The work of Giorgio Agamben, one of Italy's most important and original philosophers, has been based on an uncommon erudition in classical traditions of philosophy and rhetoric, the grammarians of late antiquity, Christian theology, and modern philosophy. Recently, Agamben has begun to direct his thinking to the constitution of the social and to some concrete, ethico-political conclusions concerning the state of society today, and the place of the individual within it. In Homo Sacer, Agamben aims to connect the problem of (...) pure possibility, potentiality, and power with the problem of political and social ethics in a context where the latter has lost its previous religious, metaphysical, and cultural grounding. Taking his cue from Foucault's fragmentary analysis of biopolitics, Agamben probes with great breadth, intensity, and acuteness the covert or implicit presence of an idea of biopolitics in the history of traditional political theory. He argues that from the earliest treatises of political theory, notably in Aristotle's notion of man as a political animal, and throughout the history of Western thinking about sovereignty, a notion of sovereignty as power over "life" is implicit. The reason it remains merely implicit has to do, according to Agamben, with the way the sacred, or the idea of sacrality, becomes indissociable from the idea of sovereignty. Drawing upon Carl Schmitt's idea of the sovereign's status as the exception to the rules he safeguards, and on anthropological research that reveals the close interlinking of the sacred and the taboo, Agamben defines the sacred person as one who can be killed and yet not sacrificed—a paradox he sees as operative in the status of the modern individual living in a system that exerts control over the collective "naked life" of all individuals. (shrink)

A significant number of –mostly Western European– countries have recently newly introduced citizenship tests or have added stricter requirements of civic knowledge to previously existing language tests. This working paper collects the contributions to a EUDO-CITIZENSHIP forum debate on whether such tests can be defended from a liberal perspective. The question: ‘How liberal are citizenship tests?’ can be interpreted in two ways: as a question whether applicants for naturalisation should be tested at all, or as a question about specific modes, (...) contents and consequences of such tests that may make them either liberal or illiberal. In his kickoff contribution, Christian Joppke suggests an answer in line with the second interpretation by focusing on modes and contents. In his view, citizenship tests are defensible if applicants have reasonable opportunities to prepare for them and if questions are not inquisitive about individuals values and beliefs. Other authors claim instead that the most problematic feature of citizenship tests is the intention or effect of raising hurdles for naturalisation among long-term resident immigrants. Joseph Carens defends the view that ‘the most liberal citizenship test is none at all’. Ten authors have contributed to this lively and controversial debate, which concludes with a rejoinder by Christian Joppke. (shrink)

Democracy and justice are often mutually antagonistic ideas, but in this innovative book Ian Shapiro shows how and why they should be pursued together. Justice must be sought democratically if it is to garner legitimacy in the modern world, he claims, and democracy must be justice-promoting if it is to sustain allegiance over time. _Democratic Justice_ meets these criteria, offering an attractive vision of a practical path to a better future. Wherever power is exercised in human affairs, Shapiro argues, the (...) lack of democracy will be experienced as injustice. The challenge is to democratize social relations so as to diminish injustice, but to do this in ways that are compatible with people’s values and goals. Shapiro shows how this can be done in different phases of the human life cycle, from childhood through the adult worlds of work and domestic life, retirement, old age, and approaching death. He spells out the implications for pressing debates about authority over children, the law of marriage and divorce, population control, governing the firm, basic income guarantees, health insurance, retirement policies, and decisions made by and for the infirm elderly. This refreshing encounter between political philosophy and practical politics will interest all those who aspire to bequeath a more just world to our children than the one we have inherited. (shrink)