global egalitarianism and practices of citizenship

7/30/2019 Global Egalitarianism and Practices of Citizenship

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Global Egalitarianism and Practices of CitizenshipChris Armstrong, Senior Lecturer

Politics and International Relations, University of SouthamptonSouthampton SO17 1BJ United Kingdom

[email protected]

Draft: please do not cite without permission

I. CITIZENSHIP-EGALITARIANISM AND GLOBAL JUSTICE

Many contemporary defences of distributive egalitarianism hold the scope of

egalitarian redistribution to be properly limited to co-citizens. Whilst we would expect

theorists who would once have been called communitarian to adopt such a position,

they are far from alone. Thomas Nagel has recently suggested that egalitarian distributive

duties arise because of the particular nature of state institutions. Once the state exists,

we are in a new moral situation, where the value of equality has purchase, he claims, and

We are required to accord equal status to anyone with whom we are joined in a strong

and coercively-imposed political community.1 Alternatively, citizens may owe each other

egalitarian justice on account of the special ties and affinities between them, such as

those of nationality.2 Some (though not all) so-called luck egalitarian theorists have

argued that equality is a virtue owed by sovereigns to their citizens, rather than to anyother category of persons,3 whilst in a rare point of agreement prominent critics of luck-

egalitarianism have also sought to explain the force and nature of egalitarian distributive

duties by pointing to the links between equality and democratic citizenship.4

The defining characteristic of what I will call, for the purposes of this paper,

citizenship-egalitarianism is that distributive equality is owed exclusively to citizens as

citizens, although citizens might to be sure have some duties to outsiders, whether those

are best understood as duties of distributive justice or humanitarianism. To put it in

Nancy Frasers language, the compulsion towards specifically egalitarian redistribution

depends upon the prior recognition of claimants as fellow citizens.5 Rawlss arguments

in The Law of Peoplesare certainly of this character,6 but he is far from alone. Whilst at the

level of nations Miller is prepared to defend egalitarian distribution, at the global level he

agrees with Joseph Raz7 that we only object, and shouldonly object, to inequalities insofar

as they point us towards absolute deprivation and suffering. The fact of inequality itself is

not morally troubling in the global case.8 To put it another way, whilst comparative

principles such as equality make sense when applied between fellow citizens, any valid


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principles of justice at the global level must be non-comparative in character.9 As Blake

puts it, relative principles such as equality may be appropriate at home, but only

absolute principles (such as sufficientarian ones) are appropriate abroad.10 The

recognition or non-recognition of others as citizens thus wholly determines the

appropriateness of egalitarian redistribution.

But this bracketing of egalitarian distributive duties exclusively to co-citizens is

troubling. For there are issues which impact on citizens of different communities where

the language of comparative distributive justice nevertheless seems appropriate. Simon

Caney, for one, argues that explicitly comparative issues abound in the contemporary

international scene. At the level of the European Union, decisions are regularly made on

the contours of common agricultural or fisheries policies as an inevitable result of which

comparative decisions are made about what size of the pie members are entitled to and

what distributive criteria should be applied.11 Lest we consider the EU in this sense

exceptional, Caney reminds us that a variety ofglobal institutions must make decisions

about how the benefits and burdens they create should be distributed. A further example

would be the justice of climate change, where the suggestion that the capacity to

sustainably pollute the atmosphere must be shared in a broadly egalitarian fashion has

great intuitive appeal.12 For many it will seem plausible to claim that regardless of

citizenship, any institution which governs the distributions of benefits and burdensarising from economic association, for instance, owes those whom its actions affect equal

consideration; thus Aaron James claims that The basic moral demand that existing

institutional and social structures treat those they affect in an equitable way generates real

limits on socio-economic inequality across societies.13 Raising these arguments is not

supposed to settle the issue in favour of global egalitarianism, but it is supposed to show

that drawing a tight connection between equality and citizenship (at least as currently

understood; see Section IV:C), seems not to capture the full range of egalitarian

aspirations. This paper seeks to ascertain whether citizenship-egalitarians can

accommodate these concerns or not. As a first step, the next section demonstrates how a

number of leading citizenship-egalitarian accounts in fact fail to give good grounds for

restricting egalitarian duties to co-citizens in practice.

II. CITIZENSHIP-EGALITARIANISMS BOUNDARY PROBLEMS


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The task of this section is to demonstrate how a number of leading citizenship-

based arguments for egalitarian redistribution fail to rule out egalitarian distribution

across borders. I will deal with three accounts, each of which claims that egalitarian

relations are appropriate between individuals who exist in a specific kind of social

relationship, and not otherwise. The accounts I will discuss are those of David Miller

(who argues that egalitarian duties are appropriate solely between individuals who share a

nationality), Thomas Nagel (who argues that a certain kind of relationship of coercion

provides the trigger for egalitarian duties), and Andrea Sangiovanni (who argues that a

certain brand of reciprocal relations is crucial). To begin with, though, two points need to

be made about the significance of the arguments presented here.

