Empire, Race and Global Justice

The status of boundaries and borders, questions of global poverty and inequality, criteria for the legitimate uses of force, the value of international law, human rights, nationality, sovereignty, migration, territory, and citizenship: debates over these critical issues are central to contemporary understandings of world politics. Bringing together an interdisciplinary range of contributors, including historians, political theorists, lawyers, and international relations scholars, this is the first volume of its kind to explore the racial and imperial dimensions of normative debates over global justice.

‘Duncan Bell has done what few editors manage to do: assemble a volume that is much more than the sum of its parts. That’s a real accomplishment, given the impressive and diverse line-up of scholars who make up the parts of this astonishing collection. Empire, Race and Global Justice will quickly become an essential reference for anyone working in this field.’ Michael Goodhart, University of Pittsburgh, ‘Contemporary global justice debates have been largely silent on the issues of race and empire. This superb collection of essays begins to fill this gap by bringing together leading scholars from a range of fields, including history, law, philosophy and international relations. They show how critical awareness of liberalism’s past is crucial to assessing the viability of liberal projects in the present, and to conceiving of plausible alternatives for the future.’ Lea Ypi, London School of Economics and Political Science, ‘This consistently excellent volume puts race and empire at the heart of discussions of global justice, where they should be. Racial domination and white supremacy, alongside imperial rule and settler colonialism, have profoundly shaped the contemporary global order. Theories of global justice must take stock of this truth if they are to mount anything like an adequate response to the inequality, exploitation, poverty, endemic violence and environmental degradation that afflict our world. These lucid and accessible essays, at once historical and theoretical, offer a persistently thoughtful challenge to the widespread neglect of race and empire in the literature on global justice.’ Jennifer Pitts, University of Chicago

Duncan Bell is a Reader in Political Thought and International Relations at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge.