Review of Avia Pasternak’s Responsible Citizens, Irresponsible States: Should Citizens Pay for Their States’ Wrongdoings? New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2021, 248 pp.

Abstract

The injustices of international and global conflict, violations of international codes of human rights and protections, and oppressive government policies are examples of moral wrongs committed by states. When moral wrongs occur, victims and bystanders are correct to seek accountability and assign remedial duties, which, ideally, are based on sound moral jus-tifications. Moral transgressions committed by states present a problem for this standard: states are massive collective agents that have extremely complex organisational structures, bureaucracies, and decision-making procedures that often involve the parliamentary representation of its body of citizens—including its internal conflicts. In the face of such complexity, how can we justly assign and distribute accountability and remedial duties between state officials, government institutions, and citizens? In Responsible Citizens, Irresponsible States , Avia Pasternak dives into this moral complexity, and explores whether, how, and under which conditions responsibility to amend states’ wrongdoings should be distributed to its body of citizens specifically. Responsible Citizens, Irresponsible States creates a context-sensitive, practical model for responsibility distribution for states' wrongdoings. First, it constructs an ambitious argument for the view that, under suffi-cient conditions of democracy, active citizenship, and practical feasibility, a state's citizens indeed ought to adopt remedial responsibilities for their states’ wrongdoings equally, regardless of (some) citizens' disapproval, resistance,