Tackling Epistemic and Cognitive Injustice in Political Dialogue: The Case of OACPS–EU Relations

This article examines the preconditions for an epistemically and cognitively more just form of political dialogue. Such dialogue requires treating each participant and their knowledges as equal as well as securing the participant’s epistemic and material possibilities to engage in deliberation. Drawing on Iris M. Young’s communicative ethics and both Walter D. Mignolo’s and Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s decolonial theorising, I suggest three moves for realising these conditions. Thus, I bring feminist epistemology and decolonial thought into a mutually enriching discussion and put forward ideals that are important for improving accounts of political deliberation in world politics. Empirically, the analysis contributes to an understanding of epistemic and cognitive injustices and related colonial tendencies in the relationship between the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) and European Union (EU). Moreover, I provide policy proposals for reducing the identified injustices and other associated asymmetries between the parties in the post-Cotonou era. Lutter contre les injustices épistémiques et cognitives dans le dialogue politique : le cas des relations entre l’OEACP et l’UE


Introduction
The question of how to realise more inclusive political dialogues in world politics is of great interest in International Relations.Even though world politics hardly provides arenas for 'ideal' political communication, this does not exclude the possibility of, nor the importance of, trying to promote more equal dialogues. 1At a theoretical level, these dialogues are based on political equality between the parties involved, as emphasised in theories on deliberative democracy. 2Revised versions of Habermasian deliberative democracy 3 and its critiques 4 have, however, shown that formal equality is not sufficient for securing an equal standing among parties in deliberations.Nevertheless, these accounts neither succeed in addressing all factors that can hinder such an equal standing.By focusing on epistemology, and more specifically on knowledge-related injustices, my article provides a crucial, supplementary perspective on this question, 5 one that indeed should be included in theoretical attempts to improve the conditions of political dialogue at international and global levels.Knowledge-related injustices have been emphasised both by feminist epistemology and decolonial thought, and these theories indeed comprise my article's theoretical framework.More specifically, I focus on the concepts of epistemic injustice 6 and cognitive injustice. 7The various lenses of epistemic injustice shed light on the ways a person or group can be treated unjustly as an epistemic subject, whereas cognitive injustice criticises the unjust epistemic privilege of Western knowledge that marginalises other ways of knowing.By bringing these two theories into a mutually enriching discussion with each other, I examine the preconditions for realising epistemic and cognitive justice in political dialogue.As I interpret it, these ideals require treating each participant and their knowledges as equal as well as securing their epistemic and material possibilities to participate in the conversation in the first place.Drawing on Iris M. Young's 8 communicative ethics and Walter D. Mignolo's 9 and Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni's 10 decolonial theorising, I suggest three moves in listening and communication that would help achieve such conditions: acknowledging the irreversibility of the participants' perspectives; identifying existing asymmetries through mutual learning and critical self-reflection; and recognising all participants as equal epistemic subjects, which demands also securing their concrete possibilities to use their epistemic rights.Realising these knowledge-related forms of justice in political dialogue thus also increases the concrete equality between the participants.This should not, however, be mistaken for complete equality because the underlying material conditions and other factors can also affect the outcomes of deliberation in empirical contexts.Aspiring to promote epistemic and cognitive justice in dialogical settings is nevertheless crucial because it allows for discussion on other existing injustices and suitable strategies for correcting them.Fundamentally, then, it makes it possible to address domination.
Besides examining the prerequisites for achieving epistemic and cognitive justice in political dialogue, I focus on the empirical conditions for promoting this kind of communication.Consequently, I also contribute to this important aspect of theorising about political deliberation 11 in world politics.The context of my study is the relationship between the OACPS and the EU.This relationship is particularly interesting because, even though the partners' equality and reciprocal dialogue have served as the guiding principles of the partnership under the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA), signed in 2000, and corresponding tendencies can be found also in the negotiated Post-Cotonou Agreement text, the ideal of equality has not been realised in the actual conditions nor outcomes of the OACPS-EU political dialogue. 12Nevertheless, critiques of asymmetries in the political dialogue and other dimensions of the partnership do not seem to address questions related specifically to the parties' epistemic agency.At a broader level, critical evaluations of the EU's use of normative power -that is, the Union's 'ability to shape conceptions of "normal"' and thus 'normalize' its 'universal' norms 13 -in its relations with 'developing' partners rarely touch upon this question either. 14A focus on epistemology, however, provides a complementary perspective on the injustices characterising global development 15 and its discourses, 16 and my article indeed contributes to an understanding of such inequalities between the OACPS and EU.Moreover, it shows how these knowledge-related injustices are intertwined with other inequalities occurring in the partnership.My particular focus is on the ACP -EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA), 17 a platform that is supposed to provide the best possibilities for the partners' representatives to engage in political dialogue from an equal standing but that has nevertheless not succeeded in this aim. 18ased on policy document analysis, supplemented with analysis of the existing research on the JPA, I argue that the OACPS-EU relationship is indeed characterised by epistemic and cognitive injustices that ought to be tackled if the parties aspire to also reduce the other unjust asymmetries between them and thus move towards a more equal partnership.My analysis shows that the EU's knowledge, as well as its status as knower, appears hegemonic when compared to the OACPS.I suggest that this asymmetry consists of two intertwined phenomena, namely cognitive injustice and an unjust cognitive practice, 19 both of which reflect and reinforce a colonial relationship between the subject and object.This relationship, which can be argued to arise from the coloniality 20 of the current world system, has several damaging implications for the ACP countries and also undermines their overall agency in the partnership.In addition to analysing how the identified cognitively and epistemically unjust asymmetry is upheld in practice, I propose strategies for the parties to communicate from a more equal footing to better address the broader underlying pattern of domination.Thus, I apply my theoretical argument to 21. this particular context and draft policy proposals for promoting an epistemically and cognitively more just form of political dialogue among the partners.In doing so, I do not aim to 'speak for' the ACP countries, but to shed light on the unjust structures that, according to my analysis, ought to be dismantled in the partnership.Consequently, my article also adds to existing research demanding a shift to post-colonial behaviour from the EU. 21Lastly, given that negotiations on the post-Cotonou partnership have now been concluded, my proposals should be discussed in relation to the new partnership agreement rather than be seen as proposed elements to it. 22he article is structured as follows.First, I introduce the concepts of epistemic and cognitive injustice.Then, I analyse these injustices within the context of OACPS-EU relations.Next, I present my theoretical argument and discuss its potential application to the partnership.The last section draws conclusions.

Epistemic and Cognitive Injustice
The concepts of epistemic injustice 23 and cognitive injustice 24 both problematise knowledge-related inequalities, but slightly differently.The various lenses 25 of epistemic injustice concern the diverse kinds of unjust treatment or restrictions that a speaker can confront in a communicative situation as well as the diverse phenomena and structures that can cause and maintain epistemic injustices in the first place.Cognitive injustice, on the other hand, focuses on the location in which the dominant knowledge is constructed and stresses the simultaneous silencing of other knowledges. 26I begin my discussion of these two concepts by briefly sketching the three lenses of epistemic injustice, which play a crucial role in my analysis and in the development of my theoretical argument: testimonial injustice, 27 distributive epistemic injustice, 28 and unjust epistemic institutions and cognitive practices. 29I also discuss the reasons behind structural epistemic injustices and their connections to other forms of injustice.Then, I introduce the decolonial critique from which the term cognitive injustice originates.Lastly, I explain how these two concepts supplement each other in their contribution to the broader project of promoting justice.
