On the Distinctive Procedural Wrong of Colonialism

Laura Valentini London School of Economics and Political Science Appeared in Philosophy & Public Affairs For citations etc. please refer to the officially published version. Biographical Note: Laura Valentini is Associate Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Among her research interests are international justice, ideal and non-ideal theory, human rights, political authority and democratic theory. Introduction Colonialism is associated with many all-too-familiar wrongs: oppression, exploitation, murder, racism, and dehumanization, among others. On one view, the wrong of colonialism is exhausted by the “sum” of these familiar wrongs—wrongs that are not necessarily tied to colonialism, and that may also occur in non-colonial settings. Lea Ypi has recently argued for a different view, according to which there is more to the wrong of colonialism. For Ypi, the colonial takeover and subjugation of political collectives is wrong as such, over and above the familiar wrongs contingently associated which such takeovers. 1 Specifically, Ypi argues that colonialism always instantiates a distinctive kind of procedural wrong, one that rests