Abstract
In this paper, I critically analyze Andrea Sangiovanni’s approach to international justice in the EU that he labels Reciprocity-based Internationalism (RBI). I aim to show that the type of reciprocity RBI operates with is not a morally attractive ground for distributive justice because it cannot cope with the case of member states’ inability to reciprocate the production of collective goods at the EU level. I illustrate this with the case of disability. I contrast RBI’s understanding of reciprocity with Christie Hartley’s ‘relationship model’. I argue that the relationship model of reciprocity should characterize the EU, whose two core normative features are fraternity and equal status. The advantage of the relationship model is that it calls for a stronger type of solidarity than RBI does. That not only entails the willingness to support those worse-off members that cannot productively reciprocate other member states’ efforts at the EU level but also calls for a higher redistribution rate within the EU. In the paper, I make three comparisons between RBI’s ‘productive reciprocity’ and the relationship model. The first concerns non-EU-integration-related disadvantages; the second concerns membership cases, such as accession to federations and supranational unions, while the third comparison examines EU-integration-related disadvantages. I argue that the relationship model is a better alternative to RBI in both integration-related and non-integration-related disadvantages. Also, the relationship model can justify accession cases where previous historical ties are relevant, which are outside of the purview of RBI.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Change history
19 May 2022
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-022-09552-5
Notes
For important non-reciprocity-based theories of the EU in the context of internationalism see Habermas (2012) and Van Parijs (2019).
While the EU does not have its own armed forces yet, from 2016 it has the European Border and Coast Guard.
One possible objection to Sangiovanni’s list is that it misses some equally pressing, or perhaps even more important EU-integration-related risks than the above mentioned five points. Among others, these could include brain drain within the EU, or reducing poorer member states’ capacity to protect their struggling industries. I thank Tom Theuns for these examples and for drawing my attention to this potential criticism. I think this strategy to criticize Sangiovanni’s interpretation of RBI can be fruitful, but my argument does not hinge on it. Especially not for one of my main criticisms, which holds that RBI cannot cope with non-EU-integration-related risks; my earthquake example below aims to illustrate this point.
That is, the capacity of having a sense of justice and a conception of the good (Rawls 1993, p. 19).
Of course, the main problem is that the labor market tailored to the characteristics of the able-bodied majority is by default discriminatory against the disabled. Thus, for many people living with a disability entering the labor market in the first place is difficult or impossible. David Wasserman and Sean Aas (2017) argue that keeping disabled people out of the formal economy is one of the most pervasive forms of disability discrimination.
I thank an anonymous reviewer to pressing this point.
One could also object to the example on the grounds that no natural catastrophe is fully ‘natural’—after all the disastrous effect of natural catastrophes also depend on human factors and historical trajectories, being subject to historical injustices. Laura Valentini (2013, pp. 500–501) claims on these grounds that Haiti is owed assistance with the damages of the 2010 earthquake because the country has been subject to the unjust way of how the global economy has developed in the last two centuries. If that type of injustice had not taken place, Haiti could have better responded to the disaster on its own. While I agree with Valentini that historical injustices are an important factor in the consequences of natural catastrophes, including the example of Haiti, this reply regarding my hypothetical earthquake case is less convincing. Identifying the culprits for their less advantageous place in the global economy, the least well-off eastern EU member states could identify such historical entities as the Ottoman Empire, the Austrian Empire, the Russian Empire or more recently, the Soviet Union. But beyond these historical suspects, our stronger intuition is that in our hypothetical case, another not-so-well-off Eastern European member state would have a greater justice-based duty to help the earthquake-ridden country than countries outside the EU, however well off they are (and here I cannot even try to engage with the difficulty of how exactly to address historical injustices in a natural disaster context).
Of course, to have an appeal, the contemporary ideal of fraternity should not exclude women, or any non-binary identities.
I thank an anonymous referee for pressing me to elaborate on this point.
