DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY AND COERCIVELY ENFORCED BORDERS

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Michael Rabinder James
Keyword(s):  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Border Enforcement ◽  
Plausible Account ◽  
State Coercion ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Do So

Arash Abizadeh argues that all coercive enforcement of borders is democratically illegitimate, since foreigners do not participate in the creation of border laws. It is irrelevant whether the border laws are substantively just or unjust, whether the state enforcing them is affluent or poor, and whether the individual being coerced autonomously chooses to cross the border or is forced by desperate circumstances to do so. His argument involves (1) a foundational commitment to individual autonomy; (2) a normative premise that coercion requires democratic legitimation; (3) and an empirical premise that border enforcement laws subject all foreigners to state coercion. In this essay, I contest each of these components. I challenge the empirical premise through examples illustrating the empirical limits to state coercion over foreigners. I contest the normative premise by showing that state coercion requires democratic legitimation only for those involuntarily and indefinitely subject to it. Finally, I challenge the commitment to individual autonomy as foundational to political legitimacy by distinguishing political legitimacy from political authority. I conclude by demonstrating how my critique renders a more plausible account of the normative limits of border coercion, one that coheres more readily with stances advanced by Javier Hidalgo and Abizadeh himself.

scholarly journals An Introduction to the Problem of Authority

2019 ◽  
pp. 13-29
Author(s):  
Michael Huemer
Keyword(s):  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Jel Classification ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Physical Force ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
The Government ◽  
Do So

By general consensus, there is a presumption against coercion: Only in a relatively narrow range of circumstances may an individual or group deploy physical force, or threats of physical force, against other individuals or groups. However, these circumstances do not include most of the circumstances in which governments actually deploy force. In other words, the typical behav- ior of governments is behavior that would be considered unacceptable, if adopted by any non-governmental person or group. This happens because the government is thought to have a special kind of authority (political authority), which private individuals and groups lack. The central contention of this paper is that there is nothing special about the state that explains why it would have authority over everyone else. The state, therefore, has only political power, not political authority. That is, it has the ability to coerce other agents and to take their resources, but it has no more moral right to do so than any other agent has. This view leads to a libertarian political philosophy. Keywords: political authority, political legitimacy, political obligation coercion, libertarianism JEL Classification: D63, D74, Z18 Resumen: Por consenso general, existe una presunción contra la coerción: sólo en un rango relativamente estrecho de circunstancias puede un individuo o grupo desplegar fuerza física, o amenazas de fuerza física, contra otros indi- viduos o grupos. Sin embargo, estas circunstancias no incluyen la mayoría de las circunstancias en las que los gobiernos realmente implementan la fuerza.  En otras palabras, el comportamiento típico de los gobiernos es un comportam- iento que se consideraría inaceptable si fuera adoptado por cualquier persona o grupo no gubernamental. Esto sucede porque se piensa que el gobierno tiene un tipo especial de autoridad (autoridad política) de la cual carecen los individuos y grupos privados. El argumento central de este artículo es que no hay nada especial en el estado que explique por qué debería tener autoridad sobre todos los demás. El estado, por lo tanto, sólo tiene poder político, no autoridad política. Es decir, tiene la capacidad de coaccionar a otros agentes y de tomar sus recursos, pero no tiene más derecho moral de hacerlo que cualquier otro agente. Esta visión conduce a una filosofía política libertaria. Palabras clave: autoridad política, legitimidad política, obligación política, coerción, libertarianismo Clasificación JEL: D63, D74, Z18

Legitimacy and Representation beyond Elections (Part Two)

2020 ◽  
pp. 105-127
Author(s):  
Hélène Landemore
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Selection Mechanism ◽  
Minimal Form ◽  
Liquid Democracy ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Electoral Representation

This chapter determines whether non-elected bodies with intrinsic democratic credentials, such as mini-publics and self-selected representative groups like social movements, also have the legitimacy to make binding decisions for the rest of the polity. It returns to the question of political legitimacy and proposes that the democratic legitimacy of representatives comes not from individual consent, as eighteenth-century theory of legitimacy understood it, but a plurality of factors, including majoritarian authorization as a necessary but insufficient condition. Majoritarian authorization need not be of directly individual representatives but, instead, of the selection mechanism through which they are selected. The chapter then considers the circumstances under which self-selected representatives can acquire a minimal form of democratic legitimacy even in the absence of any explicit majoritarian authorization of the selection mechanism or of the individual persons thereby selected. It also looks at the problems posed by potential conflicts of legitimacy between different democratic representatives and assesses how these problems may be solved. Finally, the chapter returns to electoral representation and asks whether it could be sufficiently democratized through so-called liquid democracy schemes, which would create a system labelled as “liquid representation.”

