Giuseppe Maglione

Giuseppe Maglione is Lecturer in Criminology and Director of the Restorative Justice Clinic at the University of Kent (UK). His research on restorative justice and its political, historical, and theoretical foundations has appeared in Critical Criminology, European Journal of Criminology, Criminology & Criminal Justice, and Social & Legal Studies, among others. His monograph Restorative Justice and Contemporary Political Theory: Critical Encounters and the edited collection Restorative Justice at a Crossroads: Dilemmas of Institutionalisation (with Ian Marder and Brunilda Pali) were both published by Routledge in 2024. He has held visiting research positions at the University of Cambridge, the University of Oslo, KU Leuven, and the Max Planck Institute in Freiburg. From 2020 to 2022 he served on the Research Committee of the European Forum for Restorative Justice.

The project

Title: Restorative Justice and Radical Politics: The Contribution of French Post-Foundationalist Political Theory

"This research project builds upon and extends my long-term programme of inquiry into the political foundations of restorative justice. It follows from two previous book that I published both with Routledge in 2024 – Restorative Justice and Contemporary Political Theory and Restorative Justice at a Crossroads (this latter with I. Marder and B. Pali) – and constitutes the third and concluding stage of this theoretical investigation. Titled Restorative Justice and Radical Politics, the new book seeks to rethink the political foundations of restorative justice by engaging with French post-foundational theory, especially the work of Deleuze, Rancière, and Lefort. The project aims to move beyond policy and criminological accounts of restorative justice as a procedural or therapeutic tool, repositioning it as a contested political practice situated within broader struggles over social order, subjectivity, and institutional legitimacy. Rather than conducting empirical fieldwork, I will draw on materials and intellectual conversations accessible only in Paris to explore how restorative justice reconfigures the relationship between individuals and institutions. Central to this inquiry is the idea that restorative justice does not merely replace punitive logics but institutionalises conflict in ways that may affirm or suppress democratic life. Lefort’s account of democracy as an agonistic institutionalisation of conflict, Rancière’s notion of politics as dissensus and the need for self-deinstitutionalisation, and Deleuze’s understanding of institutions as productive, desire-driven assemblages, offer contrasting but complementary resources for rethinking restorative justice beyond liberal reformism or managerial consensus."

Selective Bibliography

• G. Maglione and B. Pali (2025) The value of researching restorative justice through policy discourse analysis, in B. Pali et al. (Eds.) Research Methods In Restorative Justice, The Hague: Brill (Studies in Restorative Justice Series).
• G. Maglione (2024) Restorative Justice and Contemporary Political Theory. Critical Encounters, London: Routledge (Critical Studies in Crime, Diversity and Criminal Justice Series) ISBN 9781032287454
• G. Maglione, I. D. Marder & B. Pali (eds.) (2024) Restorative justice at a crossroads: dilemmas of institutionalisation, London: Routledge (Frontiers of Criminal Justice Series) ISBN 9781032341200
• G. Maglione (2023) Remorse and restoration. The role of remorse in constructing the ‘ideal offender’ of restorative justice, in S. Field and C. Tata (Eds.) Remorse and Responsibility in the Constructions of the ‘Ideal’ Defendant: Comparing Cultural Expectations in Criminal Process, London: Hart - Onati Socio-Legal Series, pp. 239-260.