Need-based justice: A sociological perspective

Abstract

This chapter analyses the structural conditions and behavioral consequences of individual justice attitudes, values, and beliefs. The first part develops a sociological concept of need-based justice. The forms of social relations characteristic of different modes of societal integration refer to context-specific principles of justice that dominate interactions between individuals. People motivate their behavior by framing it in terms of the justice principle considered appropriate for the relevant form of societal integration. Need-based justice is considered appropriate for solidary communities, in contrast to hierarchies, networks, and markets. In the next step, need-based justice is characterized as a norm that, more than other principles of justice, depends on social agreement, because it necessarily has to consider particular circumstances and, thus, cannot be operationalized in terms of a universal prescription. The second part discusses sociological research on need-based justice at the individual, relational, and aggregate level of analysis. Research in these three traditions highlights the relevance of need in popular attitudes, the close association between solidarity and adherence to the need principle, and the institutionalization of a focus on need satisfaction in liberal welfare regimes. In the third part, the various implications of the proposed conceptualization of a sociological view for the study of need-based justice are discussed.