From diversity to difference: structural dilemmas of identity politics

The main purpose of this paper is to critically assess some problems affecting the structure of a number of arguments advocating what has been named as identity politics or the politics of difference, and especially those formulated by Iris Marion Young. While such accounts have claimed recognition of different identities as ground for demanding a fundamental reform of the current perceived dominant liberal framework, they have yet to solve a number of issues that pertain to the structure itself of these arguments. Despite some valid criticisms related to the way in which identity indeed plays a crucial role in the contemporary power and legitimacy contexts, these accounts, through their normative discourse of culture and difference, seem to reinforce the very reasons they have identified for those problems. Furthermore, by focusing on culture and group identity as their primary concern, instead of on individuals, such accounts have replaced the modern subjects of political justification without clearly assuming or justifying this move. The politics of difference also needs to offer a better explanation of how the underlying common framework for pluralism can be preserved. Finally, such accounts are invoking the concept of "culture": notoriously indeterminate, it undermines their efforts to offer formal criteria of what cultures are, what membership consists in, and which legal rights should correspond to different contexts

Implementation of linear minimum area enclosing traingle algorithm

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.An algorithm which computes the minimum area triangle enclosing a convex polygon in linear time already exists in the literature. The paper describing the algorithm also proves that the provided solution is optimal and a lower complexity sequential algorithm cannot exist. However, only a high-level description of the algorithm was provided, making the implementation difficult to reproduce. The present note aims to contribute to the field by providing a detailed description of the algorithm which is easy to implement and reproduce, and a benchmark comprising 10,000 variable sized, randomly generated convex polygons for illustrating the linearity of the algorithm

Neorepublicanism and Its critics: deliberation, rhetoric and republican freedom

This article attempts to clarify some of the recent debates concerning the conceptual and normative autonomy of a contemporary neorepublican political theory. Critics of the political-theoretical extension of the "republican revival" usually tend to challenge such autonomy, by claiming that neorepublicanism ultimately dissolves either into varieties of political liberalism, or into deliberative democracy. In addressing this latter charge, I argue that despite apparent affinities, neorepublicanism and recent accounts on deliberative democracy are not only rooted in separate political traditions, but they also construct the requirements of participation and deliberation in significantly different ways

Review article: Deliberative democracy and beyond; reason, agonism and rhetoric

This article surveys some of the main recent debates concerning deliberative democracy. It first sets out to discuss the main elements of a generic structure of deliberative democratic theories, and then lists and assesses some of the most promising critiques to the current versions of public deliberation. Alternative understandings of democratic politics, grounded on agonism or rhetorical persuasion, may provide a renewed perspective on the core political nature of contemporary democracy

Taking representation seriously: expertise, participation and the government of risks

This short article aims to question some of the arguments advanced in recent democratic theory that use a certain understanding of the science-politics relation in order to advocate for participatory procedures at the expense of political representation. It critically examines the conceptual and normative assumptions of a certain framing of the legitimacy problem that is based on Science and Technology Studies (STS) findings, and offers an argument for a renewed interest in the complex yet rich normative potential of political representation

The Avatars of virtual representation: an assessment of the Burkean notion's contemporary relevance

This article examines the way in which contemporary recent research on virtual representation has taken up both Edmund Burke's original articulation of the concept, and its important complications. The conceptual structure of virtual representation cannot by itself edify us on its potential, and its normative and institutional implications are best understood within two distinct approaches to democracy and representation: an adversarial democracy account, or a tradition of unitary representation

Extraterritorial voting rights from a cosmopolitan perspective

This article reviews the recent literature that analyses, within a normative cosmopolitan framework, the question of granting voting rights to "nonresidents" in circumstances defined by concerns for global justice. It examines such inquiries as grounded in a recognition of the democratic paradox, that of democracy's domain; surveys the different applications of the all affected interests principle, commonly invoked as possible solution to the paradox; and advances a range of alternative analytical and normative frameworks to rethink the justification of extraterritorial rights. It concludes on a note regarding the normative potential of "modular citizenship" and virtual representation when articulated in a deliberative democratic key