Conclusion

Abstract

Abstract This chapter concludes our argument by summarizing how we have developed a more political political liberalism. It highlights the innovative theoretical contributions that the first three chapters make: the inclusion of real-world minimally liberal societies into the scope of political liberalism, leading, in turn, to a new interpretation of the relationship between ideal and non-ideal theory within the framework; the integration into political liberal theory of a realistic acceptance of the fact that under any regime, some members of society will be coerced into obedience to a political order that is unacceptable to them; the justifiability of coercion and violence as legitimate political strategies under conditions of severe injustice. Next, the chapter recaps the strengths of the account of containment put forward in the last three chapters and, specifically, (i) its focus on non-state actors, which makes our theory particularly apt to deal with scenarios where the state has already been (at least partially) captured by illiberal and anti-democratic actors; and (ii) its three different tiers of containment strategies, where each tier has its own conditions of applicability. The chapter concludes by suggesting future areas of research, such as investigating which moral limits, if any, should be imposed on militant measures once their triggering conditions obtain, and theorising the role that social media should play in the task of containing the unreasonable.