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Nancy Fraser, Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World (New York: Columbia University Press: 2009), x + 224 pp.
Nancy Fraser' s Scales of Justices seeks to update critical social theory for today's changed historical context - rapid globalization, the declining importance of the sovereign nation-state, and the rise of new transnational social movements - by providing an outline of the conceptual and empirical resources required for a thoroughly democratic theory of social justice. Combining seven previously published pieces with an introductory chapter and another unpublished piece, the book provides a perspicuous overview of the significant changes and developments in Fraser' s recent thinking. The six chapters that comprise the heart of Fraser' s theory of justice in a globalizing world will be the main focus of this review. Three other chapters probe the relevance of intellectual currents from the second half of the twentieth century to contemporary sociopolitical realities: namely, second-wave feminism, Arendt's diagnosis of totalitarianism, and Foucault's genealogies of the disciplinary society. Although these three chapters present fascinating case studies and illuminate important areas for further research (particularly the Foucault chapter), they do not carry forward the main lines of Fraser's own theory.
Fraser locates her work squarely as a critical social theory, that is, as an interdisciplinary social theory with emancipatory intent. For her, such a theory must find its material immanently in the present social world: it must have an accurate empirical account of present progressive potentials and obstacles, it must articulate normative standards at least inchoately immanent in contemporary social movements and forms of sociopolitical claims-making, and, it must provide a diagnostically insightful clarification of the current nexus in such a way that it provides theoretical clarification to those engaged in the struggles and wishes of the age. The previous version of her theory famously articulated a two-dimensional concept of social struggles for increased justice: one concerned with economic mechanisms that unfairly distribute the benefits and burdens of social cooperation (the "redistribution" axis), and another concerned with social status hierarchies that fail to equally respect all social members (the "recognition" axis). As is well known, Fraser's claim was that both axes of injustice were analytically distinct, since caused by different types of social institutions and undergirding different...