CROWN FAMILY CENTER FOR JEWISH AND ISRAEL STUDIES

Shmuel Nili is an Associate Professor of political science at Northwestern University. 

His research in political philosophy ranges across meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. The applied aspects of his work focus on links between domestic and global injustice, with special attention to moral issues surrounding corporate agency, public property and corruption, and abuse of power. These themes are central to Nili's first three books: The People’s Duty (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Integrity, Personal and Political (Oxford University Press, 2020), and Philosophizing the Indefensible (Oxford University Press, 2023). The same themes dominate an ongoing, fourth book project focused on rethinking fundamental assumptions in political philosophy in the face of pervasive political violence. And these themes also run through most of his journal articles, including essays in Ethics, The American Political Science Review, The American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, Social Philosophy and Policy, and Journal of Political Philosophy, among others.

Nili's inquiries into these three themes started with a focus on corruption issues. In particular, he was interested in global corruption related to the "resource curse" and in 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