Showing papers on "Legitimacy published in 1996"

Choosing Europe?: The European Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union

Abstract: This is a book about elections to the European Parliament, their failure to legitimate and control the exercise of power in the European Union, and the consequences of this failure for domestic politics in EU member states. It also sheds new light on why voters behave the way they do. The authors examine the 1989 Europe-wide elections with the aid of large-scale surveys fielded in all twelve member countries of the (then) European Community--placing European citizens within their institutional, political, economic, and social contexts. In particular, because three countries held national elections concurrently with the 1989 European elections, the study controls for the presence or absence of a national election context--permitting the authors to investigate electoral behavior in general, not just at European elections. Looking at such behavior while taking account of the strategic contexts within which elections are held has yielded new insights about turnout and party choice, while clarifying the crisis of legitimacy that faces the European Union. The more recent Europe-wide elections of 1994 are used to validate the findings. This book will be of interest to political scientists interested in elections, the European Union, comparative politics, and political development.

Does Television Erode Social Capital? A Reply to Putnam

Abstract: During the past thirty-five years many commentators have expressed concern about declining support for the American political system, noting familiar evidence of the steady erosion in electoral turnout (Stanley and Niemi 1995, 78; Teixeira 1992), falling participation in political parties (Rosenstone and Hansen 1993), plummeting levels of political trust (Lipset and Schneider 1987), and weakening civic engagement (Putnam 1995a). Evidence for declining confidence in American government is well-established. The standard National Election Study measures show that in 1954 three-quarters of the American public trusted government in Washington to do what was right ‘just about always or most of the time’. By 1994, a quarter of the public proved as trusting. Moreover how far Americans trust each other—or social trust—has also fallen by more than a third since the early sixties (Uslaner 1995; Putnam 1995a).Not all the evidence points in the same direction, and some alternative forms of political activity may have risen over time (Verba et al. 1995, 70–71). Moreover comparative research (Klingemann and Fuchs 1995) provides no evidence for a uniform secular decline in electoral turnout and confidence in government across advanced democracies, as sometimes assumed by observers. Nevertheless it is widely believed that American democracy has been experiencing a crisis of legitimacy, with angry voters disillusioned by Washington politics as usual.

Inventing the feeble mind : a history of mental retardation in the United States

Abstract: Half-wits, dunces, dullards, idiots: though often teased and tormented, the feeble-minded were once a part of the community, cared for and protected by family and community members. But in the 1840s, a group of American physicians and reformers began to view mental retardation as a social problem requiring public intervention, which often meant institutionalization. This study uses public documents, private letters, investigative reports and rare photographs to explore the changing perceptions of "feeble minds" over the past 150 years. Trent contends that the economic vulnerability of mentally retarded people (and their families), more than the claims made for their intellectual or social limitations, has determined their institutional treatment. He finds that superintendents, social welfare agents, IQ testers, and sterilizers have utilized psychological and medical paradigms that insure their own social privilege and professional legitimacy. More than simply moving "from care to control," state schools have become places where care is an integral part of control. In analyzing the current policy of deinstitutionalization, Trent concludes that it has been more successful in dispersing disabled citizens than in integrating them into American communities.

Dealing with an Angry Public: The Mutual Gains Approach To Resolving Disputes

Abstract: Dealing With an Angry Public: The Mutual Gains Approach to Resolving Disputes Some portion of the American public will react negatively to almost any new corporate initiative, as Disney discovered when it announced its plans to build an historical theme park in Virginia. Similarly, government efforts to change policy or shift budget priorities are invariably met with stiff resistance. In this enormously practical book, Lawrence Susskind and Patrick Field analyze scores of both private and public-sector cases, as well as crisis scenarios such as the Alaskan oil spill, the silicone breat implant controversy, and nuclear plant malfunction at Three Mile Island. They show how resistance to both public and private initiatives can be overcome by a mutual gains approach involving face-to-face negotiation, a strategy applied successfully by over fifteen hundred executives and officials who have attended Professor Susskind's MIT-Harvard "Angry Public" seminars. Susskind and Field outline the six key elements of this approach in order to help business and government leaders negotiate, rather than fight, with their critics. In the process, they show how to identify who the public is, whose concerns to address first, which people and organizations must be convinced of the legitimacy of action taken, and how to assess and respond to different types of anger effectively. Acknowledging the crucial role played by the media in shaping public perception and understanding, Susskind and Field suggest a way to develop media interaction which is consistent with the six mutual gains principles, and also discuss the type of leadership that corporate and government managers must provide in order to combine these ideas into a useful whole. We all need to be concerned about a society in which the public's concerns, fears and anger are not adequately addressed. When corporate and government agencies must spend crucial time and resources on rehashing and defending each decision they make, a frustrated and angry public contributes to the erosion of confidence in our basic institutions and undermines our competitiveness in the international marketplace. In this valuable book, Susskind and Field have produced a strong, clear framework which will help reduce these hidden costs for hundreds of executives, managers, elected and appointed officials, entrepreneurs, and the public relations, legal and other professionals who advise them.

