The reading list below is based on a reading list originally used for an internal GPI reading group. These reading groups are used as a way of doing an early-stage exploration of new areas that seem promising from an academic global priorities research perspective. Each topic is often used as the theme for one or two weekly discussions, and in most cases those attending the discussion will have read the suggested materials beforehand.
As I thought that it could be a valuable resource for those interested in academic global priorities research, I’m sharing it here, with permission from the authors. All the credit for the list below goes to them.
Disclaimer: The views presented in the readings suggested below do not necessarily represent views held by me, GPI, or any GPI staff member.
1. Intergenerational Justice
- Caney, “Justice and Future Generations”
- Meyer, “Intergenerational Justice”
- Mogensen, “The Good News about Just Saving”
2. Setting Longtermist Policy Goals
- Cowen, “Caring for The Distant Future: Why it Matters and What it Means”
- Summers and Zeckhauser, “Policymaking for Posterity”
- Juijn and Schmidt, “Economic Inequality and the Long-Term Future”
- Cowen, Stubborn Attachments
3. The Problem of Short-Termism
- Jacobs, “Policy Making for the Long Term in Advanced Democracies”
- MacKenzie, “Institutional Design and Sources of Short-Termism”
- Jacobs, Governing for the Long Term
4. The Promise of Experimentalism
- Barrett, “Social Reform in a Complex World”
- Barrett and Buchanan, “Social Experimentation in an Unjust World”
- Sabel and Zeitlin, “Experimentalist Governance”
5. Specific Institutional Proposals
- John and MacAskill, “Longtermist Institutional Reform”
- Iñigo González-Ricoy and Axel Gosseries, Institutions for Future Generations
- Jones, O’Brien, and Ryan, “Representation of Future Generations in United Kingdom Policy-Making”
6. Democratic Theory and Future Generations
- Jensen, “Future Generations in Democracy: Representation or Consideration?”
- Tännsjö, “Future People, the All Affected Principle, and the Limits of the
Aggregation Model of Democracy” - Goodin, “Enfranchising All Affected Interests, and Its Alternatives”
- Ekeli, “Giving a Voice to Posterity – Deliberative Democracy and Representation of Future People”
- Halstead, “High Stakes Instrumentalism”
7. Path Dependence in Politics
- Pierson, “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics”
- Mahoney, “Path Dependence in Historical Sociology”
8. Institutional Evolution
- Currie et al., “Evolution of Institutions and Organizations”
- Lewis and Steinmo, “How Institutions Evolve: Evolutionary Theory and
Institutional Change”