The lens of testimonial injustice sheds light on situations in which the speaker is treated as 'epistemically lesser', as Miranda Fricker 30 puts it.In other words, in these situations the speaker's capacity as knower is wronged. 31According to Fricker, 32 testimonial injustice occurs when a listener's identity prejudice against the speaker causes the listener to diminish the speaker's communicative contribution.Fundamentally, this kind of unjust devaluation can be seen to objectify the speaker, to treat them as something 'less than a full epistemic subject'. 33As Elizabeth Anderson 34 notes, testimonial injustice can be 'transactional' and thus restricted to interpersonal relationships.However, it can also be structural, and Anderson 35 indeed emphasises that structural phenomena can hinder disadvantaged groups' opportunities for epistemic contribution and, at worst, cause epistemic injustice.
Anderson 36 identifies three of these phenomena: 'differential access to the markers of credibility', ethnocentrism, and the '"shared reality bias."''Differential access to the markers of credibility' becomes structural epistemic injustice when marginalised groups' epistemic agency is undermined as a consequence of another structural injustice, such as a lack of appropriate education.Ethnocentrism -favouring one's own ethnic group -on the other hand, can cause structural testimonial injustice if it leads the advantaged groups to disregard the marginalised groups' testimonies.Lastly, the '"shared reality bias"' hinders privileged groups' possibilities to understand disadvantaged groups' concerns, which they consequently may deem as unreasonable. 37In this regard, it can cause testimonial injustice. 38The testimonial injustice resulting from the three above-mentioned phenomena can, crucially, originate from other structural injustices. 39Indeed, Fricker 40 also stresses that systematic epistemic injustice reflects unequal power relations.However, testimonial injustice may strengthen such relations, too: as Fricker 41 further notes, epistemic devaluation can also lead to unjust treatment in other contexts.
Quite similarly as with differential access to the markers of credibility, distributive epistemic injustice serves as an example of structural epistemic injustice because it concerns the unjust lack of resources that the speaker would need to access in order to express themselves appropriately in a particular context.As Fricker 42 defines it, this phenomenon refers to the unfair distribution of 'epistemic goods'.As noted, these goods can include, for example, access to education or information, 43 and on a deeper level they concern the unjust distribution of credibility. 44Even though Fricker herself 45 does not consider distributive epistemic injustice 'discriminatory', it can be argued that like differential access to the markers of credibility, distributive epistemic injustice may originate from structures that systematically discriminate against some groups.Fricker 46 seems to recognise this possibility as well.Moreover, it is doubtful that epistemic justice could be realised without accounting for the existing material conditions that can hinder some groups' or persons' possibilities to give testimonies in the first place.
It is then crucial to recognise the structural nature of many epistemic injustices as well as their connection to other forms of structural injustice caused by unequal power relations.As Franziska Dübgen 47 points out, other injustices linked to epistemic injustice can refer on a global scale to, for example, 'geopolitical power asymmetries, economic exploitation, military interventions, and biopolitical means of control'.Moreover, injustice can be examined as 'imped[ing] agency for some' as well as 'facilitat[ing] agency for others,' 48 and the lenses of epistemic injustice draw attention to this issue as well.According to Gaile Pohlhaus Jr., 49 epistemic institutions and cognitive practices can produce unjust, hierarchical divides between epistemic subjects and, on the other hand, enable those in a dominant position to intentionally ignore such asymmetrical relations.In other words, unjust epistemic institutions and practices can not only hinder marginalised groups' epistemic agency, but also reinforce the standing of dominant groups.Epistemic injustice thus appears from this perspective as being intertwined with oppression. 50ecolonial theory can be read as a critique of an unjust cognitive practice that has global implications.As Mignolo 51 puts it, the theory sheds light on and criticises 'the epistemic privilege of the First World'.This epistemic privilege refers to the dominance of Western knowledge, a phenomenon that systematically suppresses knowledges cultivated in those regions that were colonised as well as those that could not be colonised, 52 consequently producing 'epistemic silences'. 53This distinction between accepted and devalued forms of knowledge becomes visible, for instance, in their labelling: 'modern' is often used to refer to the former, whereas 'indigenous' serves as an example of the latter. 54Some languages' hegemonic position, too, marks this distinction. 55Hence, according to decolonial theory the colonial features of modernity 56 impede 'the equity between different ways of knowing and different kinds of knowledge', 57 a condition 58 that Boaventura de Sousa Santos calls 'global cognitive justice'. 59The above-described epistemic privilege not only facilitates the global North's epistemic agency, but, as Santos 60 stresses, has enabled it to dominate the rest of the world after the era of colonialism and imperialism.This unjust cognitive practice is, unsurprisingly, intertwined with the underlying material conditions 61 and thus connected to, for example, the global North's hegemonic economic position. 62Decolonial theory refers to this phenomenon as the coloniality of power, 63 which structures the current world system.Besides silencing different ways of knowing, it is tightly connected to other modes of oppression that are based on the colonial difference. 641, no.2-3 (2007): 243, doi:10.1080/09502380601162548.) specifies, drawing on Aníbal Quijano ('Globalización, colonialidad y democracia', in Tendencias básicas de nuestra época: globalización y democracia, ed.Instituto de Altos Estudios Diplomáticos 'Pedro Gual', Caracas: Instituto de Altos Estudios Diplomáticos 'Pedro Gual', 2001, 25-61), coloniality 'refers to long-standing patterns of power that emerged as a result of colonialism, but that define culture, labor, intersubjective relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administrations.Thus, coloniality survives colonialism'.65.See  The concepts of epistemic and cognitive injustice then provide crucial insights into the interconnectedness of asymmetrical power relations and knowledge.In my view, the diverse lenses of epistemic injustice and the perspective of cognitive injustice mutually reinforce each other and thus provide a useful framework for examining knowledgerelated inequalities.Cognitive injustice stresses that no knowledge is neutral and that a claim to neutrality is actually an exercise of power. 65Indeed, besides being itself colonial, 66 any aims to universalise a particular, allegedly neutral knowledge can be seen as hindering the realisation of epistemic justice and even causing epistemic injustice.Consequently, not only can cognitive injustice be interpreted as a form of epistemic injustice, but it works the other way around, too. 67The concept of epistemic injustice, on the other hand, draws further attention to the non-neutrality of any communicative situation as well as the non-neutrality of any institution wherein communication takes place.Together, these two concepts make it possible to understand what is at stake in promoting knowledge-related justice.As Fricker 68 emphasises, epistemic justice is a crucial precondition for deliberating on existing injustices, and thus, fundamentally, for addressing domination.Cognitive justice, for its part, calls for critical discussion on how different forms of justice should be promoted -and which strategies might rather reinforce domination. 69

OACPS-EU Partnership and the Joint Parliamentary Assembly
The OACPS-EU relationship, which dates back to 1975 and currently includes 106 countries, has been characterised as 'today's most comprehensive North-South partnership'. 70The partnership has sought to overcome the parties' colonial history by stressing equality as one of the relationship's fundamental principles, especially after the entry of the CPA.As for the negotiated Post-Cotonou Agreement text, it emphasises 'genuine' partnership. 71Disappointingly, the equality of the parties has not been realised in practice, and their asymmetrical positions are clearly evident in their political dialogue, 72 for example in trade negotiations 73 and in the EU's desire to influence governance of the ACP countries. 74owever, the JPA, established along with the CPA and to be re-established along with the new Post-Cotonou Agreement, 75 could be described as almost embodying the idea of the parties' equality.As Sarah Delputte and Yentyl Williams 76 argue, the Assembly is 'the place in which real dialogue between the different parties is most likely to be approached' because of its carefully formulated rules of procedure, which are supposed to secure the parties' equal possibilities to engage in discussion, and moreover, because the platform has no decision-making capacity.The depiction of the JPA as a close-to-ideal platform for dialogue is the reason I focus on the Assembly in this article.On the one hand, studying the JPA from the perspectives of epistemic and cognitive epistemic injustice enables me to shed light on those inequalities that cannot be tackled via claims to formal equality.On the other hand, the Assembly's resolutions and debates provide extensive information on the parties' overall partnership.
