ABSTRACT
Shklar’s positioning at the margin discloses a fundamental re-articulation of liberalism for the postcolonial reality of the 21st century: to the rhetoric of liberalism’s extension (but also aggressive expansion) of its boundaries from the inside out, Shklar adds a vocal outside, who makes claims and accusations and thereby eats out at those boundaries. In question in this chapter specifically are the boundaries of crucial liberal notions such as justice, rights, and citizenship. Rights are justified insofar as they empower the inclusion of those left out, rather than as devices of conservation of the status quo. In Shklar’s work on justice and citizenship what I have called her agonistic and non-foundational liberalism comes to full fruition: the claims of the victims, originating in their subjective sense of injustice are not disciplined against a set of universal rules, but rather welcomed as challenges to the status quo and as motors for progressive change. Similarly, when it comes to citizenship, Shklar defines it from the outside in, heeding the claims of those excluded from it: African Americans and women in the US context and refugees in the global one. I dwell on this aspect as a most timely contribution of Shklar to our current predicament.
