Towards a transnational theory of justice for the EU: The non-domination approach

The aim of the project is to develop a new theory to offer normative criteria for the design of public policies at the EU level. The thesis is that EU policies that enable social and political domination of EU citizens are unjust because they conflict with the robust exercise of fundamental freedoms. These fundamental freedoms can be understood as a bundle of secured liberties that are necessary for a person to act as an autonomous agent. The approach advocated here is based on the premise that treating a person with dignity means respecting and promoting their capacity to act as an agent. A policy fulfills this normative criterion precisely when its implementation results in every EU citizen being able to effectively control the way in which social and political power is exercised over them. If EU policy provides inadequate transnational access to social and political rights, it jeopardizes the ability of its citizens to exercise such effective control. This approach has several advantages: First, it can help explain what is wrong with technocratic institutions that limit effective citizen control of politics for the purpose of economic wealth creation. Second, it helps to highlight the fact that the expansion of choice, for some EU citizens, comes at the cost of depriving others of effective control over their fundamental freedoms. Thirdly, it treats social and political domination as an injustice. Protection against this injustice should be robust across a range of scenarios for all EU citizens, and should not depend on whether a Member State benefits from compliance with such security measures.

Project manager: Dr. Dimitrios Efthymiou

The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)