Organizational Legitimacy and Stakeholder Information Provision1

Abstract: One interpretation of the concept of organizational legitimacy is that it stems from the cultural values of society, and suggests that businesses operate under a mandate that may be withdrawn if organizations are seen not to be doing the 'right' things. This suggests there is something in the nature of a principal-agent relationship in existence, and that some form of accountability is then owed by the agent (the organization) to the principal (society). This paper seeks to investigate the nature of this accountability, distinguishing between the accountability which exists towards those elements of society with which an organization has a contractual relationship, and those where it does not. Adopting a pluralist stance, stakeholder theory is then used to illustrate the possible nature of both the form of legitimacy relationship extant, and of the accountability that the principal might expect of the agent.

The Politics of Identity and Political Order in Europe

Abstract: This article explores the link between identity, legitimacy and political order in Europe. The central argument is that the politics of identity have enormous salience in the new Europe and for the European Union at this juncture of its development, because the Union is moving from issues of instrumental problem-solving to fundamental questions about its nature as a part-formed polity. Problems of identity are raised by the politicization of immigration, the fragmentation of the post-war order, regionalism, the revival of the ultra Right and the process of European integration itself. The article concludes with an assessment of the affective dimension of integration.

Planning in Ambiguous Contexts: The Dilemma of Meeting Needs for Commitment and Demands for Legitimacy

Abstract: This paper argues that ambiguity of context manifested in pressures for legitimacy and commitment affect planning processes. Ambiguity arises from multiple conflicting constituencies and the lack of direct control over resources. Using nonprofit and entrepreneurial organizations as examples of organizations facing ambiguous contexts, we examine their planning practices to develop an understanding of the relationship between commitment, legitimacy, and planning. From this analysis, we articulate a managerial dilemma: the need to use informality and vagueness to gain commitment from diverse interests, and the need to demonstrate formalization of managerial practices to acquire legitimacy from critical resource suppliers. Using elements of this dilemma, we present a new planning framework for organizations in ambiguous contexts that recognizes planning as a strategy for resource acquisition rather than a strategy for resource allocation.

State sovereignty as social construct: The sovereign state system as political-territorial ideal: historical and contemporary considerations

Abstract: A whole history remains to be written of spaces – which would at the same time be the history of powers (both of these terms in the plural) – from the great strategies of geopolitics to the little tactics of the habitat. Michel Foucault From the perspective of the late twentieth century, the territorial structure of the international state system appears to be one of the great constants in human affairs. Faith in the stability of the system has been shaken somewhat by the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, but few observers seriously question the system itself. People generally accept the assumption that the land surface of the earth should be divided up into discrete territorial units, each with a government that exercises substantial authority within its own territory. There may be disagreement over how much authority state leaders should have, but it is generally assumed that the political map of the future will look much like that of today, aside from some adjustments in certain unstable areas. Assumptions about the constancy of the dominant political-territorial order are not the sole province of more casual analysts of the political world; they pervade the academic literature on politics and government as well. It is true that some scholars are raising questions about the implications for the sovereign authority of state leaders of growing economic interdependence and the internationalization of environmental protection and human rights.