The first point is that the three positions discussed in this section are not

exhaustive of the arguments that have been presented in favour of limiting egalitarian

duties to co-citizens.14 But I would contend that they are reasonably representative of the

arguments that have been advanced. Coercion-based views have been presented not just

by Nagel, but also by Richard Miller, Michael Blake, Mathias Risse and Jon Mandle,15 and

in many ways appear to represent the most forceful argument for citizenship-

egalitarianism. Sangiovannis reciprocity-based argument is an important recent

contribution to this ongoing debate,16 whereas Millers work provides the clearest

argument for restricting egalitarian distributive justice on the basis of ties of nationality.Whilst it might appear a notable omission, I will not directly address Rawlss arguments

for associating distributive equality with citizenship of peoples for two reasons. The

first is that these have already been the subject of extensive and capable criticism. 17 The

second is that Rawlss arguments for restricting egalitarianism to citizens in any case

overlap substantially with, and in some cases partly inspire, the more recent arguments

which are canvassed.18

The second clarification that needs to be made concerns the nature of the

counter-arguments that will be presented in this section. The three accounts that are

discussed could be criticised at the level of ideal theory. Thus, we could ask quite why the

kind of coercion Nagel concentrates on should be held to be normatively significant; we

could ask whether Sangiovanni is correct to suggest that the mutual provision of two,

and only two, collective goods is normative significant for the egalitarian; and finally we

could question whether Miller has drawn a tight enough link between feelings of national

belonging, and egalitarian distributive duties. Such arguments might be interesting and

worthwhile, but the arguments presented in this section are not of that character. Rather,


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the arguments presented here are conceptual-empirical: the central claim is that certain

complexities of the contemporary world mean that Nagel, Sangiovanni and Miller will fail

in their stated political goal of limiting egalitarian duties to co-citizens alone. Thus the

point is not to refute citizenship-egalitarianism at the level of fundamental principle, but

to suggest that certain apparently inescapable boundary problems leave its defenders

unable to justify limiting egalitarian duties to citizens in the non-ideal world.

A) Common Nationality

David Miller has argued that whereas we are rightly troubled by poverty and

deprivation on a global scale, this does not translate into a concern for equality per se.19

Instead, a concern for equality rightly applies within a community whose members share

an identity, common purposes, and a single institutional structure. Whilst principles of

justice may apply across borders, and whilst these will at times push the distribution of

benefits and burdens in a more egalitarian direction, their objective and justification will

not be egalitarian in character.20 More particularly, Miller has devoted a good deal of

attention to how nationality makes social justice exclusively appropriate, insofar as it

provides, amongst other things, the bonds of solidarity necessary to get it off the ground,

and a stock of shared understandings that make principles of social justice intelligible.Taken together, these considerations indicate that the scope of social justice should be

limited by the boundaries of national political communities.21

Thus we might say, with Nagel, that though we have general but non-egalitarian

duties to all persons, we have special egalitarian duties towards co-citizens. However, it

appears that in the contemporary world Millers nationality-based position can offer at

best limited support for citizenship-egalitarianism. On the one hand, Miller tells us that

nationality makes social justice appropriate, and on the other hand he tells us that

equality is the relevant distributive principle between citizens. But the precise relationship

between the two arguments matters, because citizenship and nationality are clearly not

perfectly contiguous. Do co-nationals only owe each other egalitarian justice when their

shared nationality is confirmed by the existence of bounds of citizenship? Does

citizenship only motivate egalitarianism where co-citizens also share a single nationality?

One case where the precise answer matters is that of multinational states, where it is not

entirely clear on Millers account why members of different nationalities owe each other

equality.22 A closely connected case is that of people from minority nationalities who are


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nevertheless citizens of a given state. As Miller himself puts it, citizenship is frequently

extended to residents of the state who acknowledge a different nationality from the

majority.23 But do such citizens therefore owe each other equality, in the absence of a

shared nationality, and if so why? Here, Miller wants to argue that In practice, protective

and welfare services are normally provided to all citizens of the state in question,

regardless of national identity. But their justification - in particular the justification of

their redistributive elements - rests on the idea that they are a way of discharging

obligations that fellow nationals owe to one another.24 This is distinctly suspect: after all,

we do not owe equality to nationals of bordering states, precisely because they do not

share ournationality. So why should we owe equality to co-citizens who do not share our

nationality either? If we do owe equality to co-citizens who do not share our nationality,

then it must be the case that, despite Millers insistence that nationality still conditions

their form,25 nationality is of little or no import in the defining the scope of egalitarian

duties.26 Either a single shared nationality is crucial to triggering egalitarian duties, in

which case many citizens of multinational (and even, in some cases, multicultural) states

do not owe each other equality, or it is not crucial, in which case distributive

egalitarianism must be triggered by some other relationship, or combination of

relationships, between citizens.

B) Joint Authorship of a Coercive Order

Thomas Nagels account of the trigger for egalitarian distributive duties focuses

on the strong political relations between fellow citizens. As Rawls suggested, citizens

taken collectively sustain and support an institutional structure that in turn conditions

their own individual life-chances.27 For Nagel it is because we arejoint authorsof a scheme

that affects our life chances that the special requirements of justice apply to us: because

they are jointly responsible for the coercive institutions of the state, co-citizens owe each

other a normative justification for those institutions. Thus according to Nagel it is clear

that the Rawlsian injunction against arbitrary inequalities has moral force because, and

only because, arbitrary inequalities are thrown up by a coercive institutional structure

that we together jointly author.28 Egalitarian duties arise once and only once three

conditions are met: coercive institutions are present; we are involuntarily subject to those

institutions; and we can properly be viewed as joint authors of such institutions. For

Nagel, this suggests that egalitarian duties are exclusively appropriate between co-citizens.


