Cosmopolitan presumptions? On Martha Nussbaum and her commentators

This article presents a framework for analysis of discourses on ethical cosmopolitanism, and applies it to Martha Nussbaum's Frontiers of Justice (2006), with comparisons to the views of other authors. After outlining the book's form of ethical cosmopolitanism, the article considers the psychological, philosophical and sociological presumptions, the methodology of abstraction, the implicit audiences, and the programmatic targets and implied strategy of social change. It links and comments on sister papers by Giri, McCloskey, Murphy, Nederveen Pieterse and Truong

'Concrete freedom' : C.L.R. James on culture and black politics

This article aims to provide a synoptic account of the cultural writings of the West Indian intellectual and activist C.L.R. James. I aim to make a case for greater recognition of his work among cultural sociologists. I go on to show how James’ original, historicising account of cultural forms relates closely to his wider political interventions including, specifically, his ground-breaking discussion of mid-twentieth century black politics in America

Dangerous Duties: Power, Paternalism and the Responsibility to Protect

This article provides a critique of Louise Arbour's article ‘The responsibility to protect as a duty of care in international law and practice’. Proceeding through criticisms of Arbour's specific propositions, the thesis is advanced that the perverse effect of the ‘duty of care’ is to undermine political accountability and by extension, political responsibility. It is argued that this is an imperfect duty that no specific agent is obliged to fulfil. This poses insuperable problems of agency that are exposed in Arbour's efforts to actualise the doctrine. As there is no mechanism for enacting the ‘duty of care’, I argue that it will be powerful states that will determine the conditions under which the ‘responsibility to protect’ is discharged. This means that the ‘duty’ will remain tied to the prerogatives of states. In order to resolve this problem of agency, it will be shown how Arbour is forced to replace the idea of law with the principle of ‘might makes right’. The ‘duty of care’ is also shown to have regressive effects on the domestic sphere: the demand that states be made accountable to the international community ends up making states responsible for their people rather than to their people