Enzo Rossi

Enzo Rossi
University of Amsterdam | UVA · Department of Political Science

PhD (University of St Andrews, Philosophy, 2008)

About

48
Publications
13,499
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1,112
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Introduction
My main interest is the relation between the descriptive and the normative study of society. My current is a realist critical theory of legitimacy, grounded in epistemic genealogical critique and vindication.
Additional affiliations
January 2014 - present
University of Amsterdam
Position
  • Universitair Docent (tenured)

Publications

Publications (48)
Article
Full-text available
This paper provides a critical overview of the realist current in contemporary political philosophy. We define political realism on the basis of its attempt to give varying degrees of autonomy to politics as a sphere of human activity, in large part through its exploration of the sources of normativity appropriate for the political and so distingui...
Article
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Public justification-based accounts of liberal legitimacy rely on the idea that a polity’s basic structure should, in some sense, be acceptable to its citizens. In this paper I discuss the prospects of that approach through the lens of Gerald Gaus’ critique of John Rawls’ paradigmatic account of democratic public justification. I argue that Gaus do...
Article
In this paper we argue that Sen's defence of liberal democracy suffers from a moralistic and pro-liberal bias that renders it unable to take pluralism as seriously as it professes to do. That is because Sen’s commitment to respecting pluralism is not matched by his account of how to individuate the sorts of preferences that ought to be included in...
Article
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One of the main challenges faced by realists in political philosophy is that of offering an account of authority that is genuinely normative and yet does not consist of a moralistic application of general, abstract ethical principles to the practice of politics. Political moralists typically start by devising a conception of justice based on their...
Article
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In this paper I argue that equal respect-based accounts of the normative basis of tolerance are self-defeating, insofar as they are unable to specify the limits of tolerance in a way that is consistent with their own commitment to the equal treatment of all conceptions of the good. I show how this argument is a variant of the longstanding ‘conflict...
Article
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What is the point of ideology critique? Prominent Anglo-American philosophers recently proposed novel arguments for the view that ideology critique is moral critique, and ideologies are flawed insofar as they contribute to injustice or oppression. We criticize that view and make the case for an alternative and more empirically oriented approach, gr...
Preprint
To what extent are questions of sovereign debt a matter for political rather than scientific or moral adjudication? We answer that question by defending three claims. We argue that (i) moral and technocratic takes on sovereign debt tend to be ideological in a pejorative sense of the term, and that therefore (ii) sovereign debt should be politicised...
Article
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Strikes often lack a reasonable chance of success unless they violate some basic liberties (of contract, movement, etc.). This creates a dilemma for liberal democracies that recognize a right to strike: either the right is toothless, or the basic liberties do not have priority and so are not basic. Alex Gourevitch argues that grounding the radical...
Article
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To what extent are questions of sovereign debt a matter for political rather than scientific or moral adjudication? We answer that question by defending three claims. We argue that (i) moral and technocratic takes on sovereign debt tend to be ideological in a pejorative sense of the term, and that therefore (ii) sovereign debt should be politicised...
Article
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In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a tw...
Article
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In this paper, we put forward a realist account of the problem of accommodation of conflicting claims over sacred places. Our argument takes its cue from the empirical finding that modern, Western-style states necessarily mould religion into shapes that are compatible with state rule. At least in the context of modern states, there is no pre-politi...
Chapter
This chapter assesses John Gray’s modus vivendi-based justification for liberalism. I argue that his approach is preferable to the more orthodox deontological or teleological justificatory strategies, at least because of the way it can deal with the problem of diversity. But then I show how that is not good news for liberalism, for grounding libera...
Article
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This essay is a critical study of Jason Brennan's Against Democracy. We make three main points. First, we argue that Brennan's proposal of a right to competent government only works if one considers the absence of government a viable proposition, something most of his opponents are not prepared to do. Second, we suggest that Brennan's account of co...
Article
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This paper outlines an account of political realism as a form of ideology critique. Our focus is a defence of the normative edge of this critical-theoretic project against the common charge that there is a problematic trade-off between a theory’s groundedness in facts about the political status quo and its ability to consistently envisage radical d...
Article
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This paper provides a realist analysis of the European Union’s (EU) legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams’ theory of legitimacy, which we term critical responsiveness. For Williams, ‘Basic Legitimation Demand + Modernity = Liberalism’. Drawing on that model, we make three claims. (i) The right side of the equation is insufficien...
Chapter
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Cécile Laborde has argued that the freedom we think of as ‘freedom of religion’ should be understood as a bundle of separate and relatively independent freedoms. I criticise that approach by pointing out that it is insufficiently sensitive to facts about the sorts of entities that liberal states are. I argue that states have good reasons to mould p...
Article
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In this review I try and show the ways in which Geuss’ new work may advance the (radical) realist programme. The main contribution in the new essays, as I see it, is the emphasis on the counterintuitively transformative potential of a realist approach, as opposed to the false promise of highly moralised approaches. I also highlight some open questi...
Article
