should belong to a joint “risk pool”, within and beyond
the nation-state?
Throughout the semester, our goal will be to link normative principles of justice with real-world
distributive policies and conflicts.
In the following spring semester (2014), students have the possibility to write a research paper
with either Profs. Cheneval, Häusermann or Walter. These research papers will have a focus
either in political philosophy or in empirical political economy, but we expect from all students to
make an effort at reflecting on both the normative and the empirical implications of each topic.
The seminar is a core course for the MA Track Philosophy and Political Economy.
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2. Programme
September 18th
Session 1
Introduction to the topic
Program / Organisation / Assignment of oral presentation topics
September 25th
Session 2
Contractualism / Rawls (FC)
Mandatory reading:
Rawls, John. 1999. A Theory of Justice. revised edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
102-123.
Further readings:
Rawls, J. (2001), Justice as Fairness. A Restatement, Cambridge/Mass.
October 2nd
Session 3
Utilitarianism (FC)
Mandatory reading:
Hausman, Daniel M. 2006. Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy. 2nd ed.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 135-155.
Further readings:
Goodin, Robert E 1995. Utilitarianism as Public Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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October 9th
Session 4
The unconditional basic income – Rawls vs. van Parijs (FC)
Mandatory reading:
Van Parijs, Ph. (1991), Why Surfers Should be Fed: The Liberal Case for an Unconditional Basic
Income, in: Philosohpy & Public Affairs 20 (2), 101-131
Further readings:
Torisky, E. V. Jr. (1993), Van Parijs, Rawls, and Unconditional Basic Income, in: Analysis 53.4,
289-297
October 16th
Session 5
Welfare capitalism and the paradox of redistribution (SH)
Mandatory reading:
Esping-Andersen, Gösta (1990). The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton University
Press. Chapter 3: “The Welfare State as a System of Stratification”, pp. 55-78
Korpi, Walter and Joakim Palme (1998). “The Paradox of Redistribution and Strategies of
Equality: Welfare State Institutions, Inequality, and Poverty in the Western Countries”, American
Sociological Review, 63(5): 661-687.
Further readings:
Esping-Andersen, Gösta (1990). The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton University
Press. Chapter 1: “The Three Political Economies of the Welfare State”, pp. 55-78
Bradley, David, Evelyne Huber, Steaphie Moller, François Nielsen, and John D. Stephens 2003.
Distribution and redistribution in postindustrial democracies, World Politics 55, January: 193-228.
Baldwin, Peter (1990). The Politics of Social Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
October 23rd
Session 6
Welfare capitalism: who pays the price? (SH)
Mandatory reading:
Iversen, Torben and Anne Wren (1998). “Equality, Employment, and Budgetary Restraint: The
Trilemma of the Service Economy”, World Politics, 50(July): 507-546.
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Manow, Philip (2010). “Trajectories of Fiscal Adjustment in Bismarckian Welfare Systems”, in
Bruno Palier (ed). A Long Goodbye to Bismarck? The Politics of Welfare Reform in Continental Europe.
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 279-299.
Further readings:
Beramendi, Pablo and David Rueda 2007. Social democracy constrained: indirect taxation in
industrialized democracies, British Journal of Political Science 37: 619-641.
Mares, Isabela (2003). The Politics of Social Risk. Business and Welfare State Development. Chapter 2:
“Interests and Coalitions in the Development of the Modern Welfare State”, pp. 12-62.
Goodin, Robert E. and Martin Rein (2001). “Regimes on pillars: alternative welfare state logics
and dynamics”, Public Administration 79(4): 769-801.
October 30th
Session 7
How to define a research question and a suitable research design
Mandatory reading:
Weale, Albert (2013). “The Property-Owning Democracy versus the Welfare State?“. Working
paper
Emmenegger, Patrick and Careja, Romana (2009), 'The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion:
Social Policy, Migration Politics and Welfare State Nationalism', in Andrzej Marcin Suszycki (ed.),
Welfare Citizenship and Welfare Nationalism. Helsinki: Nordwel.
November 6th
Session 8
Defining the boundaries of solidarity (FC)
Mandatory reading:
Nozick, Robert (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books), Part II.7: Distributive
Justice, pp. 149-164.
Rawls, John (1999), The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), Part III: On
Distributive Justice Among Peoples, pp. 113-120.
Beitz, Charles (1999), Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University
Press), Part Three: International Distributive Justice, pp. 127-176.
Further readings:
Nagel, Thomas (2005), “The Problem of Global Justice”, Philosophy & Public Affairs 33/2, pp.
113-147.
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November 13th
Session 9
Why the nation-state as community of solidarity? (FC / SH)
Mandatory reading:
Miller, David (1995). On Nationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press), Ch. 3: The Ethics of
Nationality, pp. 49-80.
Emmenegger, Patrick and Careja, Romana (2009), 'The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion:
Social Policy, Migration Politics and Welfare State Nationalism', in Andrzej Marcin Suszycki (ed.),
Welfare Citizenship and Welfare Nationalism.Helsinki: Nordwel.
