Justice and the Problem of International Legitimacy

What is legitimacy? Barker (1990, 11) defines political legitimacy as the belief in the rightfulness of the state, in its authority to issue commands, so that “the commands are obeyed not simply out of fear or self-interest, but because they are believed to have moral authority, because subjects believe they ought to obey.” Legitimacy, on this view, concerns the right to rule, a right admitted by those who are ruled. Barker thus ties legitimacy explicitly to “the state,” although the concept has much wider application to the perceived validity of any political role or action. Yet it is true that it is with the rise of the modern state that political legitimacy comes most strongly into focus as an issue of importance and contention. In the modern milieu it is not just the legitimacy of a particular ruler that is at stake, but the legitimacy of the state itself and of the regime that operates it. Moreover, the legitimacy or illegitimacy of a state and its regime is a matter of consequence, not just for its citizens, but for the international community of states as well. Indeed the two perspectives, internal (or domestic) and external (or international), are dynamically interlinked, as the studies in this book attest.