About The Workshop
SW 60-Egalitarianism and Its Discontents: Exploring Ambivalent Outcomes of Equaiity-Oriented Policies
Convenors: Pedro Moniz Lopes, Jakub G. Firlus, Katarzyna Eliasz
Contact: plopes@fd.ulisboa.pt; jakub.firlus@uj.edu.pl; katarzyna.eliasz@uj.edu.pl
This workshop invites scholars to critically explore the inegalitarian consequences of equality-oriented policies. While equality remains a central ideal of contemporary governance, social movements, and institutional frameworks, the implementation of policies designed to promote it often yields ambivalent or paradoxical outcomes. Efforts to ensure equal access, protection, or representation may unintentionally reproduce or even intensify existing hierarchies, exclusions, or asymmetries of power.
These paradoxes call for renewed attention to the legal, ethical, and institutional dimensions of equality — to the ways in which norms, procedures, and adjudicative practices intended to correct injustice can themselves become sources of new disadvantage. The workshop thus situates the problem of equality within broader debates about legitimacy, procedural justice, and the limits of legal regulation. It also invites reflection on the judicial role in mediating these tensions — how courts interpret, balance, or occasionally reinforce conflicting egalitarian claims.
We welcome papers that engage with empirical analyses or theoretical reflections on the ways in which equality-driven policies can produce unequal effects—whether material, symbolic, or discursive. Possible areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to:
- environmental and climate policies that unevenly distribute costs and benefits across social groups;
- migration and integration policies that create new forms of exclusion;
- accessibility and inclusion programs that privilege certain models of participation;
- educational or labor market reforms that reinforce existing social stratifications;
- digital equality initiatives that reproduce technological divides.
Participants may address either actual inequalities—for instance, restrictions on access to specific resources or opportunities resulting from equalizing measures—or the perceived growth of inequality, which may emerge independently of measurable disparities yet still shape public discourse and policy legitimacy.
In doing so, the workshop seeks to bridge legal theory, social philosophy, and empirical policy analysis, encouraging dialogue between normative inquiry and institutional critique. Special attention will be given to procedural mechanisms and judicial practices that either mitigate or amplify inequality within equality regimes. By bringing together diverse disciplinary perspectives and case studies, this workshop aims to foster a nuanced discussion on the tensions between equality as an ideal and equality as a practice, encouraging a rethinking of what it means to pursue justice in complex social contexts.
Participants are invited to submit a title and a short abstract (up to 500 words) to any of the convenors at the email addresses listed above.