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Similar coercion-based accounts have been suggested by Blake and Richard

Miller, but have also tended to attract the response that coercive institutions do exist

across state borders.29 This represents what I have elsewhere called the continuum

objection,30 which states that the kind of relationship that triggers egalitarian duties

cannot be shown to exist within, and not without, state borders. In Nagels case, there

are good reasons for accepting that global institutions such as the World Trade

Organisation meet the criteria of coerciveness and involuntary membership, at least if we

connect the voluntariness or otherwise of membership to the costs of declining it. 31 But

what of Nagel's joint authorship criterion? This suggests that the existence of a coercive

institution only triggers egalitarian duties if those affected by it can be considered joint

authors of its rules. Nagel argues that this is simply not true of global institutions, which

are disconnected from the will of ordinary citizens.32 This is sadly true, but there is more

to be said yet on the issue of joint authorship. If we define joint authorship strongly in

terms of active engagement, then Nagels conclusion undoubtedly follows. But this

strong conception is implausible, for it suggests, amongst other things, that non-

democratic states do not owe their members equality; that citizens who do not participate

actively in political life (perhaps because of infirmity) do not deserve distributive equality;

and that rulers may divest themselves of the duty to uphold egalitarianism merely by

excluding some of those affected by their decisions from political participation. Nagelhimself expresses doubt about at least some of these conclusions, and we should indeed

reject the strong conception as a result. If instead we modify the joint authorship

requirement to suggest that all those whose life-chances are affected by an institutional

structure should be considered joint authors (insofar as they have a rightto participate in

its decision-making), then organisations such as the WTO will certainly meet Nagels

three criteria of coerciveness, involuntariness and joint authorship, and hence their

existence will trigger egalitarian duties.33 On the joint authorship issue, Nagel is trapped

between a strong stipulation of when egalitarian duties are owed (with the implication

that some citizens are not owed equality) and a weaker stipulation (which would see

equality owed more broadly). Either way, citizenship-egalitarianism fails to follow.

C) Reciprocity and Collective Goods

Andrea Sangiovanni has recently suggested a third basis for settling the proper

scope of equality. For Sangiovanni, reciprocity in the mutual provision of the basic


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collective goods necessary for acting on a plan of life conditions the content, scope, and

justification of distributive equality.34 Rather than defining the normative centrality of

citizenly relations in terms of the presence of coercion, as Nagel does, Sangiovanni

suggests we focus instead on the way in which they embody a certain kind of reciprocity.

The state, as the locus of institutionalised relations between citizens, demonstrates a form

of reciprocity in the mutual provision of the key collective goods necessary for forming

and acting on a plan of life. What is special about relations between citizens (and

residents, see below) is that these relations are necessary for the production and

maintenance of firstly a property system, and secondly of the good of physical security.

Egalitarian duties are appropriate between individuals engaged in collectively producing

and maintaining these two collective goods, and not otherwise. Whilst other forms of

interdependence which may span state borders can have their own intrinsic normative

significance, they do not suffice to trigger specifically egalitarian distributive duties.35

Here I want to raise two problems. The first reprises what I have called the

continuum objection, and the second concerns the subjects of egalitarian justice. Firstly,

then, are we convinced that the two collective goods Sangiovanni focuses on are in fact

provided exclusively within, rather than across, individual states? In the case of physical

security, an obvious counter-example would be bilateral or multi-lateral defence pacts,

involving for instance the sharing of military technology and the basing of military siteson other states territory. In this instance, it would appear to be the case that the

provision of security is at least partly an inter-state endeavour. In the case of a system of

property relations, even Sangiovanni's own account offers counter-examples, as when he

argues that various trans-national institutions have a crucial impact on the property

regime governing the distribution of benefits and burdens in the modern economy,

andso it would be implausible to arguethat only states exert authority over property

entitlements.36

Secondly, Sangiovannis position is that egalitarian duties are owed between both

citizens and residents.37 Ascribing such duties to citizens and residents is significant,

because attributing them exclusively to citizens would raise a serious problem. This

problem lies in specifying why equality is appropriate between citizens, given that non-

resident citizens maynotbe contributing to the provision of important collective goods,

whereas resident aliens (who are not, by definition, citizens), do contribute to their

provision. But Sangiovanni still faces a version of this problem: for if he wants to retain

the link between equality and citizenship, on what basis, if any, might we owe equality to


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non-resident citizens? There appear to be three options open to him. Firstly, he could hold

firm to the view that all citizens deserve egalitarian treatment simply as citizens. But if he

took this option we would need an argument why non-resident and non-contributing

citizens are due egalitarian justice, and it is hard to imagine what a plausible argument

would be on Sangiovannis account. For according to Sangiovanni, non-contributing

disabled resident citizens are notdue egalitarian justice,38 so it is hard to see why non-

contributing non-resident citizens should be. A second option is to abandon the

contention that citizens are owed egalitarian justice qua citizens, and provide a more clear

argument for why residencyalone generates claims for egalitarian justice. Finally, a third

option is to abandon the formulation residents and citizens entirely, and make it clear

that contribution (to the provision of collective goods) is the only thing that matters

from the perspective of egalitarian justice, regardless of an individuals geographical

location or legal status. But whereas the first option seems to be implausible, the second

and third options entail accepting that citizenship does not define the subjects of

egalitarian justice, and hence Sangiovanni could then offer no support for citizenship-

egalitarianism.