In a nutshell, the JPA has a 'threefold' role, as Delputte 77 puts it.The Assembly focuses on 'empowering ACP parliaments', 'promoting democracy and human rights', and 'monitoring Cotonou'. 78The platform consists of 156 parliamentarians, 78 from the European Parliament and 78 from the ACP countries. 79Its operations are regulated by the https://www.europarl.europa.eu/intcoop/acp/20_01/default_en.htm.In the post-Cotonou era, the members of the three new Regional Parliamentary Assemblies, consisting of MEPs and African, Caribbean, and Pacific parliamentarians in equal number, will also be members of the JPA (EU and OACPS, 'Partnership agreement', Articles 90(1) and 94[1]).Moreover, as the Post-Cotonou Agreement will cover 79 OACPS states (ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, 'The Post-Cotonou Agreement'.Last accessed 4 August 2022, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/acp/en/about/basic-documents), the number of JPA members will increase slightly.), because, when combined, these lenses capture a broad range of transactional and structural epistemic injustices connected to testimonial exchange, material and epistemic resources, and the underlying power structures.Even though traces of all these forms of epistemic injustice can be found in the analysed material, for the purposes of this article I have limited the discussion to those epistemic injustices that, according to my analysis, characterise the OACPS-EU partnership.
above-mentioned rules of procedure, originally adopted in 2003, revised eight times since then, and to be re-adopted after the Post-Cotonou Agreement enters into force. 80uring its sessions, the Assembly adopts resolutions on issues related to ACP-EU cooperation and discusses its standing committees' reports as well as other urgent topics. 81he JPA members also have the possibility to address questions to the ACP-EU Council of Ministers and the European Commission (EC) during a separate question time included in each session. 82Written documentation on some of these discussions forms the core material of my analysis.

Materials and Methods
My examination of the epistemic and cognitive injustices occurring in the JPA as well as the overall OACPS-EU partnership is based primarily on policy document analysis.In practice, I have read and interpreted the Assembly's documents through several lenses of epistemic injustice 83 and from the perspective of cognitive injustice.Drawing on these theoretical perspectives, I have identified different forms of epistemic and cognitive injustice taking place in the partnership, discussed in the forthcoming sub-sections.The analysis focuses on the JPA's resolutions, declarations, statements and parliamentary 84.At the time of writing, they were available on the JPA's official website, which contained documents from the Assembly's past 38 sessions.Only the 28th session formed an exception: there was no material from this session.However, when it comes to parliamentary questions, unfortunately only those addressed to the European Commission and its replies to the questions were well documented throughout all the past sessions.For this reason, I have not been able to analyse the questions addressed to the ACP-EU Council of Ministers.It should also be mentioned that during the revision of this article, the JPA's website was reformed and all the pre-2019 plenary session documents were unfortunately archived.85.The role and main tasks of the JPA are defined in the Cotonou Partnership Agreement, Article 17 (2), revised in 2010.The Assembly's role 'shall be to: • promote democratic processes through dialogue and consultation; • facilitate greater understanding between the peoples of the European Union and those of the ACP States and raise public awareness of development issues; questions 84 that best reflect the Assembly's official main tasks and roles, 85 as well as Delputte's 86 apt threefold summary of them. 87My motivation behind choosing these particular documents was to analyse material that is connected to the 'core' discussion topics in the JPA with the intent to investigate a wide range of instances where knowledge-related inequalities could potentially take place.More generally, the JPA's resolutions can be considered crucial for my analysis since they represent the key outcomes of the parliamentary dialogue. 88However, the resolutions do not usually reveal the divergences in opinion, which underlines the importance of focusing also on parliamentary 90.Delputte, 'The ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly'.91.As it becomes clear when comparing these keywords with the JPA's official roles and tasks, described in footnote 85, I have included in the materials only those documents whose subjects refer to development at general level.This has been partly due research economics, and also because Delputte and Williams's ('Equal Partnership', 491) study on the JPA is located in the 'trade-development nexus' and thus covers material on the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).The choice of including the keywords 'participation', 'participatory' and 'civil society', on the other hand, was motivated by the desire to capture in the analysis at least part of the JPA's second task, namely facilitating greater understanding between the peoples of the ACP states and the EU, because keywords such as 'information', 'awareness', 'understand[ing]' or 'learn[ing]' unfortunately did not allow me to find suitable material.It can indeed be argued that this task demands more than parliamentary discussion, such as cooperation with civil society -and the objective of 'regular contacts and consultations' with civil society is also expressed in the Assembly's rules of procedure (ACP-EU JPA, 'Rules of procedure', 19).Moreover, my analysis does not directly discuss the Council of Ministers' annual report (first part of the JPA's fourth task) due to the unavailability of this data, but it could be argued that all (the analysed) resolutions are connected to this task, at least indirectly, given that they include recommendations for the Council.Furthermore, I have included in the analysis three parliamentary questions and the replies to them that address the JPA's tasks, even though their official subjects fall outside the used keywords.Lastly, it should be mentioned that I also searched for potential material with keywords that were tightly connected to my theoretical framework, such as '(in)equality', '(in)justice', 'knowledge', 'asymmetry/-ies', and so on, but these did unfortunately not yield any fruitful results.questions that are indeed more informative on this matter. 89My analysis also covers documents that discuss the post-Cotonou partnership as well as the most recently revised version of the JPA's rules of procedure.In addition to their undeniable topicality, the first set of documents demonstrate one potential instance of dissenting voices regarding the nature of the partnership and aspirations related to its future.Analysing the rules of procedure through my theoretical framework, on the other hand, has enabled me to critically examine how the Assembly attempts to secure equality between the parties.I searched for suitable material to analyse by matching keywords with the JPA's main tasks and Delputte's 90 summary of the Assembly's roles.The keywords were as follows: 'democracy' and 'democratic'; 'dialogue'; 'participation' and 'participatory'; 'civil society'; 'development'; '(ACP-EU/EU-ACP) partnership/relations/cooperation'; 'Cotonou'; 'future partnership' and 'post-Cotonou'; 'ACP parliaments', 'institutional', and 'parliament(ary)'; and 'human rights'. 91In total, my analysis covers 45 resolutions, eight declarations, two statements, 148 parliamentary questions, 142 responses to the parliamentary questions and the most recent version of the rules of procedure.Moreover, I have also analysed Delputte's, 92  injustice.Some of their insights, which the authors examine in relation to formal equality and Habermasian ideal deliberation, are indeed quite relevant from the perspective of my theoretical framework.
Positionality.Before diving into the analysis, it should be emphasised that I am writing and making interpretations from a particular geo-political and epistemological location: as a Northern researcher who has been an EU citizen from early childhood.Even though I do not consider positionality as fixed, but rather, following Donna Haraway, 94 as 'multidimensional', imperfect and unfinished, my locatedness still undoubtedly affects how (in)sensitive I am to the discussed forms of injustice and their occurrence in the OACPS-EU relationship.My locatedness also extends to my argumentation: despite the 'traitorous' 95 reading of these injustices as being intertwined with coloniality, my argument for their correction, developed in the next section, does not and indeed cannot aim for complete equality between the parties.Moreover, my positionality and materials are also reminders of my outsiderness: naturally, this article does not claim to capture the ACP countries' own experiences nor provide an exhaustive description of their political dialogue with the EU.Rather, it presents a partial, situated interpretation that draws attention to the serious injustices and their consequences that can all too easily go unnoticed.

