David Thunder (University of Navarra) argues that many modern political theorists, from Hobbes to Rawls, overstate the importance of state sovereignty. He envisions an alternative, polycentric form of social organisation that can support one’s freedom to flourish. Tune in for his argument in this episode of the Governance Podcast led by Billy Christmas (King’s College London).
Subscribe on iTunes and Spotify
Subscribe to the Governance Podcast on iTunes and Spotify today and get all our latest episodes directly in your pocket.
Follow Us
For more information about our upcoming podcasts and events, follow us on facebook, twitter or instagram (@csgskcl).
The Guest
David Thunder is a researcher and lecturer in political and social philosophy at the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra. Prior to his appointment to the University of Navarra, he held several research and teaching positions in the United States, including visiting positions at Bucknell and Villanova Universities, and a stint as Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Princeton University’s James Madison Program. David earned his BA and MA in philosophy at University College Dublin, and his Ph.D. in political science at the University of Notre Dame. He is currently preparing two book manuscripts, tentatively entitled May I Love My Country? In Search of a Defensible Patriotism; and Sovereign Rule and the Still-Birth of Freedom: A Preface to Confederal Republicanism.
David’s academic writings include Citizenship and the Pursuit of the Worthy Life (Cambridge University Press, 2014), The Ethics of Citizenship in the 21st Century (edited volume, Springer, 2017), and numerous articles in international peer-reviewed journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, Political Theory, The Journal of Social Philosophy, and the Journal of Business Ethics. His writings cover a wide range of questions including the pros and cons of individualism, the ethics of financial trading, the complicity of citizens in collective injustice, the concept of moral impartiality, and the scope of duties of beneficence. He writes occasionally for The Irish Times and RTE’s Brainstorm page. For more information, see www.davidthunder.com.
Skip Ahead
00:59: What is sovereigntism? Why are you so critical of it?
2:18: Is your criticism of it primarily in terms of as a theory of political organisation, as an approach to justice in normative political theory? Or is it a critique of empirical reality? Is it that you think this is the system we do in fact have, and it's bad for a number of reasons?
4:06: Could you say a bit more about how this aspiration to sovereignty is so harmful to these kinds of associations?
5:58: What do you think is worth protecting about associational life? What would you say to someone who takes the opposite approach and says that these small associations are undermining the authority of the national government and that undermines our sense of national identity, a more cosmopolitan and open ended form of human cooperation and really these associations are just old fashioned things which we can now do away with now that we have nation states.
8:47: So you start off with this tentative defense of associational life that, while any kind of associational life is not always good, it is a necessary condition that we are able to form and live in associations. And the aspiration of the sovereign state is parasitical or cannibalistic upon that. If the goal of associational life is this common flourishing, friendship and knowledge, generational solidarity, is there a need for external regulation of associational life in order to, not guarantee, but certainly regulate and offer some predictability that associational life will not go to the worst case scenario?
12:35: It sounds like you do want there to be political institutions to provide that kind of regulatory framework for associational life, but it's important that it be fragmented perhaps in a federal
