Johan Karlsson Schaffer

• Karlsson Schaffer, Johan (2017). The point of the practice of human rights: international concern or domestic empowerment?, In Johan Karlsson Schaffer & Reidar Maliks (ed.),  Moral and Political Conceptions of Human Rights: Implications for Theory and Practice.  Cambridge University Press.  ISBN 9781107153974.  Chapter 2.  s 14 - 32
• Karlsson Schaffer, Johan & Maliks, Reidar (2017). Introduction: Expanding the debate on moral and political approaches to the philosophy of human rights, In Johan Karlsson Schaffer & Reidar Maliks (ed.),  Moral and Political Conceptions of Human Rights: Implications for Theory and Practice.  Cambridge University Press.  ISBN 9781107153974.  Introduction.  s 1 - 12
• Karlsson Schaffer, Johan (2015). Om urvalets problem: Att undervisa inom och utom den politiska teorins kanon. Statsvetenskaplig Tidsskrift.  ISSN 0039-0747.  117(3), s 93- 109 Fulltekst i vitenarkiv. Vis sammendrag

  As we teach political theory, we cannot escape the canon problem, since we must select a manageable set of key texts, thinkers and theories. However, what we select also shapes what we take political theory and the subject matter of politics to be. Against this backdrop, this paper surveys arguments for and against relying on an established Western canon of political thought. Teaching the canon can be justified in so far as it represents essential knowledge, provides outstanding resources for generating novel insights, and offers a common language for the discipline. However, expanding the established canon with alternative sources can also serve important functions, providing invaluable opportunities to reflect on the political. A diversified selection also reflects the pluralism inherent in both pedagogy and scientific inquiry. I conclude by suggesting three strategies for dealing with the canon problem in light of the inescapable choices it forces upon us as teachers of political theory.

• Karlsson Schaffer, Johan (2015). The co-originality of human rights and democracy in an international order. International Theory.  ISSN 1752-9719.  7(1), s 96- 124 . doi: 10.1017/S1752971914000426 Fulltekst i vitenarkiv. Vis sammendrag

  This paper analyses Jürgen Habermas’s claim that democracy and human rights are co-original and its implications for his international theory. A central argument in his theory, the co-originality thesis suggests that human rights and democracy are not only both fundamental and mutually supportive, but also ‘equi-primordial’ and internally related. Reconstructing Habermas’s argument as it has developed over two decades, I argue that his account of constitutional democracy has difficulties accounting for the enmeshment of constitutional and international human rights, while his three-tiered model of global governance, in the absence of democratic legitimation, amounts to a downgrade of the currently institutionalized practice of international human rights. Instead, I suggest that shifting the focus from ideal global institutions to actual processes of domestic contestation, through which groups appropriate and apply international legal norms in order to claim their rights, provides a plausible account of the practice of international human rights consistent with the co-originality thesis.

• Bucken-Knapp, Gregg; Karlsson Schaffer, Johan & Levin, Pia (2014). Comrades, push the red button! Prohibiting the purchase of sexual services in Sweden but not in Finland, In Samantha Majic & Carisa Showden (ed.),  Negotiating Sex Work: Unintended Consequences of Policy and Activism.  University of Minnesota Press.  ISBN 9780816689583.  Kapittel 9.  s 195 - 217 Vis sammendrag

  For scholars of sex work, Sweden’s decision to criminalize the purchase, albeit not the sale, of sexual services in 1999 represents a legislative development that has been the subject of considerable analysis. However, scholars have directed comparatively less effort towards analyzing similar reform processes in neighboring Nordic countries, where prostitution policy reform has also been a subject of great public debate in recent years. Alongside the Swedish experience, Finland’s 2006 revision of its prostitution policies stands out as particularly intriguing. On the face of it, the Finnish reform represented an expanded use of criminalization as a policy tool, with the ban on purchasing sex from trafficked individuals joining existing legislation prohibiting buying or selling sexual services in public places. Yet, what makes the Finnish case analytically tantalizing is that Finnish legislators rejected the Swedish prostitution model. Such an outcome was far from a given, particularly given strong support for CPSS among Finnish policymakers in the early 2000s. Against this backdrop, this chapter examines the paths leading to divergent prostitution policy reform in Sweden and Finland in the 1990s and 2000s. Why did Sweden wind up with a CPSS ban, but not Finland? In keeping with the ideational literature in comparative politics, we focus attention on both the ideas that were relevant in each setting, and the extent to which actors were able to draw upon these ideas in pushing for policy reform, or the extent to which competing ideas blocked legislative success. Our argument is as follows: In the case of Sweden, feminist actors across the political spectrum who supported the ban successfully deployed gender equality ideas as well as causal stories characterizing female prostitutes as having abusive life histories in a number of crucial settings, including party congresses, parliamentary debates, official documents, and statements to the press. Pro-ban actors benefited from the degree to which gender equality ideas were more broadly embedded in Swedish political institutions by the early and mid-1990s, the result of long-term efforts by Swedish feminists. No such pervasive discourse involving gender equality ideas existed in Finnish society or its political institutions. While some feminists there pushed for CPSS from the 1990s onwards, they were confronted with interest groups, epistemic actors and policymakers who successfully mobilized ideas concerning the rights of individuals to make decisions regarding their own body and sphere of economic activity without state interference. Of equal importance, the Finnish reform process took place against the backdrop of specific concerns that trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes to Finland was growing rapidly and required a firm policy response. As such, the legislative outcome became centered on the need to ensure Finnish compliance with the 2000 UN Palermo Protocol on trafficking in human beings.

