Legitimacy and Politics

Abstract

The increase in cases of political corruption, the loss of politicians' credibility, the development of social and political forms of pathology (notably the rise of the extreme right along with exclusionist ideologies), and the role of the State have been at the center of political debates. In one way or another, these problems raise the question of the legitimacy of the established powers. The result is that legitimacy, a key notion of political thought in general, has today become a burning issue. Coicaud examines all these issues and proffers insightful answers to questions such as the connections between morality and politics, how rulers acquire or lose the right to govern, and how one can become the advocate of a theory of political justice that, while establishing limits, respects and even ensures the promotion of plurality within societies.

Cause Lawyers, Political Violence, and Professionalism in Conflict

“…Their professional choices were pragmatic, less ideological or rule-based, and morè dialogic and relational in nature' 152 ± a constant process of engagement, debate, and revision on legal strategies and lines to take with the military/ political movement. 153 Such legitimacy work was shaped, of course, by legal training but also by a reflexive knowledge of the politics and ideology of their clients and their movements and, in particular, the lived experience of other cause lawyers. In some ways, these lawyers were similar to the legal practitioners discussed by Ewick and Silbey, fusing the normative and regulatory aspects of law with the`ordinary social logics and local cultural categories and norms' of everyday life.…”

Encouraging school re-engagement: exploring the operation of the legal mechanisms of a Third Party Policing school engagement intervention

“…Drawing on the work of Beetham (1991) and Coicaud (2002), Bottoms and Tankebe (2012) identified four key components that constitute the legitimacy dialogue: effectiveness, distributive fairness, procedural fairness and lawfulness. The first three dimensions stem from the over-arching dimension of shared values, that is, that the law, and the actions of legal authorities, can be justified by their adherence to a society's shared values and beliefs (Tankebe, 2013).…”

“…Applying insights from sociology and political science, (particularly the work of Weber, 1978;Beetham, 1991;Coicaud, 2002;Raz, 2009), Bottoms and Tankebe (2012) Bottoms and Tankebe (2012), and later elaborated by Tankebe (2013), are lawfulness, procedural fairness, distributive fairness and effectiveness. These elements derive from three over-arching concepts of consent, legality and shared beliefs.…”

“…The above five conditions for genuine dialogue closely align with Bottoms and Tankebe's (2012) proposed features of a legitimacy dialogue. Drawing on the work of Beetham (1991) and Coicaud (2002), Bottoms and Tankebe (2012) identified effectiveness, distributive fairness, procedural fairness, and lawfulness as some of the likely main elements of a legitimacy dialogue in a liberal democracy. These elements derive from three over-arching dimensions of legitimacy: legality, shared values and consent.…”

“…Values 'express the identity of society' and authorities must therefore exercise their power in a manner that protects and promotes this identity. 'Conformity with the law bestows legitimacy only to the extent that the law is an expression of recognised and accepted values-recognised and accepted by both those in power and those subject to it' (Tankebe, 2013, p. 110; see also Coicaud, 2002) In their discussion of the over-arching dimension of shared values, Bottoms and Tankebe (2012) define values with reference to Spates' (1983) review of the origins of the concept of values, where Spates discusses Parsons' (1951) notion of values -'those moral beliefs to which people [appeal] for the ultimate rationales of action.' (Spates, 1983, p. 28, cited in Bottoms & Tankebe, 2012).…”