Moral repair is an important way for firms to heal moral relationships with stakeholders following a transgression. The concept is rooted in recognition theory, which is often used to develop normative perspectives and prescriptions, but the same theory has also propelled a view of moral repair as premised on negotiation between offender and victim(s), which involves the complex social construction of the transgression and the appropriate amends. The tension between normative principles and socioconstructivist implementation begs the question how offending firms should approach moral repair. Addressing this question, we develop a two-level conceptualization of moral repair, distinguishing between procedural and substantive levels of practice, which accommodate normativity and socioconstructivism, respectively. In so doing, we enrich the literature by 1) promoting conceptual clarity, 2) refining understanding of the moral repair process, and 3) suggesting the use of a unified, configurational approach to studying (nonlinear) relations between amends and moral outcomes.

This article re-examines the theories of recognition and non-recognition in the context of the evolving framework of the European Union (EU)’s trade and investment relations with Taiwan from legal and international relations perspectives. Notwithstanding its one-China policy, the EU has developed a pragmatic approach to engaging Taiwan under bilateral consultations and World Trade Organization negotiations that have built the foundation for the bilateral investment agreement (BIA). The article argues that since the 1980s, the EU has accorded diverse forms of recognition to Taiwan and the BIA will buttress the process. To substantiate the contention, the article systemically explores the political and trade policies of European states and EU institutions in line with their strategies toward cross-strait relations.

By deciphering the new momentum that has galvanized the European Commission’s strategy towards the EU-Taiwan BIA, the research sheds light on the implications of European Parliament resolutions and the EU’s investment talks with China. The structure and impact of the BIA are also analysed in light of EU investment protection agreements with Singapore and Vietnam. Hence, the findings contribute to the interdisciplinary study of international law and international relations and enhance the understanding of the EU’s Asia-Pacific trade and investment agreements.

Miranda Fricker's account of hermeneutical injustice and remedies for this injustice are widely debated. This article adds to the existing debate by arguing that theories of recognition can fruitfully contribute to Fricker's account of hermeneutical injustice and can provide a framework for structural remedy. By pairing Fricker's theory of hermeneutical injustice with theories of recognition, I bring forward a modest claim and a more radical claim. The first concerns a shift in our vocabulary; recognition theory can give a name to the seriousness of the long-term effects of hermeneutical injustice. The second claim is more radical: thinking of hermeneutical injustice as preventing what I call “self-recognition” provides a structural remedy to the phenomenon of hermeneutical injustice. Because hermeneutical injustice is first and foremost a structural injustice, I contend that every virtue theory of hermeneutical justice should be complemented by structural remedies in terms of recognition. Finally, what I argue sheds light on the seriousness of cases of exclusion of and discrimination against women in academia and helps to draw our attention to new ways to combat such problems.

This article proposes a typology of causal mechanisms whereby transnational relations of recognition constitute conflict actors in frozen conflicts. While the agency of an emerging conflict actor manifests itself in ‘struggles for recognition’ motivated by experiences of ‘disrespect’, responses from different significant others vary in terms of motivations and pathways (mechanisms of recognition). Adapting Honneth’s tripartite division, the typology distinguishes between four forms of recognition: thin cognitive recognition, ‘respect’/rights, ‘esteem’/difference, and ‘love’/empathy. Three transnational corrections are made in order to include transnational relations of recognition, non-state actors, and unstructured social-relational forms of international/transnational recognition. The typology is applied to the conflict of Western Sahara, which has been reshaped by the rise of internal Sahrawi pro-independence groups (based inside the territory annexed by Morocco) as an increasingly relevant conflict actor, with their identity shifting from victims to human rights activists to activists involved in an unsolved conflict. This identity and social-status formation has been the product of transnational recognition from three significant others: the annexing state (Morocco), the contested state-in-exile (SADR), and the international community. The overall effect of intermingling recognition processes, including various instrumental initiatives deprived of mutuality, has been increased struggle and conflict complexity rather than ‘recognitional peace’.

In this article, the introduction to this Special Issue, we underline the importance of the dynamics of misrecognition for the study of world politics. We make the case for shifting the focus from ‘recognition’, where it has long been cast in social, political and, more recently, International Relations theory, to misrecognition. We do so by returning to the original theorisation of misrecognition, Hegel’s dialectic of the master and servant. Our point of departure is not only that the desire for recognition is key social dynamic, but that the failure to obtain this recognition is built into this very desire. It is a crucial factor for understanding how international actors behave, including, but not only, states.

Thus understood, the desire for recognition is not simply a desire for social goods, for status or for statehood, but for more agency – more capacity to act. We explore the logic of misrecognition and show how the international system is a symbolic structure that is ordained by an unrealisable ideal of what we call ‘sovereign agency’.

This article examines the ongoing conflict in the global monetary system as a struggle over norms of recognition between the US Federal Reserve and the emerging market economies. The analysis demonstrates that the Fed, though dominant actor in the global monetary system, adopts a US-centric perspective and relies upon inadequate economic constructs that misrecognise periphery members and justify a dismissal of criticisms of its monetary policy actions. The article shows how the adoption of recognition principles in reconstituting the monetary rules of the game would provide the Fed with an understanding of the political economic essentials of member countries, a greater awareness of potential harms of its monetary policy actions and the importance of cooperation in reducing conflict and mitigating episodes of monetary instability.

This paper examines recognition in the cosmopolitan sphere of recognition – a sphere of ethical life and social freedom formed in the processes of recognition between individuals and groups across, over, and beyond, the state. The paper contends that Axel Honneth’s recognition theory can overcome many of the limitations inherent to established cosmopolitan paradigms, and, through normative reconstruction, provide a unique methodological framework from which existing cosmopolitan social relations can be examined. This will provide the foundations for a relational cosmopolitanism. The paper argues that only a form of mutual recognition that satisfies both local and cosmopolitan ties of political community could adequately secure the intersubjective conditions necessitated in the Hegelian, ontological notion of freedom (freedom as ‘being at home with oneself in one’s other’). This contention is pursued through three interrelated arguments: (i) an engagement with Honneth’s analysis of the intersubjective conditions necessary for leading a ‘good’ or ‘successful’ life through mutual recognition; (ii) deploying the method of normative reconstruction to identify social freedoms in the cosmopolitan sphere, and; (iii) by exploring the existence of cosmopolitan recognition as a unique form of personal relations, an extension of rights in transnational civil society, and, as a unique form of solidarity in an emergent cosmopolitan public sphere.