Anarchism

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall Shatz
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
William Godwin ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
The Enlightenment

Anarchism rejects the state as an inherently despotic institution that must be abolished in order for human nature to flower. This does not mean the absence of social order, however, for anarchism also contains a positive vision of the kind of community it expects to arise when political authority is eliminated. Although it shares liberalism's commitment to individual autonomy and Marxism's commitment to social justice, anarchism claims that it can implement those principles more fully and effectively without utilizing the mechanism of the state. Anarchism as a secular political philosophy originated as a product of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and anarchist thought was the cumulative product of a number of different individuals in different countries who elaborated its basic principles. This article examines the views of several thinkers on anarchism, including William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Michael Bakunin, and Prince Peter Kropotkin. It also considers the link between anarchism and terrorism.

scholarly journals Epistemic democracy and political legitimacy

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sheng Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The State ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Epistemic Democracy ◽  
Condorcet’S Jury Theorem ◽  
Jury Theorem ◽  
The Common ◽  
Egalitarian Principle

My dissertation aims to answer two questions: (1) Is democracy epistemically valuable? (2) Is the epistemic value of democracy, if it has any, necessary for justifying its legitimacy? I argue that democracy in certain form can be epistemically valuable. However, I also argue that the epistemic value of democracy is not necessary for justifying its legitimacy. To defend the epistemic value of democracy, I propose a postdeliberation version of Condorcet's jury theorem. I argue that this version of the jury theorem can avoid the common challenges against the classic version. To reject the necessity of epistemic value for democratic legitimacy, I argue that, given that the epistemic value of democracy is subject to disagreement, it cannot be used to justify legitimacy. In addition, I provide a purely proceduralist argument for democratic legitimacy, which appeals to the egalitarian principle that every citizens ought to be equally respected by the state. This argument, if succeeds, shows that the epistemic value of democracy is not necessary for justifying democratic legitimacy.

Grand Days, Dark Palaces

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Rae ◽  
Christian Reus-Smit
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Justice ◽  
Liberal Internationalism ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Do So

Exploring contradictions inherent in liberal orders, this chapter questions the treatment of liberalism in the International Relations academy as a relatively straightforward set of beliefs about the individual, the state, the market, and political justice. It asserts that the contradictions and tensions within liberal internationalism are in fact deep and troubling. Highlighting some of liberalism's obscured and sometimes denied contradictions — between liberal ‘statism’ and liberal ‘cosmopolitanism’; between liberal ‘proceduralism’ and liberal ‘consequentialism’; and between liberal ‘absolutism’ and liberal ‘toleration’ — the chapter explores their implications for liberal ordering practices internationally. It concludes that liberal political engagement necessitates a more reflective standpoint and more historical sensibility if we are to be aware of how contradictions have shaped liberal orders in the past and are likely to continue to do so in the future.

Defending Political Duties to the Self

Duty to Self ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 160-194
Author(s):  
Paul Schofield
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Self ◽  
State Coercion ◽  
The Individual

This chapter argues for the existence of political duties owed to the self, which justify state coercion for the sake of the individual coerced. A person can pose a threat to her own freedom, and to her own ability to acquire what she is owed. Thus, a person’s relationship to herself raises concerns about both right and justice, thereby licensing the state to subject her to paternalistic policy, justified on liberal grounds. Paternalistic laws discussed include those outlawing tobacco, those limiting the amount of debt a person can take on, forced savings programs, and prohibitions on slavery contracts.

scholarly journals In Pursuit of Legitimacy

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-100
Author(s):  
Amy Zalman
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The State ◽  
Dramatic Shift ◽  
Do So ◽  
Foregone Conclusion ◽  
Muslim Brothers