III. THE PERVASIVENESS OF BOUNDARY PROBLEMS

The previous section of the paper has pointed to some general problems in

specifying quite why equality might be owed to citizens alone, on the basis of the

relationships that co-citizens share. It was suggested that prominent recent arguments to

this effect encounter the same kind of boundary problem. All three accounts discussed

experience difficulties when it comes to specifying the subjects of egalitarian justice

according to the normatively relevant relationship (be it nationality, coercion or

reciprocity). Troublingly, each of the three accounts, when applied to the complex

contemporary world, threatens both to exclude some citizens from equalityandto extend

equality to some non-citizens. The specific kind of relationship which is held to trigger

egalitarian duties, be it nationality, reciprocity or common subjection to coercive

institutions, in fact fails to reliably demarcate citizens from non-citizens. Perhaps with a

similar concern in mind, Miller has suggested that the strongest argument for the

restriction of social justice to bounded groups is likely to draw on a mixture of three

possible reasons. The first is that egalitarian relations are appropriate between those who


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share a system of economic interaction; the second is that egalitarian relations are

appropriate between those who are subject to the same set of coercive political

institutions; and the third, finally, stipulates that egalitarian relations are appropriate

between those who share a common identity.39 It is not clear, though, how this

intervention helps the citizenship-egalitarian, for the tension sketched out above

reappears. After all, if egalitarian distributive justice is owed only to those who meet all of

these criteria, this produces counter-intuitive results: we will end up owing equality to

only some citizens, and not to those who do not share a common identity with us, or

who do not participate in economic life, for instance. But if we owe egalitarian justice to

people who meet anyoneof the criteria, then egalitarian justice will certainly be owed to

many non-citizens, since economic association, shared identities and coercive institutions

span the boundaries of existing citizenship regimes.

These boundary problems are very likely to be enduring in effect. The expansion

of relations of reciprocity across borders, including increased international cooperation

to secure the conditions of international trade, is continuing apace. Similarly, cooperation

to secure physical security is not only continuing, but intensifying, as security cooperation

increasingly adumbrates issues of international crime, and health or bio-security, as

well as traditionally military issues. Restricting the duty of distributive equality to

citizens of discrete states is going to be a more, rather than less difficult endeavour overtime for advocates of a reciprocity-based position. Similar points can be registered about

coercion-based accounts, for the spread of international, trans-national or truly global

institutions with (some degree of) coercive power is widely recognised by contemporary

commentators, albeit amidst disagreement about the precise implications for state

sovereignty. The situation with regards to nationality is different insofar as it relates not

to trans-national or global institutions, but to individual identities. But the mismatch

between citizenship and nationality is also likely to be enduring: for although it is

theoretically possible that citizenship might be rendered wholly contiguous with

nationality (perhaps by closing state borders and evacuating non-nationals, and / or

somehow extending citizenship to all external co-nationals), it is hard to see how such a

situation could endure over time without extensive (and presumably highly illiberal)

coercion. If anything, the contemporary world is seeing further pressure placed on the

identification of citizenship with nationality, as a result for instance of the increasing

incidence of dual or multiple nationality, the growth of multi-layered citizenships, and the

continuing phenomenon of mass migration.40


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If the boundary problems diagnosed do indeed prove to be unavoidable in

practice, one possible response to them would be to make recourse to a distinction

between principles of justice and principles of regulation.41 It would be open to Miller,

Nagel or Sangiovanni to argue that, whereas relations of nationality, coercion or

reciprocity are what matter at the level of ideal theory, when implementingprinciples of

justice it is characteristically necessary to make rough-and-ready administrative decisions.

Pure principles of justice, after all, tell us what is just. But they do not provide us with a

full account of what we should do in particular circumstances, for implementing them

purely might be unduly onerous or expensive when we confront facts about the real

world. Principles of regulation, on the other hand, tell us how to structure our social and

political world all-things-considered, and may point us towards quite different policies in

practice.42 For instance, egalitarian duties might be extended to all citizens, regardless of

whether they meet the relevant criterion, on the basis that it might be too costly or

difficult to tailor distribution more carefully to the right candidates. Thus citizenship

acts as a pragmatic place-holder for the subjects we would ideally like to extend

distribution to: nationality (or reciprocity, or coercion) is what matters at the level of ideal

theory, but citizenship, when all things are considered, is the appropriate measure for the

range of egalitarian duties.

Miller, Nagel and Sangiovanni have not explicitly described their principles asprinciples of regulation, or defended their positions on an all-things-considered basis.

Sangiovanni,43 in fact, has been most clear that he would not, all-things-considered,

extend equality to citizens who do not engage in relations of reciprocity. But such a move

is at least theoretically open to them, and it is worth considering whether it might be

successful in rescuing the attempt to restrict egalitarian duties to co-citizens. For the

response to be successful, it would be would necessary to provide compelling reasons

why extending equality to citizens would be preferable all-things-considered to any policy

that extended equality more purely on the basis of nationality, coercion or reciprocity.

