Why a World State is Unavoidable in Planetary Defense: On Loopholes in the Vision of a Cosmopolitan Governance

The main claim of this chapter is that planetary defense against asteroids cannot be implemented under a decentralized model of democratic global governance, as espoused elsewhere in this book. All relevant indices point to the necessity of establishing a centralized global political authority with legitimate coercive powers. It remains to be seen, however, whether such a political system can be in any recognizable sense democratic. It seems unconvincing that planetary-wide physical-threat, all-comprehensive macrosecuritization, coupled with deep transformations of international law, global centralization of core decision-making powers, de-stigmatization of nuclear weapons and the like can proceed, succeed, and be implemented in a non-hierarchical international system where planetary defense constitutes only one regime among many, and where states basically remain the decisive actors. Although rationally and scientifically robust, the project suffers from oversimplification, as well as naivety with respect to how both international and domestic politics works. Among other topics, this chapter discusses problems associated with the rule of law and constituent powers, political representation and sources of legitimacy, conditions of multilevel collective action, or limits of theoretical idealization. The general message is that the planetary defense community needs to be more aware of the social and political context of its own enterprise

Fortress Europe or Pace-Setter? Identity and Values in an Integrating Europe

The article represents a contribution to the discussions about the basis, motives, and goals of European integration, which were stimulated by the recent “normative turn” in EU studies. My aim in this the article is threefold: By addressing the issue of internal legitimacy of EU decision-making, I wish to show that the European Union is in need of a public “story” of European integration; however, a closer analysis suggests that there is much normative disagreement on values and principles that are supposed to define such “Europeanness”. This is also relevant for the role of Europe on the scene of international or global politics, where the EU aspires to become a leading actor, or is supposed to do so by cosmopolitan-minded authors. Lastly, the text defends the usefulness of the traditional conceptual apparatus of political theory, which which has – in relation to the European integration – in recent times come under attack

Reading, implementing and theorising global justice: on some recent work in the political philosophy of cosmopolitanism

In the last fifteen years or so, political philosophers have been increasingly busy nurturing their latest darling, global justice (hereinafter GJ). There are many reasons why justice, the centrepiece of much political theorising since the 1970s, has spilled beyond the confines of the (nation-)state – from certain inherent features of prominent philosophical accounts of justice to the seemingly morally arbitrary nature of state borders to the perceived or assumed effects of globalisation. In any case, the previously rather scattered reflections on the global dimension on justice-related topics have now moulded into a respected academic enterprise, generating a vast body of mutually interconnected research. Under the broad umbrella of GJ, a wealth of specific problems and/or issue areas have surfaced; for the purposes of the present essay, it is useful to note that the primarily normative discussion about justice in the transnational realm (i.e. what is right/wrong and what should be done about it) extends to questions of methodological, epistemological as well as ontological kind which are of wider interest to political philosophy as such. One reason for such a broadened perspective is that two of the three titles (Brooks and Brock) appeared in print four and five years ago, respectively, and Brock’s and Ypi’s volumes have already received wide critical attention from within the field. It makes therefore sense to step back and evaluate the respective contributions with the benefit of hindsight, and also perhaps more critically than has been the case with the majority of heretofore published reactions. This is facilitated by the different approaches employed in the respective books, stemming in one case (Brooks) from its genre, and from different authorial aims and modes of explication in the other two cases

Náboženské racionale v liberální demokracii: Vyloučení, zahrnutí a hledání třetích cest [The Religious Rationale in Democracy: Exclusion, Inclusion and Search for Third Ways]

The article provides a focused overview of the recent debates in political philosophy on the role of religious arguments (as reasons for action) in liberal democracy, as well as a preliminary defence of a particular approach to the issue. Drawing on Christopher Eberle’s typology, we distinguish three main camps – Justificatory Liberalism, basing its advocacy of a “doctrine of religious restraint” on Rawls’s account of public justification; its Liberal Critics, embracing a wholly permissive position vis-à-vis religious arguments in the public sphere; and New Traditionalism, which assigns priority to the religious rationale. The article deals in more detail with the exchange between the first two camps. Upon considering their strengths and weaknesses, we argue for a more robust “third way” between exclusion from and unqualified inclusion of religious arguments in public debates in liberal democracy. Inspired by the work of Gerald Gaus and Kevin Vallier, we the outline in the closing sections a framework of such “minimal justificatory liberalism” that steers clear of several errors shared by both the defenders and the critics of justificatory liberalism

Barša, Pavel a kol.: Dialog teorií. Filosofická dilemata výzkumu mezinárodních vztahů

Knižní recenze / Book review

Baroš, Jiří (ed.): Vladimír Čermák. Člověk – filozof – soudce

Knižní recenze / Book review

Global Democracy, World State, or Business as Usual? On the Challenge of Arms Trade to Democracy Promotion

An essay on conflicting goals in democracy promotion, especially with respect to the many dilemmas arms trade/arms exports entail. I show why and how the idea of global democracy can be invoked as a potential solution, and discuss both its strong points and drawbacks. One recurring issue is the unavoidability and/or desirability of world government, or even a world state, as the political expression of such ideas

Lupták, Milan – Prorok, Vladimír. Politické ideologie a teorie od starověku po rok 1848: Plzeň, Vydavatelství a nakladatelství Aleš Čeněk, 2011. 414 s. ISBN 9788073802646

Knižní recenze / Book review

Novák, Miroslav: Mezi demokracií a totalitarismem. Aronova politická sociologie industriálních společností 20. století

Knižní recenze / Book review

Breweries and First Land Reform: A Short Description Of Interaction Between State Land Office And Owners Of Land Estes And Their Breweries

The first land reform took place in the years 1919 and 1939 in the Czechoslovak Republic and changed extent of the large land estates. A huge amount of the agricultural land was redistributed to small and middle farmers. However, breweries usually remained in the hands of the landowners. The presented study analyses the huge amount of the large land estates. The author investigates, whether or not the landowners made efforts to hold on ownership of breweries. At first the legal frame is outlined, in which the landowners and state authorities were obliged to operate, and which they could utilize to achieve the goal they wish at the same time. The author demonstrates on some large land estates from the chosen sample in detail, how the landowners dealt with the state authorities and which methods they used for negotiating. The author’s conclusion of the research is that the landowners tried to hold on ownership of breweries and state offices were not very interested on expropriation of breweries. The economic motivation of such dealing is probable