DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Interests

Research Interest(s): Corruption and public property; political violence; democratic theory; collective agency; foundations of moral theory

Program Area(s): Comparative Politics

Shmuel Nili is Professor of political Science and (by courtesy) of Philosophy at Northwestern. His research in contemporary democratic theory draws on both fundamental moral theory and social science to illuminate extreme abuses of political power, ranging from grand corruption to wide-ranging political violence. These themes are central to Nili's first four books: The People’s Duty (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Integrity, Personal and Political (Oxford University Press, 2020), Philosophizing the Indefensible (Oxford University Press, 2023), and Beyond the law’s reach? (Oxford University Press, 2024). The same themes also dominate an ongoing book project, focused on the idea of “the unthinkable,” and its bearing on the contemporary crisis of liberal democracy. And these themes also run through most of Nili’s journal articles, including essays in Ethics, The American Political Science Review, The American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, The British Journal of Political Science, Social Philosophy and Policy, and Journal of Political Philosophy, among others.

Much of Nili’s work highlights applied and philosophical links between domestic and global injustice.  In particular, Nili’s early work focused on global corruption related to the "resource curse," and on philosophical questions that this "curse" raises about public property and democracy, as well as about the practical tasks of political philosophy. More recently, he has sought to connect his global theory arguments to domestic politics, paying special attention to morally fraught dynamics in various developing countries, in the United States, and in his native Israel.

Below you'll find a list of selected journal articles; for the complete list, and for book projects, please take a look at Nili's personal website.

Selected articles

• “Waving the banner of democracy”: democratic sanctions and three hypocrisy puzzles,” Social Philosophy & Policy (forthcoming)
• “Political leaders and the morality of political honors,” Ethics 130 (2020): 415-445
• “The idea of public property,” Ethics 129 (2019): 344–369
• “Global poverty, global sacrifices, and natural resource reforms,” International Theory 11 (2019): 48-80
• “Integrity, personal and political,” The Journal of Politics 80 (2018): 428-441
• “Injustice abroad, authority at home? Democracy, systemic effects, and global wrongs,” American Journal of Political Science 62 (2018): 72-83
• “The moving global Everest: a new challenge to global ideal theory as a necessary compass," European Journal of Political Theory 17 (2018): 87-108   
• “Democratic theory, the boundary problem, and global reform,” The Review of Politics 79 (2017): 99–123
• “Liberal integrity and foreign entanglement,” American Political Science Review 110 (2016): 148-159
• “Liberal global justice and social science,” Review of International Studies 42 (2016): 136-155
• “Dangerous Health? Nietzsche’s physiological discourse between Nuremberg and Jerusalem,” History of Political Thought 37 (2016): 728-760
• “Environmental reform, negative duties, and petrocrats: a strategic green energy argument,” The Journal of Politics 77 (2015): 914-927
• “Between domestic and global justice,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 12 (2015): 55-81
• "Rawlzickian global politics,” Journal of Political Philosophy 21 (2013): 473-495
• “Rigorist cosmopolitanism,” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 12 (2013): 260-287
• “Who’s afraid of a world state? A global sovereign and the statist-cosmopolitan debate,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 16 (2013): 1-23
• “Democratic disengagement: towards Rousseauian global reform,” International Theory 3 (2011): 355-389