Open research questions in Political Philosophy and Ethics
76 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 7,621 Political Philosophy and Ethics papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.
What the literature leaves open
Whether this will ultimately strengthen or diminish the Church’s inde- 114 ANITA SZŰCS pendent voice in the future, beyond the sixteen-year period marked by the rule of successive governments under Viktor Orbán, remains to be seen.
Illiberal modernity and non- state actor agency: the Hungarian Reformed Church’s role in contemporary Hungary · 2026 · DOIThis tells us that some changes of certain intuitions revolving around sufficientarianism should be examined (separately) based on the findings of the survey experiment and AIC model selection.
Reflective equilibrium in practice and model selection: a methodological proposal from a survey experiment on the theories of distributive justice · 2024 · DOIThe essay thus explores the consequences of the dispossession of racialized people and of the Global South in the context of the pandemic and the climate crisis, concretizing and illustrating those concerns and concluding that a system of negotiated coordination limited to stakeholder democracy is insufficient.
What is the relationship between deliberation and democracy? Despite the volumes dedicated to this question, recent admissions by prominent deliberative democrats—that we need not pursue a necessarily deliberative political system, but merely a democratic one—suggest that this remains an open question.
The request for a change of acting power, which once again shows Ukrainian society at the next elections, suggests that the ideas of libertarianism are more relevant in Ukrainian society than ever, but in the modern Ukrainian philosophical discourse the theoretical foundations of “libertarianism” are not fully explored.
This article addresses an underexplored area of investigation within the global justice debate: To what extent does globalisation structurally undermine the freedom of states? And if it does, what type of injustice does this constitute? It is argued here that a republican theory of freedom as non-domination is better equipped than existing cosmopolitan and social liberal accounts to explain the systemic connections between domestic, international and global injustice.
3 The effects that the McCutcheon ruling will have on American democracy remain to be seen, but a likely outcome will be the continued disenfranchisement of low-income and minority voters as special interests pay their way into office.
A Deterioration of Democracy?: Corruption, Transparency, and Apathy in the Western World · 2014 · DOIThe problem with democracy, said the Cardinal, quoting John Paul II, is that it is not a good thing in itself; its value depends on the moral vision that it serves, and a secular democracy is lacking in moral vision.
With his lecture What is a nation? written in 1882 largely marked the direction that would take further research on the topic and put some of its concepts at the heart of classical political thought.
El prebiscito de todos los días · 2013However, would these reasons provide a legitimate and sustainable basis for the WPC? It is argued in this article that, while the standard security-military and functionalist political economy arguments for world unification may work to a certain point, they are insufficient and may become counterproductive.
But if consumer society shares the essentials of liberal constitutionalism and the rational, processual nature of democratic representation, then its ontology needs to be investigated for the same reason and in the same manner as legal and political philosophy dissects the legitimacy and validity of the parliamentary institutions of modern democracy.
Duties of egalitarian distributive justice are not grounded on the duty to reciprocate benefits already received, but limited by a reasonable assurance of compliance on the part of those able to reciprocate, because their point is to constitute a valuable relationship, one of mutual recognition as equals.
But it does point to an important limitation of neo-republican constitutional theory: Neo-republicanism will amount to a distinctive paradigm of constitutional thought only if it is understood in a way that conflicts with Hobbes’s understanding of the institutional presuppositions of well-functioning government.
Within the scope of dialectically analyzing democracy, the article contends that numerous possibilities remain to be explored, even from the normative point of view, given the reluctance of democratic theory to draw on empirical reality to test its premises, expand its concepts, revalidate its meanings, and broaden its horizons.
Kok-Chor Tan (1993) maintains that the kind of coercion deserving of compensation is not limited to the national context, and that even national compensation cannot ignore the moral claims of foreigners.
As a starting point in the debate on the optimal scope of the state's activity, one can turn to Robert Nozick's concept of a minimal state-that is, one limited to the functions of protecting all its citizens against violence, theft, and fraud, and to the enforcement of contracts (Nozick 1974: 26).
