The All-Affected Principle: Does it Create a Right to Vote?

Paper Presented at the University of Toronto Political Science Undergraduate Research Conference 2017 organized by the Association of Political Science Students on March 8, 2017 at the Hart House Music Room. Submitted to T-Space on May 12, 2017.In recent decades, globalization has changed the political landscape of the world significantly. The effects of the actions of governments and multinational corporations extend across a number of countries and, sometimes, even continents. This poses the following moral problem for political theorists: how can the exclusion of affected parties from decision - making processes that have significant control over their destinies be rendered just? Some theorists have used the All-Affected Principle – which dictates that the exercise of power is just if it is democratically authorized by all those who would be affected -- to argue that a solution to this problem may lie in the expansion of current democratic regimes to include affected foreigners. In this essay, I analyze arguments that stem from the All-Affected Interests Principle (AAP) and problematize the boundaries of membership of existing political entities. This essay has two major sections. The first section defines the scope of what the AAP can prescribe and lays down the architecture in which the substantive argument of the second section can be developed. The second section evaluates different arguments for ‘an unbounded demos.’ The main argument of this essay is that that the AAP itself does not create a right to democratic participation for those affected; however, the AAP may still entitle one to democratic participation, insofar as we presuppose that “giving a vote” is the best of way justifying the exercise of power by a political entity.Professor Rodney Haddow, Undergraduate Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Toront