The credit side of the argument will be the more plausible: it might indeed serve justice

better, all things considered, to extend equality to non-contributing or non-national

citizens. The alternative might prove either unduly expensive, or unduly divisive. But

what of the debit side of the argument? Can compelling all-things-considered reasons

be provided for not extending equality to non-citizens who nonetheless do share

nationalities, or contribute reciprocally to the production of key collective goods, or who

do fall within the purview of coercive trans-national or global institutions?


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Making this argument successfully is a much taller order. It would initially appear

to be hardest to make in the case of coercion-based accounts, for reasons already

discussed: is it really plausible to suggest that individuals whose life-chances are

significantly affected by the actions and policies of global institutions are not owed duties

of equality by those institutions? However, note that this is an implication not solely of

coercion-based accounts, but also of reciprocity- or nationality-based accounts, each of

which deny that considerations of distributive can be triggered beyond the state byanyof

the characteristics of the contemporary world. Accordingly, the reciprocal contribution

to systems of economic production, distribution and exchange must be denied any

egalitarian significance by proponents ofeachof the accounts under inspection. Each of

the three accounts must also deny that, when even existing global institutions divide up

the benefits and burdens of the (albeit limited) global cooperation that does pertain in

the contemporary world, or the burdens of dealing with global problems such as climate

change for that matter, egalitarian distributive principles should play any part in our

moral reasoning. This, I have been suggesting, is not morally plausible even all-things-

considered.

IV. OPTIONS FOR THE CITIZENSHIP-EGALITARIAN

In Section II, it was suggested that citizenship-egalitarianism encounters serious

boundary problems in specifying the appropriate subjects of egalitarian distributive

justice. The three accounts experience the same general kind of problem: on any strong

view of the relationship in question, whether it be one of nationality, coercion or

reciprocity, then equality will not be owed to citizens as citizens at all (but in fact, only to

some citizens). On a weak view of the relationship in question, then egalitarian duties are

going to be owed to at least some non-citizens. Unless this boundary problem is

categorised as essentially either trivial or contingent and I have argued that it should

not be then a response is required. In this final section, I shall argue that the

citizenship-egalitarian must either renounce her citizenship-egalitarianism, substantially

modify it by incorporating non-citizenship-regarding egalitarian principles, or argue for a

major reorganisation of contemporary citizenship practices.


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A) Renouncing Citizenship-Egalitarianism

The first (and most theoretically radical) response to the problems raised is to

renounce the idea that the presence of bonds of citizenship motivates egalitarian

redistribution. What if what motivates citizenship-egalitarians is in fact another,

underlying ideal which properly understood will have broader salience than they have

realised? Critics of statist positions on justice have already made extension arguments

to this effect, claiming that the underlying impulses of some prominent egalitarian

accounts should give rise to arguments with more global application. One such argument

(which could be called the brute luck extension argument) suggests that, properly understood,

what motivates accounts such as those of Rawls is the idea that morally arbitrary factors

such as race or sex should not be allowed to affect the distribution of resources. The

adequacy of this as an interpretation of Rawls, and as an organising principle for

egalitarian thought have been the topic of much discussion,44 but the challenge suggests

that ifrace and sex are morally arbitrary in this sense, then so too must be nationality, and

hence distribution should not be affected by the brute luck of ones country of birth.45

Interestingly, even the arguments of critics of such luck egalitarian principles

may be vulnerable to the slide into global egalitarianism. For instance, Elizabeth

Anderson suggests that what egalitarians should really be concerned by is not theinfluence of brute luck, but the way in which domination and oppression distort

relations between citizens.46 But if so, then why do the domination and oppression

experienced by those outside of state borders not matter in the same way as what takes

place inside them? Why, to put it bluntly, is it acceptable for relations between citizens

and outsiders to be distorted by domination or oppression? We could call this the

domination extension argument: if we are concerned with the corrosive effects of distributive

inequalities on self-respect, on the quality of social interaction or on the potential for

political equality, for instance, then we might ask why such considerations should not

apply beyond the state too. Thus Charles Beitz suggests that a significant strand of

egalitarian theory has challenged the debilitating effects of material deprivation on self-

respect and the capacity for self-direction.47 The egalitarian objects to social relations in

which the advantaged exercise an unreasonably large degree of control over others (for

instance); but if this is a legitimate grounds of complaint about inequality at the

domestic level, then prima facie it seems equally so at the global level.48


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globe in some form or another, citizenship-egalitarians may be justified in devoting their

primary attention to the domination that afflicts relationships between citizens. Whether

or not this is true, the difference is only one of degree, however, for it can scarcely be

denied that states too experience political inequality in their interactions together, and

that this political inequality is importantly conditioned by the differences in economic

wealth between them. Whereas an objection along these lines might tell us that certain

inequalities are especially pressing, it still allows that at least some global inequalities

matter too: it cannot serve as a rejection of global egalitarianism. To sum up, then, the

first option involves accepting an extension argument, to the effect that the influence of

brute luck on distribution, perhaps, or else domination, matter wherever they occur. Such

an acceptance involves abandoning citizenship-egalitarianism, for even if it could be

established, for instance, that domination matters more when it corrodes relationships

between citizens, accepting the extension argument entails a principled objection to

global inequalities too. Whilst this might lead in practice to a variegated form of global

egalitarianism, it will still be a form of global egalitarianism.

