Abstract
The article explores the question of legitimacy at the national and international levels. It starts by showing that in the modern era it is mainly in the context of the national realm that political legitimacy has been recognized and treated as a key issue. The article explains why this has been the case. It continues by indicating that at the international level political legitimacy is equally important. It highlights this idea by unpacking some of the pivotal distinctions and themes that structure the question of political legitimacy internationally, such as: we/them; inside/outside; universalist/particularist; and system/society. It ends with giving historical illustrations of these structural distinctions at work.
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Notes
Jürgen Habermas has also explored the nature and conditions of possibility of political legitimacy beyond the national level. For example, consult Jürgen Habermas, Philosophical Introductions: Five Approaches to Communicative Reason.
As China becomes more and more influential globally, this may have far reaching implications for the evolution of the international system. This is a question Wang Hui alludes to in China from Empire to Nation-State. Interestingly, the term “nation-state” does not fit either the legal and political culture of the United States.
Of course, this does not mean that they are fully reflective and in a state of total transparency to themselves.
Democracy and the form of political legitimacy associated with it are largely about “de-kinshipisation”. While traditional socialization and politics conceive the “we versus them” divide and access to resources in narrow terms, particularly based on and legitimized by kinship, democratic values are benchmarked upon universality and, consequently, (relatively) open membership and access to resources.
The quest for entire and absolute equality, for making people and their living conditions more or less the same and totally transparent to each other, is an unrealizable and dangerous utopia, as shown by the social and human costs of revolutionary politics in the twentieth century. See for instance Francois Furet, The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the The Twentieth Century and Marc Richir, “Révolution et transparence sociale”, in J. G. Fichte, Considérations sur la Révolution Française. From this perspective, the question of justice and legitimacy in democratic politics becomes how to achieve relative equality or acceptable and reasonable inequalities and differences in a world that, while mindful of the dangers of revolutionary messianism, has still to be more than only “what is” and inspires people and societies to be better so that a genuine human community can flourish. Calculating reasonable inequalities and hierarchies is both a crucial and challenging task.
March 4, 1861.
Think about the growing gap between rich and poor that is at work in a number of democratic societies.
Out of the exercise of this right, democratic legitimacy is not only on display but is strengthened and made more legitimate—this assuming, of course, that the challenge is taking seriously by power holders and that, as a result, they adjust and improve their performance if necessary.
In an October 8th, 2018 blog posting, Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary (1999–2001) under President Clinton, confessed discovering that the reality of the United States seen from “the ground” is very different than seem from the top: “Driving across the US gave me a different perspective on the American economy: Economists like me see the world through the prism of models, fit to statistical data and tested against market realities… But there are other ways of gaining understanding about an economy and its workers. This was brought home to me last month when I accompanied my wife on a trip different from any I had ever taken. We drove for 2 weeks on two-lane roads from Chicago to Portland, Ore., across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. The larger cities we passed through included Dubuque, Iowa; Cody, Wyo.; and Bozeman, Mont… We were also struck by how remote the concerns of the coasts seemed… The conversations we overheard hewed close to local matters. I have always taken it for granted that broadened opportunities for young people are a good thing and that disadvantaged parents would be among the greatest champions of that idea. Now I see more nuance. When we visited one university and spoke with some of its recruiters, they told us about the ambivalence of parents in their rural state. Many ranchers and Native Americans wanted to see their children educated but feared they would lose their attachment to the family way of life. The phrase “way of life” is, I have come to think, an idea that those concerned with political economy could usefully ponder. It is fashionable to talk about business leaders and cosmopolitan elites who are more worried about the concerns of their conference mates in Davos, Switzerland, than those of their fellow citizens in Detroit or Düsseldorf, Germany. They are blamed for provoking a backlash against globalization. What I saw on my trip was how many profoundly different ways of life there are within the United States. I began to understand better than I had those who live as their parents did in smaller communities closer to the land… Americans want to live in very different ways. Perhaps more appreciation of that on the part of those who lead our society could strengthen and unify our country at what is surely a complex and difficult moment in its history.”
In June 2017, the newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron referred to people at the bottom of society as “les gens qui ne sont rien” (“People who are nothing”). A few years earlier, in 2014, it was alleged, convincingly, that the socialist French President François Hollande was referring, humorously (or so he thought), to poor people who cannot afford proper dental care as “les sans-dents” (“The without teeth”).
Interestingly, the expectations and demands toward the international level and its institutions, like the United Nations, can be high when the national realm is weak. It can be the case with struggling developing countries. Unfortunately, this can be a source of disappointment since for a number of reasons the capacity of the UN to deliver on the ground is rather limited.
As we see below, this statement needs to be nuanced.
It is not only specialists of international relations who can have a realist understanding of international law. It can be the case with international law scholars as well. See Jack L. Goldsmith and Eric A. Possner, The Limits of International Law.
Although a number of scholars of international relations have used and developed the notion of “international society” in a variety of ways, it is most associated with the “English School” of international relations, initiated by a group of academics working in the United Kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly Martin Wight and Hedley Bull. For an overview of the origins, history and trajectory of the English school, see Andrew Linklater and Hidemi Suganami (2006), The English School of International Relations: A Contemporary Reassessment and Barry Buzan, From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation.
However, the contrary can also be the case. Carol Anderson, in Eyes Off the Price: The United Nations and the African-American Struggle for Human Rights has shown that while the United States was pushing for human rights internationally in the context of the negotiation on and drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted in December 1948), it was also resisting having the situation of African-Americans in the United States at the time addressed in a human rights framework.
This can also affect the sense of political legitimacy at the national level (see the interplay between the national and international realms).
This is why recognizing the humanity of actors is likely to be at the core of rightful or legitimate conduct or use of power and the impact it has on people.
In the context of multilateralism, including of the United Nations, member states never cease to be at the service of their national interest.
Mlada Bukovansky, in Legitimacy and Power Politics: The American and French Revolutions in International Political Culture, shows how the American and French revolutions had a deep impact on international political culture, including the sense of legitimacy internationally.
On the issue of self-determination in the context of the Treaty of Versailles negotiations, see Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six months that Changed the World.
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Coicaud, JM. Political Legitimacy, from the National to the International. Chin. Polit. Sci. Rev. 4, 455–473 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41111-019-00137-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41111-019-00137-x