Political Legitimacy

Abstract

In Political Legitimacy, a distinguished interdisciplinary group of scholars in political science, law, and philosophy examine one of the most challenging and important concepts in contemporary politics: legitimacy. The twelve essays in this volume, the latest installment in the NOMOS series, take up fundamental philosophical questions about the appropriate scope and domain of legitimacy and the justified exercise of political power, as well as empirical questions about the structure of citizens’ beliefs about compliance and justice. The essays also speak to urgent concerns for contemporary politics, including whether “animus” should matter for the legitimacy of political decisions and the range of institutions (international institutions, labor unions, and so forth) for which legitimacy is relevant. The volume is in three parts. The first third addresses basic questions of the legitimacy of the state and its regime, drawing on competing traditions in the history of political thought (Kant, Hobbes, and Aristotle). The second takes up the reasons according to which institutional authority may be exercised. The final part turns to the empirical study of legitimacy and compliance, and to the relationship between what the authors describe as moral or normative accounts of legitimacy and sociological or descriptive legitimacy.