Unpacking public justification

ABSTRACT

This brief response to Greenfeld’s caveat submits that public justification is not omnipresent, but can extend, and has extended, beyond the modern, liberal West. Subscribing to a thin, rather than thick, conceptualization of public justification, we chart the contested contours of public justification, and urge scholars of this emergent field to clarify their own take before advancing pertinent theories and case studies. We briefly expound the nature and historical roots of both ‘justification’ and ‘the public’, suggesting that their amalgam into public justification transcends the modern, liberal West.

KEYWORDS:

• Public justification
• communication
• moral reasoning
• modernity
• liberalism
• legitimacy
• basic beliefs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Uriel Abulof is a Senior Lecturer (US rank Associate Professor) of Politics at Tel-Aviv University and a research fellow at Princeton University's LISD/Woodrow Wilson School and at the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace. His books include The mortality and morality of nations (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Living on the edge: The existential uncertainty of Zionism (Haifa University Press, 2015), which received Israel’s best academic book award (Bahat Prize). He is also the co-editor of Self-determination: A double-edged concept (Routledge, 2016). Abulof is the recipient of the 2016 Young Scholar Award in Israel Studies. He studies political legitimation, existentialism, social movements, nationalism and ethnic conflicts. His articles have appeared in journals such as International Studies Quarterly, International Political Sociology, Nations and Nationalism, British Journal of Sociology, European Journal of International Relations, Ethnic and Racial Studies and International Politics.

Markus Kornprobst is Professor of International Relations at the Vienna School of International Studies. Before coming to Vienna, he researched and taught at the Mershon Center at the Ohio State University, the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University, and the School of Public Policy at University College London. His research interests encompass Diplomacy and Governance, International Communication, International Peace and Security, International Relations Theory, European Politics, and African Politics. His research appears in leading journals including International Organization, European Journal of International Relations and the Journal of Modern African Studies. He is the author of Irredentism in European politics (Cambridge University Press, 2008), co-author of Understanding international diplomacy (Routledge, 2013) as well as co-editor of Arguing global governance (Routledge, 2010) and Metaphors of globalization (Palgrave, 2007).