Project Details
Projekt
Needs within and across borders. Experimental investigations on the stability of transnational need-based distribution procedures
Subject Area
Political Science
Practical Philosophy
Practical Philosophy
Term
from 2014 to 2022
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 240285356
Political distribution decisions do not stop at national borders. Therefore, in recent years, scientific research on questions of justice has increasingly addressed questions of global justice, political ethics of migration, and fair development policy. Against this backdrop, we distinguish between three different scenarios: The national arena of distribution changes due to a higher level of immigration (1. immigration scenario), development policy transfers to countries with lower and middle-range incomes increase (2. transfer scenario), or the mode of production in a high-income country changes in a way that improves the conditions of the international division of labor in support of other countries (3. structural change scenario). Based on a combination of experimental research and theory building, subproject C1 analyses how stable the determination of needs and a need-based distribution are within these three scenarios. Using experiments that adapt the basic design from the first funding period, we study what consequences the reception of additional individuals into the distribution community, transfer payments to a third party, or a change in production mode in support of others (global redistribution) may have on the stability of distribution choices. We expect that the expansion of the social range leads to increased efforts to differentiate between needs, in the sense that these efforts will continue to grow starting from the immigration scenario, to the transfer scenario, through to the structural change scenario. In the theoretical part of the subproject, we examine whether the differentiation of need might be legitimized and stabilized through a distinction between the necessary (need) and the adequate (sufficiency). Taking up theories of sufficientarianism, we study the possible normative stabilization of need differentiation in transnational contexts.
DFG Programme
Research Units
