Soziale Gerechtigkeit und institutionelle Macht

This paper argues that liberal theories of justice cannot satisfactorily deal with institutional power. They set out to compare different institutional structures based on criteria which presume an institution-independent ontology of rights and goods. But as soon as it is acknowledged that many properties of goods and rights which are normatively relevant depend ontologically on the existence of particular institutions, and that such institutions necessarily involve specific structures of power, it can be argued that not judgments about rights, equality or welfare, but an assessment of the justice of power relations is the most important task for theories of social justice. The paper explores several strategies for providing such an assessment