Radical Solutions to Liberal Problems: In Conversation with Lea Ypi

Modern political life is fraught with difficult choices: cosmopolitanism or statism? Liberalism or socialism? Where do these debates stand and can political theorists help us choose? In this episode of the Governance Podcast, Carmen Pavel (King’s College London) sits down with Lea Ypi (LSE) for a conversation about the fundamental role of politics and radical democracy in current affairs. Subscribe on iTunes and Spotify Subscribe to the Governance Podcast on iTunes and Spotify today and get all our latest episodes directly in your pocket. Follow Us For more information about our upcoming podcasts and events, follow us on facebook, twitter or instagram (@csgskcl). The Guest Lea Ypi is Professor in Political Theory in the Government Department, London School of Economics, and Adjunct Associate Professor in Philosophy at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. Before joining the LSE, she was a Post-doctoral Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College (Oxford) and a researcher at the European University Institute where she obtained her PhD. She has degrees in Philosophy and Literature from the University of Rome, La Sapienza, and has held visiting and research positions at Sciences Po, the University of Frankfurt, the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, the Australian National University and the Italian Institute for Historical Studies. Skip Ahead 0:49: Global issues have become more salient in both public political discourse but also in political theory. You’ve made an important contribution with your book, Global Justice and Avant-Garde Political Agency (OUP 2011). I’d like to start by asking you some questions about your argument. I’m interested particularly in your contribution to a conversation that sees the role of the state as being outdated by current political problems and the evolution of political interactions at the international level. There’s one strong argument in the global justice literature that argues that states are obsolete forms of political association, and they’re inadequate at solving the problems of global injustice we’re confronted with. You argue against this position and defend statist cosmopolitanism. 6:27: How does your position in practice differ from a cosmopolitan position? Ultimately, you say the goal is to realize these global egalitarian principles. 7:26: Would you say that being a statist cosmopolitan makes a difference in terms of the time it might take to realise cosmopolitan justice? Or would you rather say that without states we couldn’t even get to the point where we realise cosmopolitan justice? 9:22: And I think this kind of argument reflects your particular view of the right way of doing political theory…. So how is your account of statist cosmopolitanism related to your view about the role of political theory? 14:00: It seems that you have a view of the political theorist as an agent with a distinctive contribution to political evaluation, political criticism and political debate where on the one hand the political theorist can provide some general principles or end points for reform but at the same time engage with the question of, how do we get from where we are to the principles we want to realise? … In your book with Jonathan White called The Meaning of Partisanship (OUP 2016), you discuss the foundational role parties play and ought to continue to play in modern democratic life. Can you tell us why you think parties are so irreplaceable? 20:39: Do you think there are costs associated with organising our political life around parties? 23:39: I think you take this point about public engagement as a political theorist very seriously as well. In your more recent work you’ve become more interested in reaching a wider audience as a political theorist and so you write in the popular press about contemporary issues in the UK and Europe. And I’m really interested in what your experience with that has been like. What are you learning as a political theori