B) Equality with and without Citizenship

If there do turn out to be good reasons for arguing that the relations betweencitizens should be given some prominence within egalitarian accounts, then a second

option is to attempt to render this compatible with a global egalitarianism. Strictly

speaking, this second option also requires us to abandon citizenship-egalitarianism, if we

define that formally as the claim that egalitarian distributive duties are only owed to co-

citizens. But there is nevertheless something distinctive about this second option, insofar

as it may be compatible (unlike the first option) with the view that someegalitarian duties

are only ever owed between citizens as citizens. This second alternative, in effect,

suggests that citizenship-egalitarians should become pluralists. They should accept that

egalitarianism is a complex commitment, or set of commitments, some of which will be

captured by the ideal of equal citizenship and some of which will extend beyond that

ideal. The nature of that pluralism is obviously open to a variety of interpretations. Thus

one could say that the states (and via them, citizens) of the world need to accept

collective responsibility for the nature of the global system of trade, and ensure that it

treats those it affects equally, but still maintain that co-citizens have to recognise additional

requirements of justice towards one another on account of the particularly dense


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constraints they place on one another. If we were convinced by this, we would still

expect a form of egalitarianism to apply to all quaindividuals, but would also allow and

expect that to be supplemented by citizenship-regarding egalitarian principles. At the

level of ideal theory at least this would not be accepted by those who argue for equal

opportunities for all individuals, such as Caney, but other global egalitarians are less

troubled by the idea that different forms of egalitarianism might apply in different

contexts. Thus Darrell Moellendorf has briefly suggested that The distributive demands

of compatriots derive from a common political association, those to noncompatriots

from the global economic association.56 The bases and (most likely) the ideals of equality

are different. The devil is undoubtedly in the detail, but from an institutionalist

perspective at least the idea that different institutional settings motivate different forms

of egalitarianism, or give reasons for the egalitarian distribution of different kinds of

goods or opportunities, cannot be ruled out.

C) Reorganizing Citizenship

It has been suggested both that our egalitarian intuitions extend beyond the

borders of individual states, and that the relationship-based reasons given for citizenship-

egalitarianism can be taken to suggest a broader extension of distributive egalitarianismthan its adherents have recognised. If this is the case, a third option open to the

citizenship-egalitarian is to hold firm to the claim that egalitarian duties are owed

exclusively to citizens, but argue for a revision of current citizenship practices. Although

the contemporary legal order of citizenship does not neatly delineate those people we

owe equality to from those we do not, an alternative citizenship regime might. There is

no intrinsic reason why the citizenship-egalitarian is obliged to accept the contemporary

boundaries of citizenship regimes, which have often been imposed with little regard for

the complexities of identity and belonging,57 and fail to neatly track the human

relationships that trigger egalitarian duties (whether those relationships are those of

nationality, reciprocity or subjection to coercion).

What form might a revised citizenship regime take? There have been a variety of

arguments for the necessity of either trans-national or global regimes of citizenship.

There has also been extensive disagreement about whether a putative trans-national or

global citizenship regime would augment or replace existing nation-state based

citizenship regimes or whether such citizenship regimes would be transformative or


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additive. There are (at least) two possible moves here: a first would be to argue for a

global citizenship-regime as a replacement of all existing regimes. Some egalitarians have

expressed scepticism about whether a move towards global citizenship is either possible

or desirable,58 but regardless of its potential problems it would represent, at the

theoretical level, a neat solution to citizenship-egalitarianisms boundary problems:

egalitarians duties would be owed to all, and they would be owed exclusively to citizens

as citizens. Secondly, the citizenship-egalitarian could remind us that some form of

additive trans-national citizenship looks like becoming a reality, at least for Europeans.

If it makes sense to use the term citizenship to refer to a multi-layered system of rights

and responsibilities,59 there is no obvious reason why different levels of citizenship

should not motivate different forms of egalitarian redistribution. For an institutionalist,

any structure governing the distribution of benefits and burdens between a given set of

citizens owes equal respect to those citizens, and this in turn generates at least an initial

presumption in favour of egalitarianism in both procedures and substantive distributive

principles.60 Under a regime of multi-layered citizenship, different institutional structures

may govern the distribution of different goods (or else determine different policy areas),

and hence the substantive content of egalitarian practice would be somewhat variegated.

Assuming that some citizens will fall subject to the decisions of some institutions and not

others, different citizens could be expected to have different sets of rights andresponsibilities. The challenge, if this third option were to be pursued by the citizenship-

egalitarian, would be to ensure that all of our egalitarian entitlements, whether local or

global, were simultaneously entitlements of citizenship.

CONCLUSION

Arguments for restricting egalitarian distributive duties to co-citizens are very

common, but the relations that are supposed to make citizens special, and hence

deserving of egalitarians attention, turn out not to delineate citizens from non-citizens at

all. This boundary problem can not plausibly be defined away as a mere problem of

implementation, and furthermore it accords with our intuition that equality is owed to at

least some non-citizens at least some of the time. Perhaps citizenship-egalitarians have

been mistaken all along, and there is nothing special about citizens after all. Or perhaps

equality between citizens does deserve our (non-exclusive) attention, precisely because of


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the specific ways in which it is vulnerable. What is clear is that, if we want to hold on to

the idea that there is anything special about citizens, we need to either supplement our

citizenship-egalitarianism with at least some egalitarian principles of global scope, or else

argue for a systematic restructuring of citizenship practices so that those to whom we

owe equality are reimagined as citizens. Either way, the scope of egalitarian principles

turns out to be (at least partly) global, rather than purely local.