Further readings:
Breiner, Peter. "Is Social Citizenship Really Outdated or Not Yet Realized? T. H. Marshall
Revisited" Article manuscript.
Marshall, T. H. (1950). Citizenship and social class and other essays. Cambridge: CUP
November 20th
Session 10
Labor market inequalities: insiders and outsiders (SH)
Mandatory reading:
Esping-Andersen, Gösta (1999). „Politics without class: postindustrial cleavages in Europe and
America“, in Herbert Kitschelt, Peter Lange, Gary Marks and John D. Stephens (eds). Continuity
and Change in Contemporary Capitalism. Cambridge University Press.
Palier, Bruno and Kathleen Thelen (2010). “Institutionalizing Dualism: Complementarities and
Change in France and Germany”, Politics & Society 38(1): 119-148.
Further readings:
Häusermann, Silja and Hanna Schwander (2012). “Varieties of Dualization? Labor Market
Segmentation and Insider-Outsider Divides Across Regimes”, in Patrick Emmenegger, Silja
Häusermann, Bruno Palier and Martin Seeleib-Kaiser (eds). The Age of Dualization. Oxford
University Press.
Rueda, David 2005. Insider-Outsider Politics in Industrialized Democracies: The Challenge to
Social Democratic Parties, American Political Science Review 99, 1: 61-74.
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November 27th
Session 11
The EU crisis and distributive justice (SW)
Mandatory reading:
Scharpf, Fritz W. (2013). “Monetary Union, Fiscal Crisis and the Disabling of Democratic
Accountability”, in Armin Schäfer and Wolfgang Streeck (eds.). Politics in the Age of Austerity. Polity
Press.
Hall, Peter (2012). The Economics and Politics of the Euro Crisis. German Politics 21 (4): 355-71.
Further readings:
Walter, Stefanie (im Erscheinen). The Politics of Macroeconomic Adjustments. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. Kapitel 7.
Wihlborg, Clas, Thomas D. Willett und Nan Zhang (2013). The Euro Debt Crisis. It isn’t just
fiscal. World Economics 11 (4): 51-77.
December 4th
Session 12
Migration: free movement of persons and remittances (FC / SW)
Mandatory reading:
Cheneval, Francis and Johan Rochel (2013). “An Ethical View on Remittances and Labor
Migration”, Global Justice: Theory, Practice, Rhetoric 5, pp. 16-30.
Adams, Richard and John Page (2005). Do International Migration and Remittances Reduce
Poverty in Developing Countries? World Development 33(10): 1645-69.
Crepaz, Markus and Regan Damron (2009). Constructing Tolerance: How the Welfare Stata
Shapes Attitudes About Immigrants. Comparative Political Studies 42(3): 437-63.
Further readings:
Malhotra, Neil, Yotam Margalit and Ceclilia Hyunjung Mo (2013). Economic Explanations for
Opposition to Immigration: Distinguishing between Prevalence and Conditional Impact.
American Journal of Political Science 57(2): 391-410.
Dancygier, Rafaela and Michael Donnelly (2013). Sectoral Economies, Economic Contexts, and
Attitudes toward Immigration. The Journal of Politics 75(1):17-35.
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December 11th
Session 13
International Trade
Mandatory reading:
Hiscox, Michael J. (2001) Class Versus Industry Cleavages: Inter-Industry Factor Mobility and
the Politics of Trade. International Organization 55 (1): 1-46.
Walter, Stefanie (2010) Globalization and the Welfare State: Testing the Microfoundations of the
Compensation Hypothesis. International Studies Quarterly 54 (2):403-2.
Further readings:
Lü, Xiabo, Kenneth Scheve and Matthew Slaugher (2012). Inequity Aversion and the
International Distribution of Trade Protection. American Journal of Political Science 56(3): 638-54.
Sattler, Thomas und Thomas Bernauer (2011). Gravitation or discrimination? Determinants of
litigation in the World Trade Organisation. European Journal of Political Research 50(2): 143–167.
December 18th
Session 14
Discussion of research project outlines
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3. Course requirements and organization
Registered students give a presentation in one of the sessions (max. 10min) as well as a written
handout of the presentation. The presentation is NOT supposed to summarize the readings.
Rather, students should present the core ideas of the text in a few sentences and then (as the core
part of the presentation ) react to the text by presenting their own thoughts on linking
philosophical arguments with empirical research on the basis of the text. More specifically, for
students presenting on the basis of philosophical-theoretical texts, we expect that you provide
empirical illustrations and examples. For students presenting empirical political economy
research, we expect that you develop the normative implications of the analysis in terms of the
philosophical principles of distributive justice discussed in the seminar.
Topics for oral presentations are distributed directly on a first come, first served basis in the first
session of the seminar. Presentations start on October 4th.
The handout should be submitted to Francis Cheneval, Silja Häusermann and Stefanie Walter on
Friday (noon at the latest) before the presentation.
Those students who will write their research paper in the spring within the context of this
seminar are required to submit a draft of their research question and design (about 5 pages) by
the end of the semester.
Credit points: 6
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