Just Responsibility

It has been well-established that many of the injustices that people around the world experience every day, from food insecurity to unsafe labor conditions and natural disasters, are the result of wide-scale structural problems of politics and economics. These are not merely random personal problems or consequences of bad luck or bad planning. Confronted by this fact, it is natural to ask what should or can we do to mitigate everyday injustices? In one sense, we answer this question when we buy the local homeless street newspaper, decide where to buy our clothes, remember our reusable bags when we shop, donate to disaster relief, or send letters to corporations about labor rights. But given the global scale of injustices related to poverty, environmental change, gender, and labor, can these individual acts really impact the seemingly intractable global social, political, and economic structures that perpetuate and exacerbate them? Moreover, can we respond to injustices in the world in ways that do more than just address their consequences?

In this book, Brooke A. Ackerly both answers the question of what should we do, and shows that it's the wrong question to ask. To ask the right question, we need to ground our normative theory of global justice in the lived experience of injustice. Using a feminist critical methodology, she argues that what to do about injustice is not just an ethical or moral question, but a political question about assuming responsibility for injustice, regardless of our causal responsibility and extent of our knowledge of the injustice. Furthermore, it is a matter that needs to be guided by principles of human rights. As she argues, while many understand human rights as political goals or entitlements, they can also guide political strategy. Her aims are twofold: to present a theory of what it means to take responsibility for injustice and for ensuring human rights, as well as to develop a guide for how to take responsibility in ways that support local and global movements for transformative politics. In order to illustrate her theory and guide for action, Ackerly draws on fieldwork on the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013, the food crisis of 2008, and strategies from 125 activist organizations working on women's and labor rights across 26 countries. Just Responsibility integrates these ways of taking political responsibility into a rich theory of political community, accountability, and leadership in which taking responsibility for injustice itself transforms the fabric of political life.


Ackerly locates the starting point for global justice in the everyday experience of those suffering injustice and their struggle against injustice. She sets out several reasons for this, the most important of which is understanding, and acting to correct, injustice is a difficult task always done under conditions of incomplete and imperfect information; as a consequence, to accurately know or combat injustice the experience of those suffering injustice should have a privileged position in relation to abstract theorising. Given injustice is encountered in the actual world of everyday experience, we require a theory of global justice connected to the everyday. -- Joe Hoover, Queen Mary University of London, UK

[T]he main contributions of Just Responsibility are the methodology that Ackerly articulates and illustrates; the practical nature of her conclusions; and her distillation of the construction and maintenance of social epistemologies. -- Karie Cross Riddle, Calvin College, The Review of Politics

Brooke Ackerly is a political theorist who knows how to make questions of global accountability come alive. I can already hear the lively classroom discussions.
--Cynthia Enloe, author of The Big Push

Just Responsibility offers grounded, insightful theory on global injustice and political responsibility that can be immensely helpful in shaping grant strategy. Ackerly provides a guide for those in philanthropy and far beyond to transform political community together.
--Michael Hirschhorn, Former Executive Director, Human Rights Funders Network

Combining insights and methods from feminist theory and the international human rights literature, and elegantly argued with concrete illustrations drawn from her extensive field work in Bangladesh, Ackerly's book demonstrates 'practical political theory' at its best.
--Nancy J. Hirschmann, Professor of Political Science, The University of Pennsylvania

A scholarly but accessible book, Just Responsibility will appeal to both academics and activists looking for a theory of human rights that offers transformational possibilities.
--J. Ann Tickner, Distinguished Scholar in Residence, American University

In a time where injustice and evil seem to be overwhelming justice and the forces of good, Brooke Ackerly provides a powerful and inspiring argument for how individuals can take responsibility for vast global injustices and take action to improve the world. Combining insights and methods from feminist theory and the international human rights literature, and elegantly argued with concrete illustrations drawn from her extensive field work in Bangladesh, Ackerly's book demonstrates 'practical political theory' at its best.
--Nancy J. Hirschmann, Professor of Political Science, The University of Pennsylvania

For human rights grantmakers, human rights are more than just aspirational; they undergird the very way we do our work. Brooke Ackerly's Just Responsibility offers grounded, insightful theory on global injustice and political responsibility that can be immensely helpful in shaping grant strategy. Ackerly provides a guide for those in philanthropy and far beyond to transform political community together.
--Michael Hirschhorn, Former Executive Director, Human Rights Funders Network