1Thomas Nagel, The Problem of Global Justice, Philosophy and Public Affairs 33

(February 2005), 133. See also Michael Blake, Distributive Justice, Coercion, and

Autonomy, Philosophy and Public Affairs 30 (2001), 257-96. Richard Miller,

Cosmopolitan Respect and Patriotic Concern, Philosophy and Public Affairs 27

(1998), 202-224.

2See e.g. David Miller, On Nationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

3 See e.g. Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: the Theory and Practice of Equality

(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000).

4Elizabeth Anderson, What is the Point of Equality?, Ethics 109 (1999), 287-337;

Andrew Levine, Rethinking Liberal Equality: From a Utopian Point of View

(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).

5 Nancy Fraser, Social Justice in an Age of Identity Politics, in Nancy Fraser and

Axel Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange

(London: Verso, 2003), 7-108.

6John Rawls, The Law of Peoples with the Idea of Public Reason Revisited

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Pres, 1999).

7 Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).

8Miller, On Nationality, 191, n.6.

9 David Miller, Principles of Social Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 1999), 19.

10Blake, Distributive Justice, 258.

11 Simon Caney, Entitlements, Obligations and Distributive Justice: the Global

Level, in Daniel Bell and Avner de-Shalit (eds) Forms of Justice: Critical


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Perspectives on David Millers Political Philosophy (Lanham MD: Rowman and

Littlefield, 2003), 292.

12For an argument to this effect, see Peter Singer, One World: the Ethics of

Globalization (Second Edition, Yale: Nota Bene, 2002).

13Aaron James, Equality in a Realistic Utopia, Social Theory and Practice 32

(2006), 700; see also Wilfried Hinsch, Global Distributive Justice, Metaphilosophy

32 (2001), 62-3. A commitment to equal respect does not, of course, automatically

require substantive distributive egalitarianism. For Darrel Moellendorf, though,

interpreting the ideal of equal respect to suggest that rules and institutions must be

acceptable by all then generates a presumption towards distributive egalitarianism,

which is defeasible if, and only if, all can reasonably accept departures from equality;

Darrel Moellendorf, Equality of Opportunity Globalized? Canadian Journal of Law

and Jurisprudence 19 (2006), 304. The assumption shared by Hinsch, James and

Moellendorf is that many of the global distributive inequalities that characterise the

contemporary world would not pass this test. For a critical-theoretical account of the

limits placed on transnational inequalities by the requirement of the justification of

justice, see Rainer Forst, Towards a Critical Theory of Transnational Justice,

Metaphilosophy 32 (2001), 160-179.14 For a more exhaustive survey, see Simon Caney, Distributive Justice and the

Moral Relevance of Global Inequalities (draft, ask for permission to cite later).

15 See Richard Miller, Cosmopolitan Respect, Blake, Distributive Justice,

Mathias Risse, What to Say About the State, Social Theory and Practice 32 (2006),

671-698; Jon Mandle, Coercion, Legitimacy, and Equality, Social Theory and

Practice 32 (2006), 617-625.

16

Andrea Sangiovanni, Global Justice, Reciprocity, and the State, Philosophy andPublic Affairs 35 (2007), 3-39.

17See especially Allen Buchanan, Rawlss Law of Peoples: Rules for a Vanished

Westphalian World, Ethics 110 (2000), 697-721, and Andrew Kuper, Rawlsian

Global Justice: Beyond The Law of Peoples to a Cosmopolitan Law of Persons,

Political Theory 28 (2000), 640-674.

18 Thus for instance Sangiovannis position on when inequalities are correctly

appraisable as morally arbitrary builds upon a partly Rawlsian foundation, as does

Nagels account of when the requirements of justice apply. Finally, Millers


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argument that the common sympathies of nationality make distributive justice

pertinent builds upon a claim also found in John Rawls, The Law of Peoples, in

Steven Shute and Susan Hurley (eds) On Human Rights: the Oxford Amnesty Lectures

(New York: Basic Books, 1993), 23-5.

19David Miller, Justice and Global Inequality, in Andrew Hurrell and Ngaire

Woods (eds)Inequality, Globalization and World Politics (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1999), 189.

20Miller, Justice and Global Inequality, 207-9.

21 Miller, Principles of Social Justice, 20.

22It may be worthwhile to distinguish here between multinational states where there

is an overarching shared national identity (so that citizens have, in effect, two

nationalities), and one where there is not. The question posed applies more clearly to

the latter case.

23 Miller, On Nationality, 72.

24David Miller, Holding Nations Responsible, Ethics 114 (2004), 263, n.33; see

also On Nationality, 72.

25See e.g. On Nationality, 71.

26

Miller does point out that in practice multinational states often witness welfare

services being devolved to subnational units; Holding Nations Responsible, 263, n.