Analysis
My analysis suggests that the most serious knowledge-related asymmetry characterising the OACPS-EU partnership consists of two intertwined phenomena.On the one hand, the OACPS' and EU's knowledges are appreciated unequally, with the EU's perspective being more in favour, which, I propose, can be interpreted as a cognitive injustice.On the other hand, the parties' positions as knowers are structured hierarchically -again, in favour of the EU -which, I suggest, can be interpreted as an unjust cognitive practice. 96his cognitively and epistemically unjust asymmetry, which can be argued to reflect and strengthen a colonial relationship between the subject and object that has also other implications for the partnership, is upheld through the EU's attitudes, which undermine the OACPS' agency, the Union's disregard of its privileged position and the EU's tendency to teach its 'partners'.Since the educative tendency is the most common, as well as the most concrete of these phenomena, I analyse it in a separate sub-section.After having discussed these findings, I touch upon factors helping maintain the identified asymmetry in the JPA.A brief discussion concludes the section.

EU's Epistemically Superior Position and Dominant Knowledge.
Both the EU's epistemically superior position and the unjust favouring of its knowledge over the OACPS' knowledges are visible in several ways in the analysed documents.Starting with the unequal appreciation of the parties' knowledges, which can be interpreted as a cognitive injustice, this becomes clear for example in how they are labelled.A resolution from 2012 indirectly refers to Western knowledge as 'global' and contrasts it with 'local' OACPS knowledges: the JPA '[c]ongratulates and encourages ACP countries that have made considerable advance in fostering ICTs and ensuring access and connectivity to global knowledge for their citizens and enterprises', and later on it advocates support for programmes that apply 'both global and local knowledge to development'. 97This distinction between global and local knowledges could be innocent, but the labelling can also be interpreted, in line with decolonial critique, as containing an evaluative tone.Knowledge on development seems to be equated with European (or, more broadly, Western) knowledge also in other JPA documents.For instance, a resolution from 2003 stresses that poverty in the ACP countries is the result, at least in part, of 'inadequate and poor access to economic, technical and socio-political knowledge'. 98In addition to this type of labelling, the superior position of the EU's knowledge becomes clear from emphases on the Union's expertise in development, or as stated in a parliamentary question from 2017, its role as 'a global leader in sustainable development'. 99This can be interpreted as justifying the position of the EU's knowledge as well as its hegemonic position as knower in general in the partnership.
Indeed, I suggest that the unequal appreciation of the parties' knowledges is intertwined with an unjust cognitive practice that structures the EU and the OACPS as the dominant knower and sub-knowers. 100Besides references to the EU's 'superior' knowledge and expertise, this hierarchical division is justified by presenting the OACPS side as uncivilised and thus epistemically lesser through rhetoric that emphasises the colonial difference.This othering works, for example, through references to blameworthy, Available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/intcoop/acp/60_18/pdf/declaration_luanda_en.pdf.Last accessed October 13, 2020.106.The number of calls emphasising the need for more balanced cooperation between the parties have actually increased when moving closer to the post-Cotonou era.However, as I note in the sub-section that reflects critically on my findings, this could also be interpreted as a mutual aspiration towards transcending the EU's and the OACPS's unequal positioning in the partnership.107.Dastile and Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 'Power', 111.usually patriarchal, practices or features of ACP societies as 'traditional' or 'cultural', 101 supposedly in contrast to 'modern', allegedly ethically nonculpable practices.The partners' hierarchical epistemic positions have not, however, gone uncriticised in the materials.This critique is clear, for example, in a resolution from 2001, in which the JPA recognises the harmfulness of the 'one-way information highway from North to South' by stressing that it 'would be detrimental to the preservation of the cultural identity of ACP countries and would give rise to an unhealthy degree of foreign influence owing to the lack of cultural, linguistic, social and traditional autonomy'. 102Moreover, an emphasis on 'dialogue [that] should be a two-way process between equal and trusted partners' 103 as well as demands for practices 104 that 'fully respec[t] a partnership of equals' 105 could be read as a critique of the existing epistemic asymmetry between the OACPS and the EU.Similar calls for equality can indeed also be found in other analysed policy documents, which may imply that the situation has not changed over the years. 106esides suppressing the ACP countries' knowledges and undermining their status as knowers, the identified cognitively and epistemically unjust asymmetry is connected also to other injustices and broader patterns of domination.As Nontyatyambo Pearl Dastile and Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni 107 emphasise, 'discourses of development' are characterised by 'colonization of consciousness and modes of knowing', which has had damaging implications in, for instance, Africa. 108For example, Seth Oppong 109 argues that 'reliance on Western knowledge' hinders development on the continent.Moreover, any 'global' knowledge on development -let alone equating development more directly with Western expertise -universalises a situated experience, 110 which not only causes cognitive injustice but can also be seen as itself a form of epistemic injustice.In the case of the OACPS-EU relationship, it can be argued that it reproduces the asymmetry between the parties in dimensions other than just knowledge by maintaining equilibrium 111 or even by legitimising their uneven economic relations. 112These uneven economic ties, for their part, feed the parties' asymmetrical power relations, 113 which impede, for instance, the OACPS side's possibilities to 'shape policy outcomes' 114 and to promote economic and social development. 115The cognitively and epistemically unjust asymmetry between the EU and the OACPS thus reflects and reinforces a colonial subject-object relationship that affects the parties' agency in several, rather opposite, respects. 116n practice, this cognitively and epistemically unjust asymmetry sometimes is upheld through problematic attitudes from the Union's side: the EU's dominant position seems to imply a responsibility or willingness to do more than merely cooperate with its partners.For example, in the EC's reply to a parliamentary question from 2010, the ACP citizens are referred as 'the very people [the EU] is seeking to protect', 117 thus as mere objects of the EU's aspirations.Furthermore, the ACP countries' (representatives') overall agency is undermined in several parliamentary questions, as many members of the European parliament (MEPs) appear to be interested merely in the EC's or the Union's role and actions in the partnership, and many -albeit, of course, not all -of the EC's replies display a similar interest.For instance, a parliamentary question from 2014 concerning China's recent activities in Africa asks the EC if 'dialogue between the EU, Africa and China cover[s] sustainability and human rights'. 118The Commission focused only on the 'EU-China dialogue on African affairs' in its reply, 119 thus completely ignoring the third party involved in the situation, Africa; instead of being an equal discussion partner, the continent is treated -again -as an object of the EU's and China's actions and aspirations.
The hierarchical division between the parties also allows the EU and especially the EC -in line with Pohlhaus Jr.'s 120 theorising about unjust cognitive practices and the decolonial critique of the global North's blindness to its epistemic privilege 121 -to ignore its more powerful position in the partnership and thus also deepen other existing asymmetries, whether intentionally or not. 122This becomes visible, for example, in the Commission's replies to two Burundian MPs' questions from 2016.Both questions, almost identical to one another, enquire as to what the ACP countries can do to ensure that their economic relationship with the EU is mutually beneficial. 123In its replies, the EC stressed the role of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), which include 'asymmetries in favour of the ACP' 124 and 'are tailor-made to ACP countries' needs'. 125In light of criticism of the EC's 'inflexible attitude' during the EPA negotiations, raised both by the ACP countries and within the EU, 126 as well as the ACP scholars' criticism of the EPAs, 127 it seems that the Commission is unwilling to admit the extent to which the Agreements reflect its own interests and hegemonic position 128 as affecting in contrasting ways the EU's and OACPS' economic agency.The fact that nearly the exact same question was asked at two consecutive JPA sessions also seems to imply that Burundi was not satisfied with the first reply.
However, in addition to this kind of ignorance and the above-mentioned ways in which the EU's cognitively and epistemically dominant position is upheld in practice, the Union usually uses its position in a more subtle way: by teaching the ACP countries.