Political legitimacy in Southeast Asia : the quest for moral authority

Abstract: Contributors A note on Thai and Vietnamese names Introduction Muthiah Alagappa Part I. Legitimacy: Explication and Elaboration: 1. The anatomy of legitimacy Muthiah Alagappa 2. The bases of legitimacy Muthiah Alagappa 3. Contestation and crisis Muthiah Alagappa Part II. Legitimacy: Case Studies: 4. Malaysia: aspects and audiences of legitimacy William Case 5. Singapore: political legitimacy through managing conformity Cho-Oon Khong 6. The Philippines: the languages of legitimation John T. Sidel 7. Burma: the depoliticization of the political Chaeo-Tzang Yawnghwe 8. Thailand: the evolution of legitimacy Saitip Sukatipan 9. Indonesia: historicizing the New Order's legitimacy dilemma Mochtar Pabottingi 10. Vietnam: the changing models of legitimation Thaveeporn Vasavakul Part III. Conclusion and Observations: 11. Seeking a more durable basis of authority Muthiah Alagappa Notes Bibliography Index.

Afrocentricity: An Emerging Paradigm in Social Work Practice

Abstract: Although considerable attention in social work practice has been aimed at addressing the concerns of people of color, the general thrust in what is called ethnic-sensitive (or "minority") (Devore & Schlesinger, 1981; Lum, 1992) or cross-cultural (Greene & Ephross, 1991) social work practice is to adapt existing practice models to serve people of color, with special attention given to racism (Pinderhughes, 1989). Although this strategy is a step in the right direction toward cultural sensitivity and political consciousness, it de-emphasizes the legitimacy of using the cultural values of people of color as a theoretical base to develop new practice models. Moreover, the failure to use the cultural values of people of color in developing new models can be viewed as an implicit expression of Western ethnocentrism, or the belief that Eurocentric values are the only values that can explain behavior and should be the basis for solving people's problems. Consequently, the theoretical foundations of many established social work practice models do not mirror the diversity of cultural values and worldviews found in the broader U.S. society, which includes people of color. In addition, because people of color, especially African Americans and Hispanics, experience greater poverty and have fewer material resources than the general population (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1994), it is important that practice models reflect the cultural values and worldviews of these most likely social work clients. Social workers and social scientists from oppressed groups, especially African Americans, have begun to affirm and integrate their cultural values and worldviews into their scholarship and professional practice (see, for example, Abramovitz, 1988; Chau, 1992; Hill-Collins, 1989; Manoleas & Carrillo, 1991). As a consequence of slavery, African Americans have been particularly victimized by cultural denigration, which has been manifested in all areas of life, including the social sciences. African American social scientists and practitioners have responded by developing theoretical and practice models that reflect and affirm the values and worldviews of African Americans (see, for example, Akbar, 1984; Asante, 1988; Brisbane & Womble, 1991; Burgest, 1982; Daly, Jennings, Beckett, & Leashore, 1995; Everett, Chipungu, & Leashore, 1991; Jackson, 1976; Kambon, 1992; Phillips, 1990; Schiele, 1994). This article describes and explains the Afrocentric paradigm that has been used in social work practice. It describes the reasons for and the theoretical assumptions of Afrocentricity; it describes the way Afrocentricity conceives social work practice and social problems. Although some people prefer the term "Africentric" (see Akbar, 1984; Daly et al., 1995; Everett et al., 1991), I prefer the term "Afrocentric," primarily because of its prevalence. There appears to be no political difference between Afrocentric and Africentric, and they are often used interchangeably. Some members of the African American community (Ani, 1994; Kambon, 1992) have begun to use what they refer to as a more politically and culturally correct label, which is Africancentric or African centered. I use Afrocentric to mean African centered. Afrocentric Paradigm Origins and Reasons The Afrocentric paradigm is a social science paradigm predicated on the philosophical concepts of contemporary African America and traditional Africa. The origins of this worldview, however, are found in traditional Africa before the advent of European and Arab influences (Carruthers, 1981; Williams, 1987). Although the colonization of Africa by Europeans and Arabs modified traditional Africa somewhat (Serequeberhan, 1991), several writers maintain that the philosophical integrity of traditional Africa has survived among continental Africans (Mazrui, 1986; Mbiti, 1970; Zahan, 1979) and among people of the African Diaspora (Akbar, 1979; Asante, 1988; Dixon, 1976; Kambon, 1992). …

Hobbes and international relations: a reconsideration

Abstract: Hobbes has long been a central figure in the theory of international relations. He has also been a badly misunderstood one. While often invoked to support contemporary theories of international politics, Hobbes's thinking actually challenges rational-choice theories, the structural realism of Kenneth Waltz, and the “rationalist” approach of the English school. Indeed, the skeptical foundations of his political vision place him closer to contemporary postpositivist positions, though here, too, his views raise difficult and important questions for such a stance. In general, Hobbes's theory of international relations focuses not upon the determinations of anarchy in any conventional sense but upon issues of knowledge, ideology, and legitimacy in the construction of political orders both domestically and internationally.