33. Whilst this is empirically true, the question under discussion is whether, and if so

why, members of different nationalities within a multinational state nevertheless owe

each other equality, and this qualification leaves the answer unclear.

27John Rawls,A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).

28 Nagel, Problem of Global Justice, 128.

29

See e.g. Moellendorf, Equality of Opportunity Globalized? James, Equality in aRealistic Utopia.

30Chris Armstrong, Coercion, Reciprocity and Equality Beyond the State,

unpublished paper.

31 See e.g. Joshua Cohen and Charles Sabel, Extra Rempublicam Nulla Justitia?

Philosophy and Public Affairs 34 (2006), 147-75, Kok-Chor Tan, The Boundary of

Justice and the Justice of Boundaries: Defending Global Egalitarianism, Canadian

Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 19 (2006), 319-344.

32 Nagel, Problem of Global Justice, 141.


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33 This of course moves us towards the all affected interests approach to defining

the scope of democracy. For a recent defence of that controversial idea, see Robert

Goodin, Enfranchising All Affected Interests, and Its Alternatives, Philosophy and

Public Affairs 35 (2007, 40-68.

34Sangiovanni, Global Justice, Reciprocity and the State, 22.

35 Sangiovanni accepts that some distributive duties are appropriate between members

of the European Union, for instance, on the basis of the distinctive way in which that

institution pools risks and advantages. But he maintains that those duties are not

egalitarian ones (Andrea Sangiovanni, The Bounds of Reciprocity, forthcoming).

36Sangiovanni, Global Justice, Reciprocity and the State, 13-4, fn. 20.

37 Sangiovanni, Global Justice, Reciprocity and the State, 3-4.38

Sangiovanni, Global Justice, Reciprocity and the State, 29, 31.

39David Miller, Justice and Boundaries, paper presented at Oxford University

Centre for Social Justice, November 26th 2005.

40See Chris Armstrong, Rethinking Equality: the Challenge of Equal Citizenship,

Manchester: Manchester University Press, chapter 7.

41See e.g. G.A. Cohen, Facts and Principles, Philosophy and Public Affairs 31

(2003), 211-245.42 Robert Goodin, Designing Constitutions: the Political Constitution of a Mixed

Commonwealth, Political Studies 44 (1996), 635-646.

43 Sangiovanni, Global Justice, Reciprocity and the State, 29-31.

44See e.g. Armstrong,Rethinking Equality.

45See e.g. Simon Caney, Justice Beyond Borders (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2005).

46

Anderson, What is the Point of Equality?47 Charles Beitz, Does Global Inequality Matter?Metaphilosophy 32 (2001), 105.

48Beitz, Does Global Inequality Matter? 106.

49Christopher Bertram, Global Justice, Moral Development, and Democracy, in

Gillian Brock and Harry Brighouse (eds) The Political Philosophy of

Cosmopolitanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2005), 75-91.

50 Bertram, Global Justice, 77, 83.

51Beitz, Does Global Inequality Matter? 105.

52 See e.g. Caney,Justice Beyond Borders.


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53 See e.g. Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights (Cambridge: Polity,

2002).

54As Allen Buchanan has argued, states might seek egalitarian principles for the

global institutional order precisely for the kinds of reason suggested by Bertram.

Firstly, they would demand a global institutional order that justly distributed the

benefits and burdens arising from interdependence, since otherwise they would not be

able to preserve their own self-determination: as Buchanan puts it, any given state

will be concerned to ensure that the global basic structures distributional effects do

not impede [its] societys capacity to achieve its own conception of justice or of the

good. Secondly, states would opt for a global basic structure that would at least rule

out those inequalities among peoples that are incompatible with preserving the social

bases of self-respect for all peoples Buchanan, Rawlss Law of Peoples, 708, 709.

For Buchanan, this commitment to an egalitarian basic structure does not impinge on

the capacity for internal self-determination, interpreted as the ability to pursue

whatever distributive scheme fits within ones culture in fact it better secures it.

55 Chris Bertram, Cosmopolitanism and Inequality,Res Publica 12 (2006), 333.

56Darrel Moellendorf, Equal Respect and Global Egalitarianism, Social Theory and

Practice 32 (2006), 615. Kok-Chor Tan also implies that a thin global egalitarianism

(whereby one discharges ones general duties to support a just global basic structure)

leaves space for additional special duties towards co-citizens, some of which, by

extension, may be egalitarian in character (Tan, The Boundary of Justice).

57It is notable that Sangiovanni and Nagel do not address the issue of the legitimacy

of existing citizenship regimes. Miller does give this issue greater attention: see

Miller, On Nationality. But it should also be noted that the nationalist will necessarily

find option C less appealing, precisely because, as suggested in section III, thereappears to be no palatable way of rendering nationality contiguous with citizenship

over time. Option C is a more feasible option for reciprocity- or coercion-based

accounts though current advocates of such positions will not necessarily find it

appealing either.

58See e.g. David Miller, Citizenship and National Identity (Cambridge: Polity, 2000).

59 See e.g. David Held, The Transformation of Political Community: Rethinking

Democracy in the Context of Globalization, in Ian Shapiro and Casiano Hacker-


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Cordon (eds) Democracys Edges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999),

84-111.

60Moellendorf, Equality of Opportunity Globalized.

global egalitarianism and practices of citizenship

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