McHugh Presentation ‘Republican citizenship in an era of economic globalisation’ at Political Studies Association

16 April 2025 – Hannah McHugh, together with her co-author James Hickson (University of Liverpool), will present their paper ‘Republican citizenship in an era of economic globalisation’ at the Political Studies Association Conference in Birmingham.

The abstract of the paper is as follows:

Dissatisfaction with economic globalisation is insufficiently explained by a focus on distributive outcomes. Republican theorists appropriately locate the normative concern in power-theoretic terms: globally integrated markets and mobile capital create distinct forms of domination that transcend national borders. Such power dynamics undermine the capacity for democratic control of the economy (both domestically and globally), and create legitimate sentiments of powerlessness amongst agents, which populists have exploited. 

Given acknowledged tensions between deepening global integration and reinforcing national democracy (pace Rodrik), how ought republicans respond to the domination associated with globalisation?

Existing scholarship has typically emphasised the need to reinforce regulatory control over the economy, either at the global or national level. However, we argue this overlooks the critical role that citizens play in both constraining arbitrary power, and maintaining the preconditions needed to do so, in an increasingly globalised economy.

Drawing on Kantian insights, and a commitment to a system of free states, we outline a novel model of republican internationalism, where citizens have simultaneous duties to ensure: (i) that the state sufficiently protects their freedom from transnational sources of domination (republican vigilance), (ii) that the state does not facilitate transnational domination by citizen or state elsewhere (a republican global justice constraint on sovereignty), and (iii) that globally citizens are sufficiently empowered to contest sources of domination as they arise (republican transnational solidarity). In doing so, we emphasise that, in a context of economic globalisation, conditions for robust republican freedom nationally depend also on promoting basic non-domination globally.  

Crucially, by beginning not from a global or statist perspective, but from a concern with citizen control over dominating power, our account can distinguish national interests of a protectionist nature (justifiable) and individual interests that facilitate external domination (unjustifiable). We demonstrate this by sketching the implications of our account for Free Trade Agreements.