The Analytical Justice Framework: a comparative political theory methodology

Political theory guides how political actors view the world – and especially what they believe is needed to make it a better place. However, in practice, political actors rarely strictly apply a single school of political theory in their work. Instead, they are influenced by different theories on different topics and in different contexts. Often, these theories will interact and overlap, resulting in a unique political worldview. To understand the relationship between political theory and practice, we need a robust methodology to identify the theoretical concepts that are constructing the actions of a policy actor. This paper outlines an analytical justice framework based on a new methodology we have developed to support research into the justice articulations of difficult-to-access political actors using comparative political theory. Our framework is built around a core tenet within every political theory: a systematic understanding of justice. It incorporates the six most influential Western schools of political theory (libertarianism, utilitarianism, cosmopolitanism, the capabilities approach, critical perspectives, and conservatism), although it can be extended beyond these six. We identify eight aspects of justice that each theory must address to justify its political program (subject, substance, principles, objective, geographical scale, temporal scale, cause of injustice and transformative justice). We consider how each school of political theory would conceptualise these aspects of justice to develop an indicative coding matrix. The matrix consists of a set of discursive codes that indicate that a policy actor’s thinking is consistent with a particular theory of justice. This matrix can then be used to support discourse analysis aimed at understandings a policy actor’s actions through a political theory lens. Our paper then uses an illustrative case of philanthropic foundations to demonstrate the use of the framework. Philanthropic foundations are influential actors in the field of sustainable development. However, the justice motivations of their leaders and employees are difficult to understand. Foundations are often secretive and are not subject to meaningful accountability mechanisms. As a result, we can see their impact on the world but not why they choose to direct their resources towards those actions. Foundations are often criticized for supporting an individualistic and economically centred approach to development policy based on libertarian or utilitarian ideas around justice. To test this claim, we used our framework to analyse the public-facing documents of 41 foundations from nine countries to identify their justice framing. We determined that, although many foundations centred their work around individuals and economic considerations (predominantly in cosmopolitan justice terms), the story was more complex. We found that many foundations are influenced by several schools of justice political theory – suggesting that there are competing ideological subcultures within these institutions. Critical justice perspectives are becoming an increasingly powerful force in the thinking of foundations – although this has not been fully operationalised through their programs. This case study demonstrates that our framework is a powerful tool for political scientist seeking to understand the political motivations of policy actors and the role that political theory plays in their actions.