政治理论

JOP 88/2 pp. 541-553 2026-04-01 Original Who Should Be the Master of My Words? On Political Authority and Linguistic Justice Sergi Morales-Gálvez

JOP 88/2 pp. 760-771 2026-04-01 Original Preposterous Fake News, the Breach of Democratic Trust, and Intellectual Humility Anna Elisabetta Galeotti, Federica Liveriero Abstract What normative relationship should citizens and political representatives establish with people voicing preposterous fake news, defying basic epistemic rules? To answer this pressing matter, we defend the view that the spread of preposterous fake information is best accounted for by an expressivist explanation, according to which agents have practical, rather than genuinely epistemic, reasons to share preposterous fake news as expressive of their commitment toward a specific narrative about social reality. Then, we investigate the worrying effects of these dynamics on the democratic fabric and on mutual trust among citizens. The pars construens of our argument consists of a strategy for mending the breach of democratic trust based on the virtue of reasonableness. We argue that to restore minimal trust between citizens and government, reasonable citizens ought to embrace intellectual humility, therefore approaching disagreement while showing respect for others, dispensing with a superior and dismissive attitude toward agents holding unreasonable beliefs.

JOP 88/2 pp. 826-838 2026-04-01 Original Defending Elections Against the Oligarchic Charge Palle Bech-Pedersen Abstract This article counters the claim, advanced by lottocrats, that elections are inherently oligarchic. I begin by examining the theory of elections that sees them as a superior mechanism for selecting candidates, showing that this implication fails to render elections as inherently oligarchic because superiority is context dependent. Next, I demonstrate that the advantage of wealth arising from the cost of disseminating information is empirically contingent and, thus, not attributable to the nature of elections. I then offer a pathway for the deoligarchization of elections, distinguishing between doxastic and structural obstacles to inclusion. I demonstrate how ideology critique and certain structural reforms offer solutions to these obstacles. I conclude by addressing the rebuttal that elections remain very likely to be oligarchic and that sortition fares comparatively better on this front. I argue that this line of argument overlooks the undemocratic implications and risks of oligarchization that would emerge from adopting sortition.

JOP 88/2 pp. 618-630 2026-04-01 Original “It’s a Gender Thing”: The Wrongdoing of Stereotype Articulation Lasse Nielsen, Mathilde Cecchini Abstract In this article, we study wrongdoing features of discrimination. We develop grounded moral theory as an analytical tool to explore the wrongdoing of stereotype articulations and apply that to cases of stereotype articulation by teachers in primary school. Since cases of wrongful discrimination refer to stereotypes—such as ethnicity and gender—articulations of these stereotypes will expose the wrongdoing features of discrimination. Moreover, focusing on stereotype articulations allows us to get close to the contextual aspects from which the wrongdoing features take form. From our analysis, we conclude: (1) that wrongful discrimination is not one phenomenon but rather a set of different types of wrongdoing, (2) that wrongdoing features such as harm and disrespect, traditionally used to account for wrongful discrimination, are often coexisting and interacting in stereotype articulations in practice, and (3) that the shape of wrongdoing depends on contextual circumstances. We believe this brings novel insights to discrimination theory.

AJPS — 2026-03-31 Original What exploitation is Benjamin Ferguson, Peter Hans Matthews, David Ronayne, Roberto Veneziani Abstract Abstract We experimentally elicit views of what exploitation is from over 2,000 subjects. Our experimental design does not test existing theories of exploitation. Rather, it focuses on more fundamental properties that are the building blocks for these theories. We find, first, that exploitation is not a vacuous concept: Not all economic interactions are deemed exploitative. Second, contrary to several of the major approaches in the literature, both inequalities in the distribution of economic gains and asymmetric power relations contribute to exploitative relations. What matters most is the interaction of power and inequality: The effect of both elements together is significantly greater than the sum of each on their own. Finally, and perhaps remarkably, we found no major differences in exploitation ascriptions between experts and lay subjects. These findings have implications for the ethics of employment contracts, particularly in the context of sweatshop labor.

