A number of scholars have argued that we should pay closer attention to the role that philanthropy plays in shaping our societies. Philanthropic foundations are inherently political. They use private money for public purposes, and they receive tax advantages for the donations they make, but they typically lack transparency and public accountability. In this article, I argue that elite philanthropy may also violate three other democratic principles: the all-affected principle; the principle of non-arbitrary power; and the provisionality principle. In response, (...) I argue that we should consider using innovative democratic institutions — such as participatory budgeting processes — to decide how philanthropic funds should be used and distributed. Taking measures to democratize philanthropy would help mitigate some of the democratic concerns with elite philanthropy while acknowledging the important role that philanthropy plays in shaping our present, unequal societies. (shrink)

The World Trade Organisation, and the international trade regime within which it operates, is regularly evaluated in terms of distributive outcomes or opportunities. A less-established concern is the extent to which the institutional structure of the trade regime enables agents to exert control over the economic forces to which they’re subject. This oversight is surprising, as trade negotiations amongst states have profound impacts upon what options remain open to those states and their citizens in regulating their economies. This article contributes (...) to filling this lacuna in the literature. Following on from recent neo-republican work on global and international justice, it argues that a major problem with the WTO is that it fails to effectively mitigate the domination of some states by others within its negotiations. Such domination prevails despite the employment of negative consensus as a decision-making procedure. (shrink)