Davide Pala
I am a Research Associate at Loughborough University, UK. Prior to this, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy.
I obtained my PhD in Political Theory at the University of Manchester from MANCEPT in 2023. l also hold an earlier doctorate in the History of Political Thought from the University of Turin, where I received my MA in Philosophy as well.
I am a postdoctoral researcher in normative political theory. My research centres on republicanism, with a focus on international morality. I have developed a rights-based form of republicanism, which understands rights, and human rights in particular, as essential to the realisation of freedom as non-domination. My ultimate aim is to provide a fully-fledged theory of this rights-based republicanism, guided by the conviction that its twofold concern with arbitrary power and rights insecurity equips it uniquely well to diagnose and recommend how to address both old and new injustices.
In my doctoral work, I laid the foundations for this theory. In my PhD dissertation, entitled “A Republican Approach to Human Rights”, I provided the first reasonably comprehensive republican account of human rights. I spelled out the relationship between republican freedom and human rights, analysed human rights central to republican freedom, and provided a blueprint for the institutions needed to realise them. I also applied my republican approach to human rights to migration issues, specifically to vulnerable migrants such as stateless persons and refugees, showing that it captures the demanding and international implications of their fundamental entitlements, notably their human right to citizenship. I am now reworking this body of work into a book proposal, entitled “Republican Human Rights”, which I aim to complete and submit in the coming months.
In my postdoctoral work, I drew on my rights-based republicanism to address subjects vulnerable to domination yet overlooked by republicans, namely, non-human animals and future persons.
Currently, as a Research Associate on the project “The Right to Liveability: An Ethical Assessment”, led by Dr. Guy Aitchison, I am further expanding and refining this approach to assess the unequal distribution of mental distress and suicide among social groups and to develop proposals for addressing such inequalities.