Presidents versus Prime Ministers: Shaping Executive Authority in Eastern Europe

Abstract: Open conflict between presidents and prime ministers has become a familiar phenomenon throughout East Central Europe since the fall of communism. While individual personalities and the particular constellations of issues in each country have helped shape individual conflicts, this article seeks to account for them in more fundamental structural terms and to place them in the context of current debates over the relative virtues of presidentialism and parliamentarism. There is a discrepancy between the prestige and popularity of presidents and their modest formal powers; prime ministers, by contrast, enjoy considerable formal power but only limited legitimacy. Since the distribution of authority in newly constituted democracies is ambiguous and fluid, with no established conventions and understandings defining precisely the boundaries among key institutions, presidents seek to utilize the ambiguity to convert their assets of prestige into "real" power over policy, while prime ministers resist what they see as incursions into their areas of responsibility. The article explores the strengths and weaknesses of each side, the terrain of struggle, the tactics employed, the political outcomes to date, and the implications for political consolidation and the future distribution of executive authority in the region's states.

In Search of Legitimacy: The Private Entrepreneur in China:

Abstract: Private business is booming in China and the entrepreneurial spirit sweeps through the country. However, the apparent contradiction between Marxist ideology and private ownership has not been satis...

Legitimacy and consensus: Comments on part of the work of Thomas McCarthy

Abstract: In two essays on Jurgen Habermas’s discourse ethics, ’Practical discourse: on the relation of morality to politics’ and ’Legitimacy and diversity: dialectical reflections on analytical distinctions’, Thomas McCarthy explores the impact of a diversity in value commitments on the ideal of rational consensus in democratic politics and decision making. Contemporary democratic societies seem to be increasingly characterized by differences in the values, traditions and cultural attitudes of their citizens. Moreover, these differences seem to lead to differences in their assessments of such issues as abortion, euthanasia, pornography, the environment and capital punishment. Different groups differ not only on the competing rights they think are involved, but on the way they understand the practices and assess and respect the human values they think are concerned. What might constitute legitimate solutions to these sorts of issues and how might they be achieved? I~~IcCarthy argues that Habermas’s analysis concentrates too completely on the ideal of moral consensus and that it is therefore unable to deal adequately with either the persistence of evaluative and interpretive differences or the questions of social and political justice that these differences raise.

Early regulatory actions by the SEC: An institutional theory perspective on the dramaturgy of political exchanges

Abstract: It has been urged that research be directed at understanding the development of political institutions, particularly administrative institutions, in the American governance structure, as well as their role in providing order and change in American politics. Toward this end, the purpose of this paper is to examine the development of one specific administrative institution, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the effect of its regulatory actions in establishing the SEC's own legitimacy with Congress, the press and regulatees, particularly in terms of the McKesson and Robbins enforcement action. Our archival analysis, using primary and secondary material, probes the SEC's efforts at developing a dramaturgy of exchange relations with its external constituents in terms of its: 1. (a) conformity to sanctioned language forms; 2. (b) use of both the acquiescence and compromise strategies in dealing with external constituents and in balancing needs for the appearance of regulation with de facto inaction in regulating audit practice; 3. (c) development and application of a ritualistic pattern of interacting with regulatees. We conclude that in order to understand the SEC as a political institution, it is necessary to incorporate an appreciation of its self-interested behavior in terms of the form, content and rhetoric of its regulatory actions. A critical facet of early SEC efforts and success did not concern whether it did good in terms of applying effective regulations, or bad in terms of preserving the status quo in power relations among the business and political communities. The ability of the SEC to legitimate its existence and institutionalize its role in the financial markets and in the financial reporting and auditing communities proved more essential.

