Scales of justice

by Nancy Fraser

"Until recently, struggles for justice proceeded against the background of a taken-for-granted frame: the bounded territorial state. With that "Westphalian" picture of political space assumed by default, the scope of justice was rarely subject to explicit dispute. Today, the scope of justice is hotly contested, as human-rights activists and international feminists join critics of structural adjustment and the WTO in targeting injustices that cut across borders. Seeking to remap the bounds of justice on a broader scale, these movements are challenging the view that justice can only be a domestic relation among fellow citizens. Under these conditions, there is no avoiding an issue that had once seemed to go without saying: What is the proper frame for theorizing justice? Faced with a plurality of competing scales, how do we know which scale of justice is truly just?" "Scales of Justice tackles this issue. Interrogating struggles over globalization, Nancy Fraser reconstructs the theory of