AJPS — 2026-03-25 Original What is (de)politicization and what is wrong with it? Dimitrios Halikias Abstract Abstract This article attempts to clarify the meaning of (de)politicization. Politicization sometimes refers to the inappropriate intrusion of partisan loyalties in nonpolitical social domains ( affective politicization ). Politicization can also constitute an ideal of civic agency and energy ( contestatory politicization ). In other contexts, politicization is meant as a kind of institutional corruption, in which government decisions are made for the sake of sectional advantage ( patrimonial politicization ). It can also refer to the imposition of controversial values judgments by ostensibly neutral institutions like the courts and bureaucracy ( values politicization ). These concepts raise divergent normative considerations of varying weightiness. This article motivates the potency of a fifth concept of politicization, which centers on the category of authoritative rule ( archic politicization ). It offers an ideal–typical contrast between political rule and depoliticized power, and it treats the distinct justifications for and objections to the substitution of depoliticized, impersonal reason for authoritative, political will.

APSR — pp. 1-8 2026-03-23 Original What Is the Wrong of Capitalism? A Reply to Chiara Cordelli NICHOLAS VROUSALIS Abstract Chiara Cordelli has recently criticized radical republicans for failing to ground a domination-based anti-capitalism. Cordelli argues that radical republicans “cannot prove either that domination under capitalism is less contingent than other wrongs, that capitalism’s distinctive wrong amounts to domination, or that such domination is unjust.” This article responds to Cordelli’s objections. I argue that Cordelli’s emphasis on capitalization does not threaten the non-contingency of capitalist domination; that capitalism’s distinctive wrong is domination and not alienation, and that this wrong is structural all the way down. Cordelli is right that capitalism involves alienation of our future to the vagaries of profit-maximization. But alienation is only a moment in capitalism’s fundamental wrong and ill—the domination of labor by capital.

JOP — 2026-03-20 Original When Realism Demands the Unfeasible Functional Binds, Functional Prompts, and the European Union Carlo Burelli Abstract （原文未提供摘要） 中文 当现实主义要求不可行之事：功能束缚、功能提示与欧洲联盟 Carlo Burelli 摘要 原文未提供摘要 关键词 现实主义、可行性、欧洲联盟、功能束缚、功能提示、政治理论 DOI: 10.1086/741452

PAR 86/4 pp. 891-900 2026-03-12 Original Updating Tocqueville's Remedies Against Democratic Despotism: Civic Engagement, Local Self‐Governance, and Public Administration

PA — 2026-03-09 Original Possibilities for Social Equity Budgeting: Critical Insights From Bentham? Laurence Ferry, Jim Haslam, Henry Midgley Abstract ABSTRACT Considering prior ways of seeing and practical mobilisations of Social Equity Budgeting (SEB), we suggest that prior conceptualisation, research and practice can be advanced by reflecting on insights from the philosophical and political literature on equity and justice. Here, we pursue such an approach and specifically contribute by considering how the writings of the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) provide critical insights informing possibilities for SEB. Our critical historical perspective, focused on the history of ideas in context, helps reinforce dimensions of today's prescriptive envisioning of SEB and indicate new insights and emphases in this regard around democracy and transparency (or publicity, to use Bentham's term). We here analyze progressive dimensions and possibilities in Bentham but also acknowledge and articulate the need to balance this with appreciation of critique of Bentham and more negative possibilities. Both dimensions have policy implications. Our analysis is facilitated by the notable (relatively) recent work of the Bentham Project at University College London (UCL) in seeking to publish the many previously unpublished writings of Bentham held in the UCL archive. Here, Gallhofer and Haslam's (2003) text, informed in part by detailed archival research into Bentham's then unpublished handwritten manuscripts, was a key starting point.