Opposing Ambitions: Gender and Identity in an Alternative Organization

Abstract: "Renewal" is a holistic health center run by baby boomers whose political ideals were shaped by the counterculture movements of the 1960s. Through interviews and observation, Sherryl Kleinman takes us inside Renewal and shows us how its members struggled to maintain a view of themselves as progressive and alternative even as they sought conventional legitimacy. In this volume we meet the members of Renewal as individuals; learn about the differences in power, prestige, and respect they are accorded; why they talked endlessly about money; and how they related to each other. Kleinman shows how members' attempts to see themselves as unconventional, but also as serious operators of a legitimate health care organization, led them to act in ways that undermined their egalitarian goals. She draws out the lessons Renewal offers for understanding the problems women face in organizations, the failure of social movements to live up to their ideals, and how it is possible for progressives to avoid reproducing the inequalities they claim to oppose.

Fictions of advice : the literature and politics of counsel in late medieval England

Abstract: Ferster's chapter on Gower, in this new study of the Furstenspiegel tradition in the late Middle Ages, is a lengthened version of the essay entitled "O Political Gower" that appeared in the 1993 special issue of Mediaevalia (reviewed in JGN 13, no. 2, pp. 9-10). Her Mediaevalia piece focussed on the ways in which Gower embedded commentary on contemporary issues in the "Mirror for Princes" in Book 7 of CA. Mixing some subtle rereadings with a sharp alertness to context, she found beneath the poet's obvious deference to the king some pointed advice, particularly on the very subject of advice itself: "The key to [Richard's] success," Gower suggests, according to Ferster, "is not his choice among aristocratic advisors, but his willingness to bend to hear the complaints of the commoners" (Mediaevalia 16 [1993):41). Ferster broadens her analysis in this lengthened version by giving more attention to the language of CA, demonstrating both that Gower's deference is more marked in his English poem than it is in either MO or VC, and also that the language that he uses in describing petitions to kings echoes the idiom of contemporary political discourse. She also comments at greater length on what she sees as Gower's representation of the voice of the gentry in contemporary disputes. Finally, she adds a completely new discussion of a group of tales in Book 7 — "Diogenes and Aristippus," "Tarquin and Aruns," and "Ahab and Micaiah" — that, in the paradoxes they raise, seem to bring into question what she calls the "hermeneutics of counsel" and to suggest, before offering an alternative in attention to the vox populi, the futility of a king's dependence upon his own counsellors. The inclusion of her discussion of Gower within the frame of her broader study also allows Ferster to place Book 7 much more persuasively within the tradition of the "advice for princes" from which it derives. The two main themes of Ferster's book are the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in any situation in which a poet or author presumes to advise his king, and the ways in which each of the various works that make up the Furstenspiegel tradition, beginning with the Secretum Secretorum, can be found to contain a specific contemporary agenda beneath the gestures of deference and the overt endorsement of the monarch's power that are inevitable to the genre. In England in particular, she argues, the principal of the community's right to impose limitations on the king was embodied in Magna Carta, and discussion of the reciprocal relations between monarch and subjects was often phrased in terms of the right to give and the duty to follow advice. By the fourteenth century there was an active community of political discourse, with different groups staking out their rights to advise the king, and several obvious and well known instances in which either the king himself was deposed or his powers limited. The dangers of opposing the king were nonetheless very real, and the trope of the king's need for good advice provided a justification for what might otherwise be taken as a presumption upon the king's power, while the genre of the manual of advice, offered in presumed deference to the king, could be the safest means for offering critical, if necessarily indirect, comment on policies of special importance to the author. Ferster includes chapters on James Yonge's 1422 English translation of the Secretum Secretorum, on Chaucer's Tale of Melibee, and on Hoccleve's Regement of Princes as well as on CA, and she concludes with a brief consideration of Machiavelli's The Prince. She sets the Melibee in the context of the Appellants' crisis, and argues that both the lapses in Prudence's judgment and Melibee's inability to put her advice into practice represent Chaucer's attempt to deconstruct the ideology of advice by which the Appellants justified their impositions upon Richard's authority. Hoccleve, she argues, mixes his endorsement of the legitimacy of the Lancastrian line with pointed criticism of Prince Henry and discussion of some of the most divisive issues of the last years of his father's reign. Each of these readings, like her comments on Book 7 of CA, raises particular problems, both in Ferster's techniques as a reader and in her interpretation of the contemporary political setting; in the former regard, her emphasis upon the apparently deliberate self-contradictions in both CA and the Melibee depends upon an expectation of a formal and thematic consistency in a work of this sort and of this period that is perhaps unreasonably high. The great merit of her book is that by juxtaposing these works and asking the same sorts of questions about them, she has removed the mask of the authors' self-presentation to their patrons and opened up the whole tradition of the advice to the king to a more critical and more revealing view; and in response to the doctrine that there is no possibility of escape from contemporary ideology, she has convincingly demonstrated the presence of a multitude of dissenting voices, however covert some may be, in the political discourse of late medieval England. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 16.1]