EU Teaching the ACP Countries.Despite the above-mentioned subtlety, the educative tendency characterising OACPS-EU relations is problematic because, in addition to arguably wronging the ACP countries' capacities as knowers and devaluing their knowledges, it objectifies the EU's 'equal partners' and thus undermines their overall agency in the relationship.At a broader level, this tendency can be seen to characterise global development in general, 129 and consequently to lead, for example, to the colonial treatment of 'Africans as objects rather than subjects of development'. 130Indeed, the OACPS is sometimes presented in the analysed documents as an epistemically lesser party that needs to learn from the EU.For instance, in a resolution from 2011 the Assembly 'deplores the fact that freedom of thought and cultural rights are not sufficiently guaranteed in several ACP countries; [and consequently] encourages joint discussions on these topics between the EU Member States and the ACP countries'. 131This type of phrasing seems to devalue the capacities of the ACP states to translate their knowledges into 'appropriate' action, again meaning Western, allegedly universal and ethically nonculpable practices.
The idea of the EU as a teacher that must -or at least can -educate its objectified ACP 'partners' is perhaps most clearly upheld in the MEPs' attitudes in the JPA, examined by Delputte. 132Indeed, some of the MEPs have characterised the JPA as '"a powerful instrument to inject parliamentary habits in the mentality of our ACP colleagues"' as well as giving the ACP parliamentarians the opportunity to 'experience a process of "real democratic scrutiny."' 133Thus, the platform provides 'the "MEPs with a real mandate"' with possibilities to educate 'the "not democratically elected ACP parliamentarians,"' which hints at the unidirectional learning processes taking place at the Assembly. 134Quite aptly, the JPA has been described as 'a symbol for the EU as a model'. 135Curiously, the ACP MPs' own attitudes can also contribute to this educative set-up.Some of Delputte's 136 interviewees indeed described the EU as 'a model of democratic governance with "institutions that work perfectly."'Consequently, 'the exposure and exchange with MEPs help [them] to "see how things are done"'. 137he EU's role as a model for the OACPS is not, however, restricted to some of the MEPs' attitudes towards their colleagues in the JPA, but concerns the overall partnership as well.In practice, the EU sometimes attempts to teach the ACP countries through its own example.For instance, in a resolution from 2019 the Assembly '[w]elcomes the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU; [and]  invites ACP countries to put in place legislation that is aligned with the GDPR'. 138A similar tendency appears regarding a parliamentary question from 2013 and the EC's reply to it.A MEP inquired about information on '[t]he institutional and political processes launched by African leaders', who, according to the text of the question, 'bear witness to their willingness to take responsibility for their own development by drawing inspiration from the European model'. 139The EC's reply reflects this attitude, albeit in a milder tone, when it stated that the 'EU [is] always keen to share experience of regional integration based on its own "success story"'. 140Hence, even if this kind of teaching happened with one accord in the JPA, and even within the overall partnership, it still implies that the EU treats the ACP states as objects of its knowledge and aspirations, rather than as equal partners.This, for its part, arguably helps legitimise, maintain and even strengthen the asymmetries between the parties that are not restricted to knowledge only.
Factors Contributing to the Identified Asymmetry in the JPA.When it comes to the JPA, several factors contribute to sustaining the identified unjust knowledge-related asymmetry between the OACPS and EU.First, Delputte's 141 research as well as some of the analysed policy documents 142 identify a concrete disparity in the JPA that could be interpreted as distributive epistemic injustice 143 or as an unfair distribution of the markers of credibility. 144According to Delputte, 145 the ACP countries' representatives have scarcer resources than their European counterparts when it comes to, for instance, personnel, support from the respective secretariat, financial resources and access to relevant information.Consequently, Delputte 146 notes that the Assembly serves as an important source of information for the ACP MPs and is for this reason even 'perceived to contribute to the empowerment of national parliaments'.This role of the JPA is visible in some of the analysed parliamentary questions: for example, in 2011 a representative of Sierra Leone enquired 147 from the EC about information on the future financial framework of the ACP-EU cooperation.Crucially, then, the disparity in resources likely affects the ACP countries representatives' work on the platform by hindering their capacities to make epistemic contributions and shaping the content of their communicative contributions in general.It thus helps sustain their unequal position as knowers compared to that of the EU representatives, which may reduce the possibilities of the firstly mentioned to effectively address the other asymmetries occurring in the partnership.The fact that this epistemic injustice originates not only from the two side's different economic resources, but also from the Assembly's composition, makes it even more severe.As national delegates, the ACP MPs are not supported by such effective machinery as are the MEPs.Moreover, the ACP representatives' continuous participation is not secured, 148 which can hinder their access to relevant epistemic goods even more. 149econd, the JPA's rules of procedure also play a role in maintaining the asymmetry between the OACPS and the EU.As Delputte and Williams 150 note, these rules do not treat the ACP Secretariat and the European Commission as equals, given that the ACP Secretariat is not obliged to provide answers to parliamentary questions.This may well have to do with the parties' unequal access to resources 151 -which does not mitigate the situation's problematic nature -and also, crucially, reflect and sustain the parties' hierarchical positions as knowers.In so doing, it may also diminish the OACPS side to that of an object on a platform that is supposed to provide the best opportunities for equal deliberation between the parties.Lastly, the JPA's official languages, as well as the interpretation services provided by the EU, mirror only the diversity within the Union. 152Granted, English and French are the OACPS' only official languages, but even still European languages do not have an official status in all ACP countries.The favouring of colonial languages can then be interpreted, in line with decolonial critique, 153 as another sign of the EU's privileged position and one of the potential ways of maintaining it.
154.As noted in footnote 84, when it comes to parliamentary questions, I have been able to analyse only those questions addressed to the EC and its replies due to the limited availability of other data.Curiously, only one-fifth (30 out of 148) of these questions were presented by the ACP countries' representatives.This could be interpreted as supporting my argument about the existing knowledge-related injustices in the partnership, but it may also be connected to other reasons (such as a potential preference among the ACP MPs to address questions to the ACP-EU Council of Ministers instead of the EC), which unfortunately fall outside the scope of this article.155.Delputte, 'The ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly'.156.Ibid., 253, 257.Discussion.To summarise, my analysis suggests that there are serious knowledge-related asymmetries in the OACPS-EU partnership that hinder the equality between the parties in political dialogue.Fundamentally, these injustices -which are both cognitive and epistemic -have to do with the unequal appreciation of the partners' knowledges as well as their hierarchical positions as knowers.At a broader level, these phenomena reflect and reinforce a colonial subject-object relationship, which, besides its other unjust effects, undermines the ACP countries' agency in the partnership.The identified cognitive and epistemic injustices may also prevent deliberations on the other existing asymmetries between the parties.That said, even though my findings shed light on a very important aspect of OACPS-EU relations, they naturally do not tell the whole story of this partnership.
Indeed, my argument about the EU's epistemically and cognitively unjust position, nor the broader injustices connected to this position, do not imply that the ACP countries would be mere victims whose agency or epistemic contributions do not matter in this relationship.Admittedly, my analysis may have unintentionally hinted at their passive victimhood by focusing mainly on the EU's attitudes and actions.This focus can, however, be traced to my geo-political locatedness and materials at hand, 154 as I have stressed in the sub-section concerning my positionality; aiming to 'speak for' the OACPS side in this piece of research would in my view be colonial in nature and thus ethically questionable.Nevertheless, the ACP countries' agency does not go unnoticed in the analysed documents.Some of them actually, in addition to stressing the OACPS' role, interests, and specific needs, seemingly include a growing emphasis on real cooperation: an aspiration to have the relationship transcend that of donor and aid recipients (or teacher and students, if you will).This emphasis has only increased when moving closer to the post-Cotonou era.Moreover, Delputte 155 recognises that the political dialogue also includes more equal tones at times.For instance, the discussions in the JPA have been described (the above-mentioned MEPs' educative attitudes notwithstanding) as more equal than the overall partnership, and even as enabling mutual learning and engagement in '"democratic organized debates". 156Nonetheless, my analysis shows that there is still much to be done if the EU and OACPS aim to move towards a more equal relationship that requires, among other things, possibilities to communicate under more just conditions than currently exist.

