Cohort: POLS 41
Topic of the thesis: A Liberalism of the Margins: Cruelty, Fear, and Injustice in Judith Shklar's Political Thought.
Abstract: This research project aims to critically reassess Judith Shklar's political theory by investigating its contemporary relevance for understanding systemic injustice, institutional cruelty, and the marginalisation of vulnerable individuals. Drawing on Giunia Gatta's interpretation of Shklar as a radically sceptical liberal who speaks from—and for—the margins, the project analyses three interconnected concepts in her work: public cruelty, political fear, and passive injustice. The first part investigates public cruelty not as a private moral failing, but as a structural feature embedded in legal and political institutions. Here, Shklar's thought is placed in reconstructive dialogue with classical political thinkers—Montaigne, Montesquieu, and Machiavelli—to trace the intellectual genealogy of her decision to "put cruelty first." This historical analysis is then extended through a conceptual exchange with Paul Farmer's theory of pathologies of power, exploring how public cruelty operates today as a mechanism of exclusion, domination, and dehumanisation. The second section examines fear as a constitutive element of statecraft, rather than a mere psychological condition. Shklar conceives fear as a public and political instrument—deliberately cultivated by governments to secure obedience and legitimise coercive authority. Also by revisiting Shklar's essays and her final lectures on citizenship and exile, this part discusses how modern states utilise fear to define the boundaries of political belonging and legal protection. Special attention is given to undocumented migrants and stateless persons, whose precarious legal status embodies a manufactured "architecture of exclusion." These figures live at the edge of rights, permanently exposed to administrative violence and symbolic dehumanisation. The third part deals more broadly with the concept of injustice in Shklar, with particular attention to her rejection of the so-called "normal models" of justice, which recognise injustice only as a violation of a rule. Against this formalist vision, Shklar proposes a perspective centred on the subjectivity of damage, on the voice of the victims and trampled dignity. The project demonstrates how this vision is enriched by implicit references to moral psychology, also influenced by her studies on Rousseau, and by an attention to suffering, humiliation, and anger as political dimensions, not only emotional. On this basis, the concept of passive injustice is analysed, that is, the tendency of citizens to disregard the suffering of others. This theme will be placed in dialogue with Iris Marion Young's notion of moral complicity. Both show how injustice is perpetuated also through indifference and the daily normalisation of exclusion. The final part applies this conceptual framework to two emblematic case studies in Italy: the penitentiary system and migrant repatriation centres (CPRs). These are analysed as institutional spaces where cruelty and fear are routinised, legal protections are suspended, and passive injustice becomes socially invisible. The project draws on court rulings, NGO reports, and direct field experience to ground the theoretical analysis in lived realities. Ultimately, the project argues that Shklar's liberalism of fear, when extended and recontextualised, can become a powerful lens for reading contemporary injustice. By prioritising public cruelty, it calls for a form of liberalism rooted not in abstract idealism, but in the concrete moral and political demands of those who live at the margins.
Research interests: Contemporary Political Philosophy - Liberal Theories and Their Criticisms – Theories of (In)justice - Political Oppression - Critical Theories of Democracy - Borders, Migration, and Marginality - Transfeminist Political Theory
Graduated from: University of Milan
Degrees obtained: BA in Philosophy - University of Milan; MA in Philosophical Sciences - University of Milan; Master in Critical Theory of Society - University of Milan Bicocca.
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