La paz en la teoría de la justicia de Kant

Translation of the original in German: Guillermo Hoyos Vásquez. First published in Spanish with the authorizations of Ottfried Höffe and Guillermo Hoyos Vásquez. The original version was presented at the 200-year Kant Week event, organized by the FacultyTraducción del original en alemán: Guillermo Hoyos Vásquez. Publicado por primera vez en español con las autorizaciones de Ottfried Höffe y Guillermo Hoyos Vásquez. La versión original se presentó en el evento Kant Week de 200 años, organizado por la Fac

La paz en la teoría de la justicia de Kant

Traducción del original en alemán: Guillermo Hoyos Vásquez. Publicada por primera vez en español con las autorizaciones de Ottfried Höffe y Guillermo Hoyos Vásquez. La versión original se presentó en el evento Semana Kant 200 años, organizado por la Facultad de Filosofía de la Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá, con apoyo del Goethe Institut, a comienzos de septiembre de 2004

Legitimacy intermediation in the multilevel European polity and its collapse in the euro crisis

This essay re-examines the dual – republican and liberal – foundations of democratic legitimacy in the Western traditions of normative political theory. Considered in isolation, the European Union conforms to liberal standards but cannot satisfy republican criteria. Given these conflicting standards, debates on the alleged European democratic deficit have remained inconclusive. Moreover, they have failed to pay sufficient attention to the multilevel character of the European polity and to the normative potential of legitimacy intermediation in its two-step compliance and legitimating relationships. I argue, however, that the capacity of democratic member states to legitimate the exercise of European governing functions is being destroyed in the present euro crisis, and I briefly discuss the implications of this new constellation.In der westlichen Tradition der normativen politischen Theorie beruht demokratische Legitimität auf der doppelten Grundlage republikanischer und liberaler Prinzipien. Für sich betrachtet entspricht die Europäische Union zwar liberalen Kriterien, aber eben nicht den republikanischen Anforderungen. Angesichts so unterschiedlicher Kriterien konnte es auch im Streit über das angebliche europäische Demokratiedefizit keine Einigung geben. Überdies ignorierte diese Diskussion den Mehrebenen-Charakter der europäischen Politik und das normative Potenzial der Legitimationsvermittlung zwischen Union und Bürgern durch die demokratisch verfassten Mitgliedstaaten. Die gegenwärtige Eurokrise allerdings zerstört die Fähigkeit demokratischer Mitgliedstaaten, die Ausübung europäischer Herrschaftsfunktionen zu legitimieren. Der Aufsatz erörtert die Implikationen dieser neuen Konstellation.1 Introduction 2 Legitimacy discourses The republican discourse The liberal discourse Differences 3 Constitutional democracies – and the European Union? 4 Legitimacy intermediation in the multilevel European polity 5 The end of legitimacy intermediation in the euro crisis Monetary Union and the failure of output legitimacy Rescuing the euro through supranational intervention 6 Legitimate supranational government? Input-oriented European legitimacy? 7 Reducing the burden on European legitimacy Reference

Of false promises and good bets: a plea for a pragmatic approach to theory building (the Tartu lecture)

In this lecture I review some of the issues that meta-theorizing was supposed to address in international relations and show how this project of securing knowledge through hierarchization and finding absolute foundations failed. Basically I argue that since neither the 'order of being' nor the categories of the mind provide an unproblematic and trans-historically valid Archimedean point that allows for an incontestable 'view from nowhere', the traditional epistemological project cannot make good on its promise. I'm trying to refute the twin fallacies that seem to fuel much of the hypertrophic concern with epistemology: First, that in the absence of secure universally valid and trans-historically established criteria everything becomes 'relative' and that, therefore, the adherents of a more critical or pragmatic orientation towards knowledge have to be either nihilists or charlatans since they deny 'truth'. Second, since the foundationalist claims of traditional epistemology can be shown to be faulty, indeed 'anything goes' and we need not worry about criteria that warrant our knowledge claims. Here relatively mindless research activism or some form of pragmatism at basement prices is supposed to take care of the problems. I argue for a pragmatic turn in theorizing not in the hope of having now found a new foundation after the failure of the epistemological project, but with the understanding that such a turn represents a good bet in pursuing our research while remaining attentive to the importance of meta-theoretical issues that arise in its course