It is worth pointing out that Hartley’s emphasis on companionship is to highlight one way how even the severely mentally disabled can offer valuable things to their friends and family members (Hartley 2009, p. 150). Thus, it does not follow that the point and purpose of the European Union should be companionship, although I do not think that would be a far-fetched idea either. The point is that member states, which, for one reason or another, cannot contribute to the joint efforts of the Union as much as other (or most) members do, can still be valuable members, if we do not consider production as the only way to meaningfully contribute to the EU.
For example, some of the ‘founding fathers’ of the EU, such as Robert Schuman or Antonio Spinelli were influenced by federalism (and the federalist movement), see Griffiths (2012). Similarly, it is not unthinkable that the most important figures of the political scene in the EU would be motivated by egalitarian values.
I recourse here to the idea of expressive theories of law, see Anderson and Pildes (2000).
Rogozabu and Gabor (2020).
For an attempt to create a European identity through nation-building see De Schutter (2017).
Of course, this depends on several factors, most importantly whether the citizenry of Puerto Rico prefers that option or not.
Even more interestingly, Algeria, that left the EC in 1962, is also an example (Patel 2018). Algeria as a part of France became a member of the EC after the Treaty of Rome in 1957 (see Patel 2018, p. 114). Unlike regarding the earthquake example above, I think questions about EU membership is a case where the legacy of colonialism cannot be overlooked. While I consider such a colonialism-focused analysis of which state could claim to become a new member of the EU on historical grounds indispensable, I cannot pursue it in this present paper.
The situation is quite peculiar. As Patel observes:
Greenland has, ironically, started to move closer to the EU compared with the situation in 1985. In contrast, devolution within the Danish context has continued, with some activists in Greenland now demanding full independence from the Danish realm. This could lead to a reversal of the dynamics of the 1980s, when Greenlanders wanted to remain part of the Kingdom, but rejected EC membership (Patel 2018, p. 119).
I thank an anonymous reviewer for pressing a discussion on the Greek debt crisis.
Ezra Klein (2015) referring to Desmond Lachman’s (American Enterpise Institute) testimony before the US Congress on 25 June 2015.
In his 2013 paper risks related to EMU membership was the last item (see section ‘Reciprocity-based Internationalism’ of this paper). It is also worth noting that Sangiovanni (2018, p. 7, n. 28) points out that not all EMU-related problems are endogenous to integration, such as vulnerability to exchange rate instability. For the sake of the argument I assume that EMU-related risks are largely endogenous to European integration.
References
Anderson, E. 1999. What is the point of equality? Ethics 109 (2): 287–337.
Anderson, E., and R. Pildes. 2000. Expressive theories of law: A restatement. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 148: 1503–1575.
Baker, J. 2015. Conceptions and dimensions of social equality. In Social equality: On what it means to be equals, ed. Carina Fourie, Fabian Schuppert, and Ivo Wallimann-Helmer, 65–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Becker, L. 2005. Reciprocity, justice, and disability. Ethics 116 (1): 9–39.
Blake, M. 2014. Burdened societies. In The Cambridge rawls lexicon, ed. J. Mandle, and A. David, 71–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Caney, S. 2005. Justice beyond borders. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Carens, J. 2013. The ethics of immigration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
De Schutter, H. 2017. The solidarity argument for the European Union. In A European social union after the crisis, ed. Frank Vandenbroucke, Catherine Barnard, and Geert De Baere, 46–67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dworkin, Ronald. 2002. Sovereign virtue: The theory and practice of equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gauthier, David. 1986. Morals by agreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Griffiths, R.T. 2012. The founding fathers. In The Oxford handbook of the European Union, ed. Erik Jones, Anand Menon, and Stephen Weatherill, 181–192. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Habermas, J. 2012. The crisis of the European Union: A response. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hartley, C. 2009. An inclusive contractualism. In Disability and disadvantage, ed. Kimberley Brownlee and Adam Cureton, 138–162. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kittay, Eva F. 1999. Love’s labor: Essays on women, equality, and dependency. New York: Routledge.
