Wendy Salkin, "You Say I Want a Revolution," Monist 107, no. 1 (2024): 39–56, https://doi.org/10.1093/monist/onad029
Wendy Salkin, “Speaking for Others from the Bench," Legal Theory 29, no. 2 (2023): 151–184, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352325223000083
Wendy Salkin, “Democracy Within, Justice Without: The Duties of Informal Political Representatives,” Noûs 56, no. 4 (2022): 940–971, https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12391
Wendy Salkin, “The Conscription of Informal Political Representatives,” Journal of Political Philosophy 29, no. 4 (2021): 429–455, https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12246
Wendy Salkin, “Judicial Representation,” in Disability, Health, Law, and Bioethics, eds. I. Glenn Cohen, Carmel Shachar, Anita Silvers, and Michael Ashley Stein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 211–220, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108622851.023.
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- Abstract: An underexamined insight of W. E. B. Du Bois’s John Brown is that John Brown worked for much of his life to cultivate democratic relationships with the Black Americans with and for whom he worked. Brown did so through practicing deference and deliberation, and by seeking authorization. However, Brown’s commitment to these practices faltered at a crucial moment in decisionmaking: when he raided Harpers Ferry absent widespread support. Examining this aspect of John Brown brings into relief an overlooked tragic choice Brown made: To act in accordance with his own substantive vision of what justice required, Brown eschewed democratic ideals and practices that grounded the distinctive relations of equality he had cultivated with the Black communities with and for whom he worked.
Wendy Salkin, “Speaking for Others from the Bench," Legal Theory 29, no. 2 (2023): 151–184, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352325223000083
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- Abstract: In this article, I introduce and examine the novel concept of bench representation. Jurists and scholars have extensively examined whether judges are or ought to be considered symbolic representatives of abstract concepts (for instance, the law, equality, or justice), representatives of society as a whole, or descriptive representatives of the social groups from which they hail. However, little attention has been paid to the question whether judges act as representatives for the parties before them through their everyday work on the bench. This article examines that question. Bench representation occurs when a judge, through statements or actions undertaken during the performance of official duties, speaks or acts for a party to the proceeding before them. I argue that serving as a bench representative is a common and valuable feature of what it is to be a judge and, despite appearances, usually undermines neither impartiality nor fairness.
Wendy Salkin, “Democracy Within, Justice Without: The Duties of Informal Political Representatives,” Noûs 56, no. 4 (2022): 940–971, https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12391
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- Abstract: Informal political representation can be a political lifeline, particularly for oppressed and marginalized groups. Such representation can give these groups some say, however mediate, partial, and imperfect, in how things go for them. Coeval with the political goods such representation offers these groups are its particular dangers for them. Mindful of these dangers, skeptics challenge the practice for being, inter alia, unaccountable, unauthorized, inegalitarian, and oppressive. These challenges provide strong pro tanto reasons to think the practice morally impermissible. This paper considers the question: On what conditions is the informal political representation of oppressed and marginalized groups permissible? By responding to skeptics’ challenges, I develop a systematic account of moral constraints that, if adopted, would make such representation permissible. The account that emerges shows that informal political representatives (IPRs) must aim to fulfill two sets of sometimes conflicting duties to the represented: democracy within duties, which concern how the representative treats and relates to the represented, and justice without duties, which concern how the representative’s actions advance the aims of the representation.
Wendy Salkin, “The Conscription of Informal Political Representatives,” Journal of Political Philosophy 29, no. 4 (2021): 429–455, https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12246
- PDF for personal and non-commercial use here.
- Abstract: Informal political representation—the phenomenon of speaking or acting on behalf of others although one has not been elected or selected to do so by means of a systematized election or selection procedure—plays a crucial role in advancing the interests of groups. Sometimes, those who emerge as informal political representatives (IPRs) do so willingly (voluntary representatives). But, often, people end up being IPRs, either in their private lives or in more public political forums, over their own protests (unwilling representatives) or even without their knowledge (unwitting representatives)—that is, they are conscripted. None of the few theories of informal political representation extant accommodate conscripted IPRs. The account detailed here introduces the phenomenon of conscripted informal political representation and explains its place in a complete theory of informal political representation. Conscripted IPRs can, like their voluntary counterparts, come to have significant power to influence how various audiences regard those for whom the conscripted IPRs speak or act. Upon attaining such power to influence, conscripted IPRs, like their voluntary counterparts, come to have pro tanto duties to those they represent—duties that arise despite IPRs’ unwittingness or unwillingness. Understanding the phenomenon of conscripted informal political representation allows us to surface essential normative questions about informal political representation that are otherwise occluded.
Wendy Salkin, “Judicial Representation,” in Disability, Health, Law, and Bioethics, eds. I. Glenn Cohen, Carmel Shachar, Anita Silvers, and Michael Ashley Stein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 211–220, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108622851.023.
- PDF for personal and non-commercial use here.
- Abstract: Because we have long clung to our traditional notions of political representation, many types of political representation, though ubiquitous and consequential, remain woefully undertheorized. This essay sets out the beginnings of a theory for one such phenomenon: judicial representation. Judicial representation occurs when, by virtue of what a judge says from the bench (for instance, in an opinion or during oral argument), they come to speak or act on behalf of the members of a group whose interests are at stake in a case. I develop an account of this phenomenon by examining Justice Marshall's representation of the severely intellectually disabled in his partial dissent in Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center.