No description available.

This dissertation examines liberal statist and liberal cosmopolitan attempts to explain global justice. It argues that liberal statists misidentify their own commitments regarding human rights, and that once these implications are drawn out, many statist and cosmopolitan theories of global justice converge on several of their central positions. Although statists and cosmopolitans differ in their methodologies, emphasis, epistemic commitments, and some logical commitments of their respective positions, I argue that they are nonetheless committed to many of the same positions about practices in the sphere of global justice. They share elements of a logical structure, based in liberal domestic principles, which commits them to similar practical implications. Their convergence is most visible in an examination of their human rights commitments. They nonetheless differ in their analytic priorities, and hence in the ease with which they arrive at many of their insights and conclusions. In particular, despite Rawls’s denial of the desirability or feasibility of cosmopolitanism, he shares many practical commitments with cosmopolitans such as Tesón, Beitz, Buchanan, Tan and Caney. Their shared liberal egalitarian premises arising from liberal domestic theory result in convergence on what they take to be the central questions of global justice, and moreover on their answers to these central questions. Liberal theories on both sides of the cosmopolitan and statist divide endorse a practical approach to human rights that links human rights compliance with such practical global justice privileges as non-intervention, humanitarian aid, treaty relations, and even tolerance. And this convergence entails a more united liberal account of global justice than theorists on either side of the statist and cosmopolitan divide have been willing to admit. / Thesis (Ph.D, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2013-05-21 14:40:51.218

Zugl.: Rostock, Univ., Diss., 2004

Thesis (M.A.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Liberal Studies." Includes bibliographical references (p. [36]).

Thesis (M.A.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-58).

This dissertation explores and defends a form of perfectionism, which I call ‘public value perfectionism’. It is an approach that emerges from Sen’s capability critique of Rawls’s doctrine of primary goods and I argue that this form of perfectionism is not only compatible with, but also demanded by, a general defence of liberal neutrality. It is designed to fulfill a demand of justice that is beyond the reach of neutralist tools, yet it belongs within a larger neutralist framework in virtue of being justified by the same types of reasons that support neutralism. One of the main justifications for state neutrality is that it can serve as a means to remove or reduce disadvantage imposed on vulnerable groups. I will argue that in the case of disability limited state perfectionism can serve as a means toward that same goal. The series of arguments that I make to defend public value perfectionism concern issues relevant to debates about neutrality and perfectionism, the metric of advantage, justice and disability, and health resource rationing. These issues each play a role in the argument I develop, which states, simplifying somewhat, that in order for society to make defensible rationing decisions about social spending that aims to reduce disability, we need an approach to advantage—i.e., public value perfectionism—that contains important elements of perfectionism and yet is grounded on neutralist considerations. / Thesis (Ph.D, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2009-07-21 10:11:07.921

This study examines the impact of governing parties in changing patterns of income inequality in three liberal democracies with 'Westminster' systems - Australia (1981-1990), the United Kingdom (1979-1986) and Canada (1971-1981). Extensive analysis of the Luxembourg Income Study datasets for these countries and periods suggests that structural factors, such as changes in the market sphere or alterations in the demographic profiles, can account for only a part of the overall inequality trends in these periods. By using income decomposition analyses, this study indicates that government redistributive policies played an important role in changing inequality trends. Governments in all three countries are single-party operations, and policy responds strongly to partisan processes and considerations. The main question involved in assessing policy changes is therefore why party actors may be willing to increase or decrease income inequality. Applying conventional 'unitary' models of party behaviour (such as the median voter convergence hypothesis) to try and explain decision-making on income inequality also cannot explain these examples. It seems that redistributive policies can only be understood by taking account of the bargaining processes which take place within the organization of the party in power. Explanations of how parties intervene on income inequality should explicitly incorporate the organizational dimension as a key to their behaviour.

No description available.

Zugl.: Rostock, Universiẗat, Diss., 2004.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Cornell University, 1915. / Bibliography: p. 240-254.