Klein, E. 2015. Greece's debt crisis, explained in charts and maps. Vox 1 July. Available at https://www.vox.com/2015/7/1/8871509/greece‐charts
Labareda, João. 2021. Towards a just Europe: A theory of distributive justice for the European Union. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Matthijs, Matthias. 2017. Integration at what price? The erosion of national democracy in the Euro periphery. Government and Opposition 52: 266–294.
Miller, David. 2007. National responsibility and global justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miller, David. 2016. Strangers in our midst: The political philosophy of immigration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Munoz-Dardé, V. 2018. Fellow feelings: Fraternity, equality and the origin and stability of justice. Daimon: Revista Internacional de Filosofía 7: 107–123.
Nagel, T. 2005. The problem of global justice. Philosophy and Public Affairs 33 (2): 113–147.
Patel, Kiran Klaus. 2018. Something new under the sun? The lessons of Algeria and Greenland. In Brexit and beyond: Rethinking the futures of Europe, ed. Benjamin Martill and Uta Staiger, 114–120. London: University College London Press.
Rawls, J. 1993. Political liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rawls, J. 1999a. The law of peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J. 1999. A theory of justice, 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Rogozanu, Costi and Daniela Gabor. 2020. Are western Europe's food supplies worth more than east European workers' health? The Guardian, Thu 16 Apr 2020. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/apr/16/western-europe-food-east-european-workers-coronavirus
Sandel, M. 2007. The case against perfection. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sangiovanni, Andrea. 2007. Global Justice, reciprocity, and the state. Philosophy & Public Affairs 35 (1): 3–39.
Sangiovanni, A. 2013. Solidarity in the European Union. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 33 (2): 213–241.
Sangiovanni, Andrea. 2018. Principles of justice for the European Union: A sketch. Unpublished manuscript, April 27, 2018, on file with author.
Scharpf, Fritz. 2011. Monetary union, fiscal crisis and the pre-emption of democracy. Journal for Comparative Government and European Policy 9: 163–198.
Streeck, W. 2015. Why the Euro divides Europe. New Left Review 95: 5–26.
Thomsen, Poul. 2019. The IMF and the Greek crisis: Myths and realities. Speech delivered at the London School of Economics, September 30, 2019. Available at https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2019/10/01/sp093019-The-IMF-and-the-Greek-Crisis-Myths-and-Realities
Valentini, L. 2013. Justice, charity, and disaster relief: What, if anything, is owed to Haiti, Japan, and New Zealand? American Journal of Political Science 57 (2): 491–503.
van Parijs, P. 2019. Just Europe. Philosophy & Public Affairs 47 (1): 5–36.
Viehoff, J. 2018. Eurozone justice. The Journal of Political Philosophy 26 (3): 388–414.
Wasserman, David, and Sean Aas. 2017. Discrimination and disability. In The Routledge handbook of the ethics of discrimination, ed. Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, 231–242. London: Routledge.
Wong, Sophia. 2002. At home with down syndrome and gender. Hypathia 17: 64–80.
Acknowledgements
This article greatly benefitted from the valuable feedback and comments of Jelena Belic, Janos Kis, Eszter Kollar, Andres Moles, Simon Rippon, Tom Theuns, Res Publica’s two anonymous referees, and the participants of the SGEU Conference in Paris at Sciences PO, June 2018.
Funding
Part of this research was supported by the research programme ‘Towards a European THeory Of JuStice and fairness’, (ETHOS). Project ETHOS received funding from the European Union’s Horizon2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 727112. Also, part of this research was conducted while I was a research fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences-Institute of Political Science, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Miklós Zala is the single author of this paper.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
Miklós Zala declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Consent to publication
Miklós Zala gives his consent to the publication of this paper.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zala, M. Justice and the EU: Productive or Relational Reciprocity?. Res Publica 28, 635–652 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-021-09543-y
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-021-09543-y