Prerequisites for an Epistemically and Cognitively Just Political Dialogue
As my analysis shows, tackling both epistemic and cognitive injustices is crucial for a political dialogue that aims not only to secure the parties' formal equality, but also to increase the concrete equality between them.Indeed, realising knowledge-related forms of justice is an important precondition for also addressing other (potential) injustices between the participants.Such communication requires treating each knower, as well as all knowledges, as equal -and, on the other hand, also securing that the participants have sufficient epistemic and material resources to participate in the conversation in the first place.In this section, I suggest, drawing on Young's 157 communicative ethics as well as Mignolo's 158 and Ndlovu-Gatsheni's 159 decolonial theorising, three prerequisites for listening and communication that help achieve epistemic and cognitive justice in political deliberation.First -and more abstractly -equality between the knowers and their knowledges can be secured by recognising the irreversibility of each perspective.This, for its part, requires openness to learning from each speech act, which also enables mutual learning.Second -and more concretely -dismantling the (potential) asymmetries causing epistemic and cognitive injustice between the parties indeed becomes possible when these asymmetries are first recognised through mutual learning, especially when this process is supplemented with critical self-reflection.Third, epistemic and cognitive justice also demands respecting each participant as an equal epistemic subject and securing their concrete possibilities to use these epistemic rights.These three dialogical ideals do not aim to guarantee the parties' complete equality, especially not in empirical contexts.However, I argue that committing to them will help promote an epistemically and cognitively more just form of deliberation, which is itself an important goal.
I develop my argument as follows: I begin by introducing Fricker's 160 proposition on how to correct epistemic injustices and suggest that Young's ideas, when read through the lenses of epistemic justice, provides more suitable tools for promoting equality among participants as knowers in political communication.Then, I turn to the issue of cognitive justice and discuss what recognising and addressing the asymmetries that cause both epistemic and cognitive injustices would require.Alongside my argumentation, I discuss the implications of the suggested ideals for OACPS-EU relations.In so doing, I provide strategies for the parties to communicate on a more equal footing in order to address their colonial subject-object relationship as well other related asymmetries in the partnership.Finally, I touch upon some of my argument's limitations.

Promoting Epistemic Justice in Political Deliberation
When it comes to remedies for epistemic injustice, Fricker 161 does not argue in favour of pre-set principles but instead proposes that a virtuous attitude among listeners can correct these injustices.Fricker suggests that if listeners are reflexive enough to be aware of 'the prejudice that is distorting their perception of the speaker' and are also able to 162.Ibid., 89, 91, 92, italics in original.163.Ibid., 92, italics in original.164.Ibid., 71, 76. 165.Anderson, 'Epistemic Justice as a Virtue'.166.Ibid., 168.167.Ibid., 167.168.This does not, however, mean that all presented views should automatically be accepted -an assumption that can be problematic when there are unjust power asymmetries at play (see Young, Intersecting Voices, 48), as is the case with the OACPS-EU partnership.Moreover, I do not interpret Young's account to imply that the listeners should have an uncritical attitude towards each presented view, and neither do I endorse this kind of dialogical ideal.I return to this issue in the forthcoming pages.169.See Anderson, 'Epistemic Justice as a Virtue'.170.It should be emphasised that even though the preconditions that I suggest for promoting an epistemically and -slightly later -cognitively just political dialogue aim to construct conditions in which listening and discussing could ideally occur from an equal footing, providing any complete account of, for instance, such listening is unfortunately beyond the scope of this article.contextualise this awareness, then they can 'neutralize' the consequences of their identity prejudice towards the speaker and thus avoid causing them epistemic injustice. 162Fricker calls this 'the virtue of testimonial justice'. 163Hence, for her this virtue refers to a listener's 'well-trained' ability to '"just see" her interlocutor in a certain light, and to respon [d] to his word accordingly'. 164owever, as Anderson 165 notes, Fricker's account does not provide sufficient remedies for epistemic injustices that occur in institutional contexts.First of all, Fricker's proposition can appear challenging to individual listeners. 166Moreover, it is doubtful whether structural epistemic injustices can be prevented solely by virtuous listening, given that they also originate from non-prejudicial phenomena. 167Consequently, I suggest that Young's communicative ethics provides more feasible tools for tackling epistemic injustices in political deliberation because her theory indeed succeeds in avoiding these two problems.First, I argue that Young's theory causes less of a burden for listeners because, instead of demanding continuous reflection, it requires that participants treat all speech acts respectively. 168Second, the principles that Young puts forward concern all participants engaging in dialogue, which allows these principles to be applied in an institutional setting.Third, these principles reduce the impact of non-prejudicial phenomena underlying structural epistemic injustice, especially the 'shared reality' bias. 169Young's theory thus provides specific preconditions for listening that help achieve epistemic justice in dialogical settings. 170or Young, 171 each participant's equal and respectful treatment of others in a communicative situation demands reciprocity, which means that 'each [participant] acknowledges and takes account of the other'.This also implies recognising the particularities of all participants and thus their 'asymmetrical reciprocity', which Young illustrates via the 172.Ibid metaphor of gift-giving: just as gifts can be considered 'unique offering[s]', so too 'each [participant] brings to the relationships a history and structured positioning that makes them different from one another'. 172Consequently, their perspectives are irreversible, which means that the speakers and listeners cannot figuratively step into each other's shoes. 173Young emphasises that the supposition that the perspective of each participant would be reversible is indeed harmful.For example, if the listener is more privileged than the speaker, there is a danger that the listener interprets the speaker's views through their own privileged experiences and thus 'projects' a false 'sameness', which can lead to the domination of more privileged views and even legitimate their status. 174Thus, as with the 'shared reality' bias, the assumptions of those in the more privileged groups that they can understand those in a less privileged positions can actually imply that the latter are treated epistemically unjustly.The harmfulness of this bias becomes clear in my analysis as well, especially with regard to the EU's tendency to want to teach the ACP countries and universalise its own knowledge and experiences, which deepens epistemic asymmetries and other inequalities between the parties.According to Young, 175 recognising the irreversibility of the participants' perspectives and avoiding the harm caused by 'unrealistic identification' requires moral humility from the listeners; they must recognise that they cannot ever fully identify with the speakers' views and so should listen to each speaker with an openness to learning from them.This implies that each presented viewpoint must be listened to respectfully.From the perspective of epistemic justice, this means that the listeners must treat each speaker as an equal informant who can teach them something that goes beyond their own perspective.This practice can be very demanding, but if successful it would imply that the listeners must 'neutralise' the outcome of their potential prejudice before the act of speaking has even begun, and, on the other hand, try to understand the speaker without assuming any commonality in their prior experiences.The demand for respectful listening does not, however, imply that each perspective should be treated uncritically.In the end, the presented views can be influenced by external factors, 176 include mistaken knowledge, 177 and, above all, provoke controversy among the listeners.All presented testimonies thus require careful, reflexive discussion. 178When it comes to the OACPS-EU relationship, taking these conditions into account in political dialogue could enable the parties to see the limitations of their own perspectives and lead to a situation in which each party would become both a teacher and a student.This does not mean, though, that 'teaching' should always be symmetrical: Young 179 recognises that when there are structural power differentials at play, it is possible that not all views should be considered as equally legitimate.I would take this notion further and suggest that the views of those who have suffered from epistemic injustice should indeed be privileged -especially in the context of the OACPS-EU partnership, where the teaching and learning is often unidirectional.
