Research
My main areas of research lie in contemporary political theory, in particular justice and equality, and the relationship between social and global justice; in applied political theory, especially justice and the welfare state; and in moral psychology, where I am especially interested in philosophical and psychological research on self-respect.
I am currently writing a book manuscript provisionally entitled "Justice and Egalitarian Relations", which is partly based on my doctoral research, and partly explores wholly new ground.
The manuscript is divided into two parts: the first part develops a relational egalitarian conception of social justice, according to which justice requires first and foremost equal and adequate institutional protection against inegalitarian relationships, such as domination, and inegalitarian norms of social status. The second part explores the implications of this conception for the issues of (in)equality in distributions, the set-up of welfare state institutions, and public health, and uses these as test cases for the viability and plausibility of the conception.
I have also started a new research project on the status and importance of institutions for political theory. Part of this project are papers on the responsibility of individuals for actions of political institutions, and on the implications of taking democracy seriously as a necessarily institutional ideal for the burgeoning literature on global forms of democracy.