• Karlsson Schaffer, Johan (2014). Legitimacy, global governance and human rights institutions : inverting the puzzle, In Andreas Føllesdal; Johan Karlsson Schaffer & Geir Ulfstein (ed.),  The Legitimacy of international human rights regimes : legal, political and philosophical perspectives.  Cambridge University Press.  ISBN 978-1-107-03460-0.  Kapittel 8.  s 212 - 242 Fulltekst i vitenarkiv. Vis sammendrag

  In this chapter, I draw on recent scholarship on the alleged legitimacy deficits in global governance institutions, seeking to engage the notions of legitimacy this literature suggests with the intriguing case of international human rights institutions. First, I reconstruct how this literature views the problem of legitimacy in global governance, a view that relies on a particular notion of international institutions which both explains and justifies global governance institutions in terms of the collective goods they help states obtain. The puzzle of legitimacy, on this view, lies in offering citizens valid reasons to obey, support or abstain from interfering with global governance institutions – reasons that include certain procedural, epistemic and substantive elements, which together comprise a complex, hybrid standard of legitimacy. Second, I explore to what extent this view of legitimacy problems in global governance institutions can be applied for analyzing corresponding legitimacy problems in international human rights institutions. Drawing on recent liberal international scholarship, I discuss the ways in which international human rights institutions constitute a different kind of political entity than typical global governance institutions. Uniquely, international human rights institutions do not help states obtain any joint benefits, but regulate the internal relation between a government and individuals under its jurisdiction, and, to the extent that they are effective, chiefly rely on domestic mechanisms of enforcement. This crucial difference between the two kinds of international institutions, in turn, changes the legitimacy puzzle involved. In the human rights area, the problem of legitimacy rarely entails offering citizens reasons why they should accept to bear the costs of international cooperation in light of the benefits it provides for states. Rather, the issue is why governments should accept their obligations under international human rights law, in light of the benefits human rights treaties provide for citizens. In the third section, I draw out the implications of this analysis for finding such reasons. While the complex, hybrid standards of legitimacy suggested for global governance institutions seem difficult to transpose to international human rights institutions, the discarded notion of state consent provides an essential component of legitimacy for the human rights area. Finally, I discuss whether the notion of international institutions discussed in the chapter may have implications beyond the human rights area.

• Karlsson Schaffer, Johan & Friberg-Fernros, Henrik (2014). The consensus paradox: does deliberative agreement impede rational discourse?. Political Studies.  ISSN 0032-3217.  62(S1), s 99- 116 . doi: 10.1111/1467-9248.12103 Fulltekst i vitenarkiv. Vis sammendrag

  This paper explores a tension in deliberative democratic theory. The tension consists in that deliberative opinion-formation ideally aims to reach consensus, while a consensus, once established, will likely impede the conditions for further rational public discourse. Hence, over time, deliberative democracy might risk undermining itself. While the tension is demonstrable in theory, we also suggest three cognitive and socio-psychological mechanisms by which consensus might hamper the rationality of public discourse: after an agreement, participants cease to develop new arguments, they tend to forget existing arguments, and their fear of deviating from the social norm promotes conformism. Existing research has largely neglected to study how consensus in decision-making affects future public deliberation. Our paper thus serves three purposes: To elaborate the consensus paradox in deliberative democratic theory, to open up a research agenda for examining the paradox empirically, and to assess the theoretical implications of the paradox.

Se alle arbeider i Cristin

• Karlsson Schaffer, Johan & Maliks, Reidar (ed.) (2017). Moral and Political Conceptions of Human Rights: Implications for Theory and Practice. Cambridge University Press.  ISBN 9781107153974.  314 s.
• Føllesdal, Andreas; Karlsson Schaffer, Johan & Ulfstein, Geir (ed.) (2014). The Legitimacy of international human rights regimes : legal, political and philosophical perspectives. Cambridge University Press.  ISBN 978-1-107-03460-0.  309 s.

Se alle arbeider i Cristin

• Karlsson Schaffer, Johan; Erlingsson, Gissur Ó; Brommesson, Douglas & Ödalen, Jörgen (2016). Att möta den högre utbildningens utmaningar. IFAU:s rapportserie. 4. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv.

Se alle arbeider i Cristin