Another important advantage in utilising Young's communicative ethics to examine the prerequisites for an epistemically just political dialogue is, I suggest, that it draws attention to the benefits of mutual learning.Young 180 argues that a dialogue in which all parties are willing to learn openly from each other can 'enlarge' their thinking and allow the participants to learn about 'the collective social processes and relationships that lie between [them]'. 181This implies that the parties can also become more aware of the potential asymmetries between them, including epistemic and material ones.After all, recognising the irreversibility of the participants' perspectives in empirical contexts would hardly imply a form of communication that began from a blank slate and thus erased, for example, the potential asymmetrical power relations or material conditions between the participants.Rather, it could serve as an ideal towards which to strive.Aspiring to realise this ideal would be important also in the OACPS-EU relationship because it could increase the parties' mutual understanding of one another, including a recognition of the injustices that need to be addressed in the partnership.'[F]oster[ing] mutual understanding' is indeed already one of the objectives of the parties' dialogue, included both in the CPA 182 and the negotiated Post-Cotonou Agreement text. 183omparable phrasing is also used when discussing one of the tasks of the JPA, 184 its reestablished version and the three new Regional Parliamentary Assemblies. 185The reciprocal nature of this objective should, however, be emphasised more by connecting it to mutual learning, which would require the parties to genuinely listen to each other.
It should be noted now that not all forms of epistemic injustice discussed and analysed in this article can be tackled solely by committing oneself to the above-described ideals.Indeed, these ideals do not provide tools for tackling distributive epistemic injustice, even though I have hinted that this form of epistemic injustice could also potentially be recognised through mutual learning.That said, Young's discussion of justice 186 also identifies reasons for why distributive epistemic injustice demands structural remedies.Indeed, Young 187 argues that societal justice requires that people be able to participate 'fully' in 'a society's major institutions'.Even though the OACPS-EU relationship presents a very different context, it can be argued that the analysed distributive epistemic injustice endangers the possibilities for representatives of the ACP countries to fully participate in the JPA.This in turn can hinder their chances of addressing the other unjust asymmetries between the parties.I return to this issue shortly.

Towards a Cognitively Just Political Dialogue
Though Young's ideas increase our understanding of how an epistemically just political dialogue could be conducted in an ideal setting, they do not focus enough on the power relations that can maintain or even reinforce epistemic injustices in the first place.These power relations actually extend to the development of my theoretical argument as well: an argument based solely on adhering to the discussed dialogical guidelines can indeed be criticised for being itself exclusive, given that I have so far investigated only Western theorising on equality in political dialogue.This is exactly the issue decolonial theory sheds light on in problematising and criticising the location of dominant knowledge.From this perspective, it can be argued that Young's communicative ethics, as well as (most of) the different lenses on epistemic injustice, do not focus on the racialised subject; a subject forgotten in these accounts and consequently potentially treated as a mere object of knowledge rather than as an equal knower.This exclusiveness emphasises the importance of turning to the requirements for cognitive justice.
According to Santos, cognitive justice implies a call for intercultural dialogue between diverse knowledges and 'granting an "equality of opportunities"' to non-scientific knowledges. 188For this reason, I find Mignolo's and Ndlovu-Gatsheni's ideas more useful for discussing the promotion of cognitive justice within the context of political dialogue because they make it possible to examine the preconditions for equality between different knowledges at a slightly more general (and, admittedly, also more Eurocentric) level. 189ence, I suggest that addressing the unjust asymmetries hindering the realisation of equality between the participants' knowledges 190 demands the following.First, learning through dialogue about the existing asymmetries between parties needs to be supplemented with critical self-reflection on the existing unjust epistemic privileges 191 and material structures as well as on the participants' roles in maintaining these asymmetries.I argue that both learning and critical self-reflection are needed to understand the relations 192.The extent to which the privileged participants are aware of their epistemic privilege and its implications can naturally vary.They can, for example, be ignorant of this privilege, recognise it and aim to take it into account, or simply deploy it to their own advantage.Critical self-reflection is an important step in acknowledging the situation, but as stated, it does not alone suffice.193.See Mignolo, 'DELINKING', 346.194.As discussed in the previous sections of this article, the same applies also to the promotion of epistemic justice.195.See Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Empire, 230.196.Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 'Perhaps Decoloniality', 7.
causing knowledge-related injustices; monological reflection is not sufficient by itself, though it does help participants question their own potentially biased view of the situation or even intentionally unequal behaviour 192 and thus to be more open to learn from other participants' perspectives.Second, the parties must also recognise that any attempts to universalise particular knowledges are exclusive precisely because they simultaneously silence other knowledges and knowers. 193This recognition is of course a crucial prerequisite for even aspiring to promote cognitive justice, 194 as it increases the participants' understanding of the necessity to engage in a form of dialogue in which all knowledges and knowers are treated as equal.Third, the parties should begin dismantling the epistemically and cognitively unjust privileges and asymmetries between them not only by committing themselves to rather abstract notions of equality, but also by recognising the equal status of those participants who have been treated as epistemically lesser.In other words, each participant should be respected as an equal epistemic subject 195 and thus entitled to equal epistemic rights. 196In practice, the realising of these rights would also demand securing that each participant has concrete epistemic and material possibilities to make an epistemic contribution.The emphasis should here be on the phrasing 'concrete possibilities'; in empirical contexts, the underlying, often asymmetrical, material conditions where dialogue takes place quite inevitably affect the outcomes of deliberation, regardless of the nature of the principles guiding the parties' communication.Crucially, however, dialogue can be used to address these material conditions and the potential structural injustices connected to them.Respecting the parties' equal epistemic rights can indeed serve as an important precondition for such deliberation.
The suggested preconditions for listening and communication would thus help secure a more equal footing for the parties in dialogue occurring in empirical contexts, a crucial prerequisite for deliberating on other potential injustices.In the context of OACPS-EU relations, a commitment to these requirements would help alter the existing colonial situation in which the EU seemingly treats the OACPS as an object of its aspirations and expertise, which, as noted, also legitimises and even deepens both knowledge-related and other asymmetries between the parties.In so doing, these ideals would underline the necessity of taking the parties' attitudes as well as their epistemic and material resources into account in this dismantling process.In practice, aspiring to create a dialogue between more equal knowers and knowledges within OACPS-EU relations would require reflexive discussion on the existing unjust epistemic privileges in the partnership, and consequently, updating its guiding values.The most crucial of these is the principle of equality, which has been poorly defined in the CPA and, disappointingly, even more poorly in the negotiated Post-Cotonou Agreement text.Most alarmingly, the principle is not mentioned in the Articles 197 that concern the parties' political dialogue.The meaning and implications of this principle should indeed be broadened in the post-Cotonou era to stress the parties' equal standing in their dialogue.
The above-mentioned issues should also lead to concrete changes in those platforms where dialogues between the parties take place.I use the re-established JPA here as an example because it can be considered, along with the three new Regional Parliamentary Assemblies, the most promising platform for OACPS-EU communication.Thus, the Assembly can serve as an ideal model for other dialogical contexts as well.First, the equal status as knowers of JPA members, as well as of the EC and the OACPS Secretariat, should be stressed as a guiding principle in the platform and thus added to its new rules of procedure.In practice, securing epistemically and cognitively more just treatment for all parties could start from, on the one hand, acknowledging that the discussions should support each parliamentarian's internalised sense of having an equal right to speak and to be heard, 198 and on the other hand, assigning the same responsibilities 199 to the EC and the OACPS Secretariat.Second, the ACP MPs' unequal access to epistemic goods should be addressed so that the parties could communicate from a more equal standing.Third, the JPA's official languages and the availability of interpreting services should be discussed critically.Moreover, the parties should demonstrate their commitment to the equal epistemic rights of all JPA members by considering other potential tools, such as an accountability mechanism, that might contribute to the realisation of these rights.All the above-mentioned issues should also be taken into account in the rules of procedure for the three new Regional Parliamentary Assemblies.
