Responsible citizens of responsible states

ABSTRACT

Avia Pasternak’s book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of citizen responsibility for historical wrongs. This review nevertheless offers some scepticism about resting citizen liability exclusively on the idea of intentional participation. It argues that the necessity of the state possessing continuing legal responsibility over time is so intrinsic to the function of statehood that the question of citizen liability should be seen as part of the general theory of political obligation. So seen, fair play duties provide a more plausible general ground for citizen liability, even when adapted to unjust regimes. The model of intentional participation may by contrast harbour a muted connection between the ideas of blameworthiness and responsibility that the book in the main wishes to deny. And the practical problems of resting responsibility on intentional participation alone are substantial. Pasternak’s major contribution, untouched by this critique, is to explain how the special obligations undertaken by intentional citizenship strengthen and extend beyond that more foundational duty of responsible citizens.

KEYWORDS:

• Pasternak
• citizen responsibility
• collective responsibility
• fair play
• intentional participation
• the state
• public debt

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeff King

Jeff King is a Professor of Law at the Faculty of Laws, University College London and Research Director at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law. His research interests span UK and comparative public law, including the international law of sovereign debt, as well as legal and constitutional theory. He is the author of Judging Social Rights (CUP 2012) and co-editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Deliberative Constitutionalism (CUP 2018) and of the forthcoming The Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory (CUP 2024) (with Richard Bellamy). Between 2019-21 he was specialist legal adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution. The author thanks Professors Richard Bellamy and Massimo Renzo for comments on an earlier draft.