Subversive Piety: Religion and the Political Crisis in Late Imperial Russia

Abstract: Most scholarship on the Russian prerevolution has focused exclusively on political and social history, casting personalities and parties (or, alternatively, estates and classes) as the main protagonists and antagonists. Whether a particular historian belongs to the "optimist" or "pessimist" camp regarding the long-term viability of the ancien regime, the argumentation has conventionally emphasized political or (more recently) social factors in explaining the crisis and collapse of the tsarist system. Although this traditional approach has done much to illuminate the revolutionary process, it has ignored its cultural and especially its religious dimensions; apart from examining the ideology of the intelligentsia, it has otherwise discounted the role of culture, especially in configuring popular perception and behavior. Thus the historiography has neglected political culture, which sustained-or dissolved-the shared consensus that confers legitimacy (spiritual, ethical, national) and prescribes the values and implicit rules for political conduct. That political culture, no less than social stress or economic conflict, played a critical role in determining whether society would continue to pay obeisance to the existing regime and whether it believed that this regime should (much less could) resolve fundamental social and ethnic grievances. The Russian Orthodox Church, without question, provided one of the major cultural dynamics in the Russian prerevolution. Historians have traditionally tended to ascribe a conservative, integrative role to the Church, whether as a phalanx of reactionary clergy or as the opium of pious submissiveness. The Church had indeed played an integrating role in early modern Russia, preaching divine right and helping to formulate key symbols of the political culture.' It also claimed a strong hold over the faithful-a hold it maintained well into the early twentieth century, when the populace still exhibited high rates of reli-

The Clash of Rights: Liberty, Equality, and Legitimacy in Pluralist Democracy

Abstract: Why do citizens in pluralist democracies disagree collectively about the very values they agree on individually? This provocative book highlights the inescapable conflicts of rights and values at the heart of democratic politics. Based on interviews with thousands of citizens and political decision makers, the book focuses on modern Canadian politics, investigating why a country so fortunate in its history and circumstances is on the brink of dissolution. Taking advantage of new techniques of computer-assisted interviewing, the authors explore the politics of a wide array of issues, from freedom of expression to public funding of religious schools to government wiretapping to antihate legislation, analyzing not only why citizens take the positions they do but also how easily they can be talked out of them. In the process, the authors challenge a number of commonly held assumptions about democratic politics. They show, for example, that political elites do not constitute a special bulwark protecting civil liberties; that arguments over political rights are as deeply driven by commitment to the master values of democratic politics as by failure to understand them; and that consensus on the rights of groups is inherently more fragile than on the rights of individuals.

Beyond sovereignty : collectively defending democracy in the Americas

Abstract: How can external actors-governments, regional organizations, the United Nations, financial institutions, nongovernmental organizations-affect the process of democratic transition and consolidation? In Beyond Sovereignty, leading scholars and policy experts examine the experiences of a variety of Latin American nations and the relevant characteristics of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations to draw lessons that can be applied globally. The contributors begin by discussing evolving views of sovereignty, democracy, and regional security. They review the past efforts and present capacity of various international organizations-the United Nations, the Organization of American States, external financial institutions, and transnational nongovernmental organizations-to further efforts to deepen democracy. They also offer case studies of how these organizations related to democratic development in Chile, El Salvador, Haiti, and Peru. The last section applies lessons learned to two problematic regimes: Cuba and Mexico. This timely and useful collection will be of interest to all who study democratic transition and consolidation, comparative politics, Latin American politics, international organizations, and international relations more generally. Contributors: Domingo E. Acevedo, Larry Diamond, Jorge I. Dominguez, Denise Dresser, Stephanie J. Eglinton, Patricia Weiss Fagen, Tom Farer, David P. Forsythe, