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Welcome to my teaching page. As of 1 July 2023, I will be an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department, Latin American, Iberian, and Latinx Studies, and the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship at Haverford College, which is one of the four members of the Quaker Consortium, and also a member of the Tri-College Consortium.
My research examines the structure of injustices in global, comparative, and historical perspective; and the relationships among moral principles and political and economic theories. Some of it is published in European Journal of Political Theory, The Philosophical Forum, Public Affairs Quarterly, Ethics & the Environment, and Nexos. My book, Unfreedom for All: How the World's Injustices Harm You, examined the empirical and normative structures of injustices and abolition movements.
I teach using comparative political thought. This studies political ideas, institutions, and movements through trans-local lenses. So it studies the same idea--say, social equality--as held in two different locales, or by two different movements. What does social equality mean when held by a migrant community in a city in the Global North? Compared to when held by sharecroppers on a plantation? What does it mean when held by Black conservatism? Or by Chinese liberalism? It also what happens when institutions are exchanged. What happens to a political practice when it's taken up in a different locale? And what difference does it make to think of different senders and receivers? For example, take multiculturalism. What happens when, instead of thinking of that as founded in Canada in 1971 by Pierre-Eliot Trudeau, we think of it as founded in 1940 in Mexico by Mexican and US intellectuals? Or in Istanbul by the Ottoman Emperor Mehmet II in 1453?
For student comments on my teaching, see here. Students whom I have advised and written letters for have won full-time jobs, admissions, and scholarship grants from Capital One Strategy Group, Columbia Law School, Columbia SIPA (MIA), Cornell Law School, Duke Law School, Georgetown Law School, Georgetown Walsh School (MA Security Studies), Harvard Business School, Harvard Grad School of Education (Ed. Policy), Harvard Kennedy School, LUISS Guido Carli University Politics (Ph.D.), Michigan Law School, National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Northeastern Univ Law School, NYU Law School, NYU Politics (Ph.D.), Princeton Economics (Ph.D.), Redstone Strategy Group, Stanford Economics (Ph.D.), Summer Research Training Program for Mellon-Mays Fellows at the University of Chicago, Swirl, U. C. Berkeley Economics (Ph.D.), U. C. Davis Sociology (Ph.D), UCLA Law School, UPenn Law School, and University of Chicago Law School, among others.
You can contact me at: tjdonahu AT gmail DOT com or tjdonahue AT haverford DOT edu. A PDF of my CV is here.
I am often asked what political theory is. One way to answer that is to list some examples of the questions political theorists characteristically ask, and of the concepts and arguments they characteristically use and examine. Below is such a list.
Giotto, Injustice
(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
Why Government?
Why Government?
Boardman Robinson, The Deserter (1916)
Studio of Sebastian Vrancx, A Landscape with Travellers Ambushed Outside a Small Town (early 17th C)
(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
What Is Common to Both The Politics of Statesmen...
(Wikimedia Commons)
...And The Politics of the Streets?
Thabo Mbeki, Nelson Mandela, and F. W. de Klerk
Photo by Alexander Joe, AFP/Getty Images, via L. A. Times (fair use)
Ilya Repin, 17 October 1905
(Wikimedia Commons)
When Is Popular Government Desirable?
What Counts as Despotic Government by the Few?
An Open Cabildo (Town Meeting) during Argentine Independence
(Pedro Subercaseaux, The Open Cabildo of 22 May 1810; 1910; Wikimedia Commons)
What Special Values Are Achieved by Representative Government? What Are the Proper Scope and Limits of Such Government?
Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain (center) meets Benito Mussolini of Italy (right)
What Counts as Despotic Government by the Many?
Representatives of the French Third Estate Take the Tennis Court Oath, 20 June 1789
(after Jacques-Louis David, 1791; Wikimedia Commons)
When Is Revolution Justified?
Lynching of an African-American man, Waco, Texas, 1916
What Is the Source of Legal Authority?
The United States Supreme Court, October 2009 Term
(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
The Sons of Liberty Pulling Down the Statue of King George III, July 9 1776
(by Johannes Adam Simon Oertel, ca. 1859; Wikimedia Commons)
What are the Scope and Limits of Political Authority?
What Justifies Political and Legal Authority?
Bnito Juarez of Mexico
(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
What Should be the Relation between Political and Moral Authority?
Maryland Transit Police
(Wikimedia Commons)
When Should We Resist Authority?
They are Anonymous. They are legion.
(From Dazed Digital's history of the Anonymous Mask; fair use)
Lyndon Baines Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr.
(Wikimedia Commons)
When Are We Obligated to Obey Government?
When Is Civil Disobedience Justified?
Baron Low, Everyone should do his bit: Enlist Now, Parliamentary Recruiting Committee poster No 121 (fair use)
Is Legitimacy What Keeps Government from Being...
Protesters Breaking the Traffic Laws, New York City, 2004
(Wikimedia Commons)
How Should--and Shouldn't--Majorities Treat Minority Groups? Why?
?
When is government legitimate? Like organized crime, government coerces
and
relies on coercive extraction of revenues. So what distinguishes it
from organized crime?
(Creator unknown; fair use)
Marian Anderson singing an impromptu concert on the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial Building after the Daughters of the American Revolution
refused to let her sing to a racially integrated concert hall, 1939
(Flickr; fair use)
What Special Values Does Aristocracy Achieve? Which Values Does It Characteristically Fail to Achieve?
Wilhelm Gause, Court Ball at the Hofburg (1900)
(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
When Are The Haves Justified in Having What They Have?
James Tissot, La Partie carree (1870)
(Wikimedia Commons)
When Are the Have-Nots Justified in Demanding More? What more may they demand? Of whom?
Hubert von Herkomer, On Strike (1891)
(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
What Counts as Oppression? What to do about it?
Emil Flohri, Stop Your Cruel Oppression of the Jews (1904)
(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
When Should We Lay Down Arms and Settle? Which settlements should be kept, and which may be broken?
What Is the Relationship between Churches and States? What Should It Be?
What General and Special Duties Do We Have?
Alberto Beltran, Separacion de la Iglesia con el Estado (1975)
(educacion.michoacan.gob.mx; fair use)
Deber (Duty) (Statue in La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires; own photo)
Is Society Fundamentally a Collection of Associations?
Denijs van Alsloot, Ommegang in Brussels, 31 May 1615 (1616; Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge))
Is Society Fundamentally a Collection of Ethnic or Kin Groups?
Is Society Fundamentally a Collection of Individuals?
Gathering of (Representatives of) Scottish Clans, Northwestern United States, 2005
(Wikimedia Commons)
Detail of the Frontispiece to Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan: Or, the Manner, Forme and
Power of a Common wealth, Ecclesiastical and Civill (1651; fair use)
What Special Values Does a Society Seek to Achieve By Devoting Itself to Rapid Economic Growth? Under What Conditions Should We Pursue Such Growth?
What Should Be the Goal of Economic and Social Development? National Power and Prosperity, or Freedom for All the Citizens?
(Elgin County Archives; Flickr; fair use)
(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
(Flickr; fair use)
What Special Values Do Gender Norms Seek to Realize? What Attitude Should We Take toward Those Values?
How Conservatives See Themselves: Conservers of The Valuable Social Arrangements We Now Have
Cross-dressing performance of Irving Berlin's "This Is the Army, Mr. Jones," New York, 1942
(Wikimedia Commons)
(Wikimedia Commons)
Political Responsibility
Political Responsibility
Aftermath of the Fire Bombing of Dresden Ordered by Churchill, 1945
(Wikimedia Commons)
What Special Values Does Authoritarian Rule Seek to Achieve?
What Special Values Does Totalitarianism--Total Rule of All Activities in Society--
Seek to Achieve?
(GraffitiWatcher; fair use)
What Special Values Are Achieved by Having Monarchs as Heads of State?
Magnus Zeller, The Total State (1938)
(Weimar Art blog; fair use)
What Special Values Are Achieved by Having a Commoner as Head of State?
King George Tupou V of Tonga and the Governor-General of New Zealand, 2011
(Office of Governor-General of New Zealand; fair use)
Terry McAuliffe, Governor of Virginia, 2014
(Patrick Semansky, AP/ Standard-Times; fair use)
Post-war Military Occupation as the New Authority in Town
Post-war Military Occupation as Bearer of Peace and Justice
(US Army Recruiting Poster collection, from the CECOM Historical Office archive, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD; fair use )
(M.P. Pfc. Louis Leindecker of the American Division of Pittsburgh,
directing traffic in Hachioj, Japan with the aid of Japanese police.
(September 15, 1945); army.mil; fair use )
What Special Values Do Societies Seek to Achieve by Instituting the Form of Collective Executive Power We Call Cabinet Government?
What Special Values Do Societies Seek to Achieve by Instituting the Form of One-Person Executive Power We Call Presidency?
The Cabinet of Japan, 2014
(Philippine Star; click to enlarge; fair use)
When Do We Owe Allegiance to the Republic?
President Barack Obama and Advisors in the Oval Office, 2009
(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
When Do We Owe Allegiance to the State?
U. S. Schoolchildren Pledging Allegiance to the Flag and the Republic with the now-discontinued Bellamy Salute, 1941
(Wikimedia Commons)
Some Promises of the Capitalist State:
National Prosperity, Power, and Prestige
German Schoolchildren Pledge Allegiance to the Third Reich, 1934
(Wikimedia Commons)
Some Perils of the Capitalist State:
Domination and Exploitation
(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
What Distinguishes Authoritarian Nationalism from Fascism?
)
(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
What Powers Should We Give to the Police? What Tools Should We Provide Them With?
Officers of the Marion County (Oregon) Sheriff's Office, 2009
(Wikimedia Commons)
May Civilians Ever Be Held Liable For What Is Done by Their Armies? What Role Do Race, Xenophobia, and Collective Emotion Play in Such Judgments?