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Should our factual understanding of the world influence our normative theorising about it? G.A. Cohen has argued that our ultimate normative principles should not be constrained by facts (e.g. about feasibility, human nature, and so on). Many others have defended or are committed to various versions or subsets of that claim. In this paper I dispute...
Article
Is there more to the recent surge in political realism than just a debate on how best to continue doing what political theorists are already doing? I use two recent books, by Michael Freeden and Matt Sleat, as a testing ground for realism’s claims about its import on the discipline. I argue that both book take realism beyond the Methodenstreit, tho...
Research
Full-text available
This paper provides a conceptual analysis of the EU’s legitimation status through the lens of a realist account of legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams’ theory of liberal legitimacy, and use it to make sense of the widely perceived legitimation crisis of the EU. In Williams’ well-known formula, “Basic Legitimation Demand + Mode...
Article
In this rejoinder to Erman and Möller's reply to our "Political Norms and Moral Values," we clarify the sense in which there can be specifically political values, and expound the practicedependent notion of legitimacy adopted by our preferred version of political realism.
Article
Characterising realism by contrasting it with moralism leaves open several questions to do with realism’s practical import. If political judgment is not to be derived — exclusively or at all — from pre-political moral commitments, what scope is there for genuinely normative political thinking? And even if there is some scope for political normativi...
Article
This paper provides a conceptual analysis of the EU's legitimation status through the lens of a realist account of legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams' theory of liberal legitimacy, and use it to make sense of the widely perceived legitimation crisis of the EU. In Williams' well-known formula, "Basic Legitimation Demand + Mode...
Article
Should our factual understanding of the world influence our normative theorising about it? G.A. Cohen has argued that our ultimate normative principles should not be constrained by facts (e.g. about feasibility, human nature, and so on). In this paper I dispute that claim by advancing the argument that, in order to resist the conclusion that ultima...
Article
This paper provides a critical overview of the realist current in contemporary political philosophy. We define political realism on the basis of its attempt to give varying degrees of autonomy to politics as a sphere of human activity, in large part through its exploration of the sources of normativity appropriate for the political, and so distingu...
Article
Full-text available
Agonist theorists have argued against deliberative democrats that democratic institutions should not seek to establish a rational consensus, but rather allow political disagreements to be expressed in an adversarial form. But democratic agonism is not antagonism: some restriction of the plurality of admissible expressions is not incompatible with a...
Article
Most attempts to make sense of liberalism as a unified tradition have focused on its theoretical foundations or normative commitments. This paper rejects that approach by advancing two related claims: (i) the unity of liberalism amounts just to a roughly and readily identifiable political tradition, whereas (ii) its philosophical foundations are co...
Article
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Is genuinely normative political theory necessarily informed by distinctively moral values? Eva Erman and Niklas Möller (2013) answer that question affirmatively, and highlight its centrality in the debate on the prospects of political realism, which explicitly eschews pre-political moral foundations. In this comment we defend the emerging realist...
Article
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In this paper we analyse the connection between the contested ethno-cultural labelling of Gipsy-Travellers in Wales and their position of social marginalisation, with special reference to spatial issues, such as the provision of campsites and public housing. Our main aim is to show how the formal and informal (mis)labelling of minority groups leads...
Article
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Could the notion of compromise help us overcoming – or at least negotiating – the frequent tension, in normative political theory, between the realistic desideratum of peaceful coexistence and the idealistic desideratum of justice? That is to say, an analysis of compromise may help us moving beyond the contrast between two widespread contrasting at...
Article
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Can political theory be action-guiding without relying on pre-political normative commitments? I answer that question affirmatively by unpacking two related tenets of Raymond Geuss’ political realism: the view that political philosophy should not be a branch of ethics, and the ensuing empirically-informed conception of legitimacy. I argue that the...
Article
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A critical discussion of Toula Nicolacopoulos' 'The Radical Critique of Liberalism'. I analyse her methodology of 'critical reconstructionism' and argue that considerations about the epistemic status of the inquiring practices leading to the formulation of liberal political theory need not affect the viability and desirability of liberal political...
Article
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A polity is grounded in a modus vivendi (MV) when its main features can be presented as the outcome of a virtually unrestricted bargaining process. Is MV compatible with the consensus-based account of liberal legitimacy, i.e. the view that political authority is well grounded only if the citizenry have in some sense freely consented to its exercise...
Article
This paper provides an interpretation of the licensing provisions envisaged under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 as a model for a rule and exemption-based procedural strategy for the adjudication of potential ethical controversies, and it offers an account of the liberal-democratic legitimacy of the procedure’s outcomes as well as...
Article
Full-text available
Can political theory be action-guiding without relying on pre-political normative commitments? I answer that question affirmatively by unpacking two related tenets of Raymond Geuss’ political realism: the view that political philosophy should not be a branch of ethics, and the ensuing empirically-informed conception of legitimacy. I argue that the...
Article
Full-text available
Liberal Democracy and the Challenge of Ethical Diversity What do we talk about when we talk about ethical diversity as a challenge to the normative justifiability of liberal democracy? Many theorists claim that liberal democracy ought to be reformed or rejected for not being sufficiently ‘inclusive’ towards diversity; others argue that, on the cont...

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