In his book In Pursuit of Legitimacy, Hesham Al Awadi sets out to explainEgyptian president Mubarak’s dramatic shift in his treatment of the MuslimBrothers (Al Ikhwan Al Muslimin), from toleration of the outlawed group tosevere repression, over the first two decades of his regime. Standard explanationsfor this shift, as Awadi points out, have a state-centric bias in which the state is the primary actor responding to the threat posed by the MuslimBrothers to the regime, either by providing social services when the state’scapacity to do so was hampered, or by challenging the legitimacy of anauthoritarian regime. The author acknowledges these factors, but then offersa substantially different narrative in which he skillfully traces the politicaldance of power between the outlawed group and the regime. The move torepression, in Awadi’s rendering, can be better explained by the responsiverelationship between the Muslim Brothers and Mubarak than by understandingeither power or legitimacy solely in terms of the state.Awadi argues that the driving force behind Mubarak’s crackdown inthe mid-1990s was a cyclical competition between the president and theMuslim Brothers for political legitimacy, which began with his regime’saccession following Sadat’s assassination in 1980. In his analysis, theauthor states that this conflict’s brutal 1995 climax, during which a numberof Muslim Brothers were convicted at a military trial, was by no meansa foregone conclusion. Rather, it was the result of a highly responsive relationshipbetween the regime and the increasingly powerful oppositionorganization. Moreover, it could have evolved differently had the MuslimBrothers made different choices about how to best pursue their program ...

State Responsibility for COVID-19: Does International Contagion Constitute Transboundary Harm?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Sophie CAPICCHIANO YOUNG
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Significant Risk ◽  
International Community ◽  
The State ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
Current Article ◽  
International Responsibility ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Do So

Abstract As the damage caused by COVID-19 has increased exponentially, so too has the insistence that China bears some international responsibility for the unquantifiable damage sustained as a direct result of the state having failed to contain the virus, and to notify the international community of its existence. Some have suggested that the international contagion of the virus may be classified as transboundary harm. The current article analyses the law of transboundary harm, and proposes a set of criteria based on treaty and precedent that may be relied on to properly classify an event as such. It concludes that it is not only incorrect to classify international contagion as transboundary harm, but that to do so would pose a significant risk to the position and treatment of the individual in international law.

The Right to Higher Education and Political Authority

2021 ◽  
pp. 125-154
Author(s):  
Christopher Martin
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Compulsory Education ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Justice ◽  
The Right ◽  
Do So ◽  
Proactive Role

This chapter provides an account of the nature and scope of political authority over higher education. The account sets out a proactive role for the state the autonomous flourishing of adults. It affirms the idea that the liberal state’s educational obligations to citizens extend beyond a basic or compulsory education, not only for reasons of political justice, but also because it is politically legitimate for the state to do so. The chapter defends this account against the concern that such authority is too paternalistic, and gives examples of how this conception of authority would apply (and not apply) to higher education.

LIBERTY AND THE CONSTITUTION

Legal Theory ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 156-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
The State ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
American Constitution ◽  
State Coercion ◽  
Constitutional Right ◽  
Do So

ABSTRACTThe article uses the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in the same-sex marriage caseObergefell v. Hodgesas the springboard for a general enquiry into the nature and existence of a constitutional right to liberty under the American Constitution. The discussion is divided into two main parts. The first examines the meaning and the justifiability of there being a moral right to liberty as a matter of political philosophy. Two such rights are distinguished and defended: first, a right not to be coerced by the state when the state is motivated by improper reasons (prominent among which are paternalistic reasons); and second, a right not to be coerced by the state when there are insufficient justifying reasons for the state to do so, irrespective of how such state coercion may be motivated. Neither right is regarded as “absolute,” and so it is morally permissible for the state to override such rights in certain circumstances. The second part of the article examines the distinct and additional considerations that must be taken into account when these two moral rights to liberty are fashioned into corresponding legal rights under American constitutional law. Both such rights survive the transformation, but each becomes altered somewhat in its content. This legal transformation includes recognition of the nonabsolute nature of moral rights, such recognition taking the form of some doctrine of “compelling state interests.” The discussion in these two main parts of the article is prefaced with a defense of the article's use of political philosophy to inform constitutional law, a defense motivated by Chief Justice Robert's denunciation of such an approach to constitutional law in his opinion inObergefell.

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