Toward a Limited State · 2004(17) Morrison held that despite a presumption in favor of constitutionality of congressional statutes, Congress's research and conclusion that violence against women substantially affected interstate commerce were insufficient to save VAWA from a constitutional challenge.
Yes, Virginia (Tech), Our Government is One of Limited Powers · 2001The latter is limited by the phrase, all Laws shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, (10) makes it a gap-filling provision, not a charter for expansionism.
Close but No Cigar: A Reply to Professor Graglia · 2001Not only does Hayek implicitly rely on an undefended theory of rights, but his rule‐of‐law scheme is limited to the elaboration of general principles of good government, neglecting the need for reforms aimed directly at the political processes that result in the controversial forms of coercion he deplores.
Some of the issues raised in this paper - of the justificatory status of varying orders of rights, of the 'postional' nature of many social goods in a complex but stratified society, of the relation of individual freedoms to formal and actual opportunities in a pre-existing social setting - are pertinent to the broader critique which lies beyond the scope of this paper.
Choice and control in education: Parental rights, individual liberties and social justice · 1989 · DOIIs the public aware of this quiet revolution? Do the leaders and the elites understand the meaning and implications of this restatement of democracy? For the pluralist proposals to be taken seriously and for their validity to be established, it is essential that they should be examined by the different sections of various societies.
Contemporary Interpretations of Community Power: A Critical Review of the Major Theoretical and Conceptual Issues · 1973 · DOINevertheless, the question of political obligation remains inconclusively discussed in political philosophy; hence, it is an issue that is relevant in contemporary times.
It remains to be seen the extent to which Trump's administrative strategies will be successful—or cause a constitutional crisis by eroding democratic norms and guardrails.
We argue that democratic bricolage is the story of democratic resilience in an authoritarian context and an under-studied and little-noticed part of the story of autocratization.
The starting point is the belief that phenomena of “politicization” and “political” are relatively well recognized in scientific literature, however the problem of depoliticization have not yet been adequately explored.
Most-cited papers in Political Philosophy and Ethics
- Two Faces of Power · American Political Science Review · 1962 · 2,254 citations
- Legitimacy Problems in Deliberative Democracy · Political Studies · 2003 · 214 citations
- Territorial Rights: Concept and Justification · Political Studies · 2011 · 142 citations
- The agonic freedom of citizens · Economy and Society · 1999 · 132 citations
- Relations of extraction, relations of redistribution: Empire, nation, and the construction of the British welfare state · British Journal of Sociology · 2022 · 86 citations
- Navigating Beyond the Eurofetishist Frontier of Critical IR Theory: Exploring the Complex Landscapes of Non-Western Agency · International Studies Review · 2017 · 73 citations
- Moral Universalism and the Structure of Ideology · The Review of Economic Studies · 2022 · 66 citations
- Legislatures and Legislative Politics Without Democracy · Comparative Political Studies · 2020 · 65 citations
- Reparations for Slavery and Other Historical Injustices · Columbia Law Review · 2003 · 60 citations
- What is a Free State? Republican Internationalism and Globalisation · Political Studies · 2015 · 57 citations
Most recent work
- The political power of civil society · Journal of Comparative Economics · 2026
- Membership‐Making in Diverse Societies: Revisiting the Idea of Society as a Common Possession · Journal of Applied Philosophy · 2026
- Two Concepts of Plurality: Positive and Negative Pluralisms in Moral and Political Thought · Political Theory · 2026
- Resisting Democratic Backsliding From Within the State: Environmental Politics in Bolsonaro's Brazil · Policy Studies Journal · 2026
- Two Problems for the Political Inclusion of Animals · Journal of Applied Philosophy · 2026
- Macroeconomic democracy: a systemic framework for democratic economic organization · International Review of Applied Economics · 2026
- The insidious toxicity of investor-state arbitration Gabriel Resources vs Romania · Globalizations · 2026
- The Right to Know in the Information Polity · Information Polity · 2026
- Vigilance and destituent power in contemporary democracies · Global Constitutionalism · 2026
- Liberty, Equality, Authority · Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy · 2026
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