Author(s): Nancy Fraser

Politics | Philosophy

Until recently, struggles for justice proceeded against thebackground of a taken-for-granted frame: the bounded territorialstate. With that ?Westphalian? picture of politicalspace assumed by default, the scope of justice was rarely subjectto explicit dispute. Today, the scope of justice is hotlycontested, as human-rights activists and international feministsjoin critics of structural adjustment and the WTO in targetinginjustices that cut across borders. Seeking to re-map the bounds ofjustice on a broader scale, these movements are challenging theview that justice can only be a domestic relation among fellowcitizens. As their claims collide with those of nationalists andWestphalian democrats, we witness new forms of?meta-political? contestation in which the scale ofjustice is an object of explicit dispute. Under these conditions,there is no avoiding an issue that had once seemed to go withoutsaying: What is the proper frame for theorizing justice? Faced witha plurality of competing scales, how do we know which scale ofjustice is truly just?

Scales of Justice tackles this issue. Interrogating strugglesover globalization, Nancy Fraser reconstructs the theory of justicefor a post-Westphalian world. Revising her widely discussed theoryof redistribution and recognition, she introduces representation asa third, ?political,? dimension of justice, whichpermits us to re-conceive scale and scope as questions of justice.Seeking to re-imagine political space for a globalizing world, sherevisits the concepts of democracy, solidarity, and the publicsphere; the projects of critical theory, the World Social Forum,and second-wave feminism; and the thought of Habermas, Rawls,Foucault, and Arendt.