What Counts as Racial Injustice?
U. S. Government Propaganda Poster after News of the Bataan Death March Became Public
(Wikimedia Commons)
Can War Be Restrained by Ethics? What Moral Principles Should Govern War? What Counts as Flagrant Violations of Those Principles? Are Some Wars So Just That the Just Side Can Do Whatever It Deems Necessary?
Margaret Bourke-White, At the Time of the Louisville Flood, 1937
(Fair use; click to enlarge)
How Should We Balance the Liberties of Individuals against the Dangers of Pandemics?
Hiroshima Immediately After the U. S. air force dropped the atomic bomb, August 1945. Photo signed by the bomber pilot, Paul Tibbetts
(Wikimedia Commons)
What Special Values Are Sought by Those Conventions We Call Traditions?
When Should Traditions Have Authority For Us?
Quarantine of a Village whose Inhabitants Believe that Doctors Are Poisoning Cholera Victims
(Wikimedia Commons)
What Special Values Are Sought by Those Conventions We Call Fashions?
When Should Fashions Have Authority For Us?
Royal Enclosure, Royal Ascot. 2017 will be its 307th annual running.
(The Australian; fair use)
Some Aims of the Interventionist Welfare State, as Seen by Its Supporters
Recent Street Scene, Manhattan (Wikimedia Commons)
What Should We Do about Class Conflict? Is There a Class War?
Albert Beveridge and the Welfare State Challenge the Five Great Evils That Beveridge's Welfare Program Aimed to Abolish
(Fabians.org.uk; fair use)
What Are the Main Goals and Commitments of Socialism? Solidarity, Social Ownership, or Something Else?
What Are the Boundaries between Politics and the Private? What Should They Be?
Occupy Oakland General Strike, 2 November 2011
(Wikimedia Commons)
A Peril of Social-Ownership Government, as Seen by Its Detractors
Reeve and Serfs, from an English psalter, ca. 1310
(Wikimedia Commons)
Is Slavery Abolished? What Should We Do about Slavery Today?
(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
(Thumbsforhire.co.uk; fair use)
Which, If Either, Is Worse: Subordination within the Community of Moral Persons, or Exclusion from the Community of Moral Persons? Why?
Who Is Unfree under Systematic Injustice? Only the Victims? Who Is Liberated when Oppression Ends?
Aaron Douglas, The Spirit Rising (Harriet Tubman Mural at Bennett College, 1930-1)
(xroads.virginia.edu; fair use)
Subordination: The Hobble Skirt, 1911 (Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
Exclusion: Memorial to Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike, 1968 (Wikimedia Commons)
Is the State Always A Vehicle for Domination by a Particular Social Group of All Other Groups? Or Is It Possible to Have a State without Such Domination?
Thomas Nast, The Union as It Was (1874)
(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)
Democracy Is Rule by the People:
But Who or What Is the People?
The Masses?
The Ruling Class in the Capitalist State?
Crowd in Dhaka (Wikimedia Commons)
The Non-elite Majority--the Common People?
Representatives of the Ruling Class in the Communist State?
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, during the Party Congress, December 1927
(Wikimedia Commons)
Giuseppe Pelizza de Volpedo, The Fourth Estate (1901; Wikimedia Commons, click to enlarge)
The Nation?
(Wikimedia Commons, click to enlarge)
The Citizenry?
Representatives of the Ruling Class in the Theocratic State?
Shia clerics Ali Khamenei, current Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the late Hussein-Ali Montazeri, sometime Deputy Supreme Leader
(Wikimedia Commons)
What Special Values Does National Self-Determination Seek to Achieve?
Who Counts as a Nation, and Why?
Town Meeting, American Samoa (Wikimedia Commons)
The Majority?
(Wikimedia Commons)
How Powerful Are Ideas--For Good or Ill?
Do Vested Interests Win in the Short Run, and Ideas in the Long Run?
Baldessari Venazzi, Episode from the Five Days of Milan (1848; Wikimedia Commons, click to enlarge)
Bruno Bruschi, after Jacek Yerka, Bible Dam
(2013; click to enlarge)
(The Foundry.co.uk; fair use)
Do Our Vested Interests Drive Us to All of Our Political Ideas?
(Wikimedia Commons)
What Gives a Political Community a Right to a Particular Territory with a Particular Extent?
The territory of Mexico in 1844, prior to the cession of Texas--divided into modern states (Wikimedia Commons)
Can Conquest Ever Be Justified? What May the Invaded People Do to Resist Conquest?
Fernando Castro Pacheco, The Conquest [in Yucatan] (1974; Wikimedia Commons)
On What Grounds Should We Grant or Deny the Suffrage?
W. A. Ford, American Woman and Her Political Peers (1893)
(A mentally disabled man, a convict, a madman, an unenfranchised indigenous American, and a woman U. S. national: all were denied the suffrage in 1893; click to enlarge; Kansas Historical Society; fair use)