The proposed changes in OACPS-EU political dialogue could enable the parties to address their colonial subject-object relationship, which, as stated, has socially and economically damaging implications for the ACP countries.An epistemically and cognitively more just form of dialogue could also allow them to acknowledge the other related injustices occurring in the partnership and discuss suitable strategies for their correction.More broadly, then, this kind of political dialogue between the OACPS and EU is, I argue, an important precondition for promoting more equal cooperation in general.There is, however, the danger that the suggested changes would remain mere cosmetic modifications that, despite drawing attention to knowledge-related injustices, would not be sufficient for addressing the structural reasons underlying such injustices.It would thus be crucial that the type of critical, reflexive discussion on the existing privileges and unjust asymmetries I have called for would extend to the recognition of their connection to the parties' attitudes, that is, the tendency of the EU to consider itself as providing solutions to the ACP countries' problems actually reproduces old colonial hierarchies.This underlines the necessity of mutual learning and even privileging the OACPS' views 200.I also want to stress that top-down approaches are only one potential strategy for tackling epistemic and cognitive injustices.Indeed, many decolonial scholars (see, for example, Santos, Epistemologies; Escobar, Pluriversal Politics) focus, for example, on the role of social movements in promoting knowledge-related and other forms of justice.I see these differing approaches, along with other alternatives, as mutually enriching rather than as mutually exclusive.The focus of this article is, however, restricted to the potentiality of top-down strategies due to the empirical context I examine and also, partly, my own positionality.201.Mignolo, 'DELINKING', 313, 341, 352.202.Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs, 125.when imagining what a more equal partnership between these regions could look like in practice.
Lastly, it should be emphasised that I am uncomfortably aware of the limitations of my reading of Mignolo's and Ndlovu-Gatsheni's works as well as of decolonial theory in general in the development of my theoretical argument. 200As noted above, my geopolitical locatedness also affects my argumentation, and I acknowledge that my inability to propose ideals and a practical means for realising complete equality may seem insufficient.Moreover, even though the above-described requirements would make it possible to reduce epistemic and cognitive injustices in empirical contexts, these ideals are not sufficient for delinking from the modern/colonial 'control of knowledge and subjectivity', a praxis that would require, among other things, rethinking politics itself. 201owever, I hope that bringing even a restricted interpretation of decolonial theory into discussion with Young's communicative ethics and drawing on both theories' ideas in this particular context will, if not 'erase', at least make it possible to recognise and problematise 'the power structure that maintains hegemony' 202 in the OACPS-EU relationship.After all, this pattern of domination -or other injustices occurring in world politics -cannot be addressed without deliberation from an epistemically and cognitively more just footing.

Conclusions
In this article, I have argued in favour of three ideals for listening and communication that would help achieve epistemic and cognitive justice in political deliberation.Such a form of political dialogue does not yet secure the participants' complete equality but, crucially, enables them to also address other unjust asymmetries -including the ones potentially causing knowledge-related injustices between them in the first place -as well as to discuss strategies for their correction.Moreover, I have analysed the epistemic and cognitive injustices occurring in OACPS-EU relations and argued that they are connected to a colonial subject-object relationship between the parties, which can legitimise, maintain and even strengthen the other asymmetries occurring in the partnership.Then, I applied the suggested dialogical ideals, supplemented with some more practical suggestions, in drafting policy proposals as a way to move towards more equal political dialogue and consequently to more equal ways of cooperation in the post-Cotonou era.
The proposed ideals are relevant not only for OACPS-EU relations, but also for improving political deliberation in world politics in general.Indeed, my article has demonstrated that paying attention to epistemic and cognitive (in)justice can enrich these theoretical accounts and thus provide better possibilities for understanding the preconditions for equality in dialogical settings.Such prerequisites are definitely also needed more broadly in the current international system, given that its negotiations have developed to favour some knowledges over others.An aspiration to promote knowledgerelated forms of justice would thus imply re-evaluating the principles guiding these negotiations and the system itself, which currently reflects the coloniality of power 203 that subjugates 204 some knowers.Lastly, the dialogical ideals I have put forward could also be useful in theorising about communication in other contexts, such as international public spheres, 205 and consequently contribute also in this way to the broader project of addressing existing injustices, both knowledge-related and others.
• discuss issues pertaining to development and the ACP-EU Partnership, including the Economic Partnership Agreements, other trading arrangements, the European Development Fund and Country and Regional Strategy Papers.To this end, the Commission shall transmit such Strategy Papers for information to the Joint Parliamentary Assembly; • discuss the annual report of the Council of Ministers on the implementation of this Agreement, and adopt resolutions and make recommendations to the Council of Ministers with a view to achieving the objectives of this Agreement; • advocate for institutional development and capacity building of national parliaments in accordance with Article 33(1) of this Agreement.'(African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States and the European Community and its Member States, 'Partnership agreement between the members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States of the one part, and the European Community and its Member States, of the other part, signed in Cotonou on 23 June 2000', last modified 31 May 2018, Article 17(2), https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:22000A1215(01); African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States and the European Community and its Member States, 'Agreement amending for the second time the Partnership Agreement between the members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, of the one part, and the European Community and its Member States, of the other part, signed in Cotonou on 23 June 2000, as first amended in Luxembourg on 25 June 2005', last modified 4 November 2010, 15-16, http://www.acp.int/sites/acpsec.waw.be/files/accord_cotonou_revise_2010_en.pdf.'Themodifications adopted in 2010 are in bold.)'86.Delputte, 'The ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly'.87.Unfortunately, it has not been possible to account for the platform's perhaps slightly modified tasks and roles in the post-Cotonou era in the analysis.88.See Delputte and Williams, 'Equal Partnership', 495.89.Ibid., 497-99.
197.See Article 8 of the CPA and Article 3 of the negotiated Post-Cotonou Agreement text.It should be emphasised, however, that the latter text may not be the final version of the new agreement.198.See Iris Marion Young, 'Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy', in Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, ed.Seyla Benhabib (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 122.199.This would imply securing the OACPS Secretariat's resources to fulfil these responsibilities.
Union 48, no.C 272 (2005): 20.Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:C:2005:272:FULL&from=EN.Last accessed May 7, 2020; ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, 'Resolution on Cultural Diversity and Human Rights in ACP and EU Countries', 17 June 2015, 5. Available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/intcoop/acp/2015_acp/pdf/101753_en.pdf.Last accessed May 7, 2020.102.ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, 'Resolution on Means of Access to Global Communication for ACP Countries as a Contribution to Sustainable Development, and the Need for such Access', Official Journal of the European Communities 45, no.Last accessed August 3, 2022.104.In this particular declaration from 2009, these practices refer to the revision of the political dimension in the partnership.I interpret these JPA demands as critical of the existing state of affairs, given that the ACP criticised the EU heavily for pushing its political objectives in the Cotonou negotiations (see Karin Arts, 'Political Dialogue in a "New" Framework', in European Union and the Developing Countries: The Cotonou Agreement, ed.Olufemi Babarinde and Gerrit Faber (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 164-65).105.ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, 'Luanda Declaration on the Second Revision of the ACP-EU Partnership (Cotonou Agreement)', 30 November-3 December 2009, 2.
188.Santos, Epistemologies, 42, 189-90; Santos, Nunes, and Meneses, 'Introduction', xlix.189.It should be mentioned that cognitive justice also requires realising equality between diverse ways of being -hence, diverse worlds -(Arturo Escobar, Pluriversal Politics: The Real and the Possible, trans.David Frye (Durham: Duke University Press Books, 2020), 68) which also has implications for discussions on what equality should mean in dialogical contexts.I will address this ontological dimension in my forthcoming work.190.It is unfortunately beyond the scope of this article to elaborate on what actually counts as knowledge, but the important thing here, from the perspective of decolonial theoris- ing, is to recognise the status of 'alternative' knowledges (Dastile and Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 'Power', 115), such as 'endogenous' knowledge, which is not imposed from the outside, but indeed constitutes 'knowledge about the people, by the people and for the people' (Oppong, 'Indigenizing Knowledge', 34).191.See Mignolo, 'Epistemic Disobedience', 160, 166.