Political Equality

Abstract

This chapter identifies what it means to enjoy specifically political equality. To affirm equal political status is to recognize each citizen as equally entitled to render authoritative judgments as to how to organize and regulate all citizens' common life. Citizens have equal political status when common institutions and practices reflect and express the idea that they each have the capacity to judge matters of justice and political morality, and the entitlement to exercise that capacity by rendering judgments that have public authority on equal terms with others. Admitting citizens into the common project of political rule—to a share in the regime—respects them, by granting authority to their political judgment. A politically egalitarian society, then, regulates matters of common concern through decision-making processes that respect equally each citizen's authority, or jurisdiction.