The Jury After Abolition

• Author: Sonali Chakravarti
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00905917221128826
• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Date: 01 February 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917221128826

Political Theory

2023, Vol. 51(1) 54 –64

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00905917221128826

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Article

The Jury After Abolition

Sonali Chakravarti1

Abstract

This essay is part of a special issue celebrating 50 years of Political Theory.

The ambition of the editors was to mark this half century not with a

retrospective but with a confabulation of futures. Contributors were

asked: What will political theory look and sound like in the next century

and beyond? What claims might political theorists or their descendants be

making in ten, twenty-five, fifty, a hundred years’ time? How might they

vindicate those claims in their future contexts? How will the consistent

concerns of political theorists evolve into the questions critical for people

decades or centuries from now? What new problems will engage the

political theorists (or their rough equivalents) of the future? What forms

might those take? What follows is one of the many confabulations published

in response to these queries.

The year is 2122, the place New York City, population 15 million. The climate

crisis progresses, but not apace as there has been a major shift toward renew-

able forms of energy and careful use of the earth’s rapidly dwindling resources.

The dramatic shift of the economy toward sustainable forms of living has led

to positive externalities in other spheres, making environmental and social

conditions much better than could be foreseen a century ago. For example,

many of the social disadvantages associated with poverty, such as inadequate

housing, education, health care, and job opportunities, have been mitigated

through improved public services and competent local management at the city

1Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA

Corresponding Author:

Sonali Chakravarti, Wesleyan University, 45 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown, CT 06459, USA.

Email: schakravarti@wesleyan.edu

1128826PTXXXX10.1177/00905917221128826Political TheoryChakravarti

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