Political Responsibility for Genocide

Political Theory Seminar with guest speaker Maeve McKeown, University of Groningen.

Iris Marion Young argued that ordinary individuals bear political responsibility for the “ordinary injustice” that is built into our social, economic and political systems. But Young took the concept of political responsibility from Hannah Arendt, who used it to conceptualise ordinary Germans’ responsibility for the Holocaust. In our own genocidal times, this paper questions whether political responsibility is enough to characterize the relationship of ordinary individuals’ responsibilities to racist genocidal structures or whether a more stringent moral responsibility is required. If political responsibility is apt, what does it require?

For further information about the Political Theory Seminars and to receive the paper in advance, please contact Christian Rostbøll,