ABSTRACT
In this Comment, I focus on the state-based approach to citizenship and global justice adopted by Christine Hobden in Citizenship in a Globalised World. I briefly reconstruct the methodological justification Hobden provides before identifying what I take to be innovative in this approach, and the contribution Hobden makes to extant debates between nationalist and cosmopolitan conceptions of justice and responsibility. I then consider the limitations of a state-based approach, in particular, questioning the extent to which the public authority necessary for the protection of equal moral freedom should be conflated with sovereign states. I conclude by gesturing towards the ways that Hobden’s account can provide guidance on global justice beyond and without the state.
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Ashwini Vasanthakumar
Ashwini Vasanthakumar is an Associate Professor at Queen’s Law School. Her research interests are in political and legal philosophy. She is the author of The Ethics of Exile: A Political Theory of Diaspora (Oxford University Press, 2021).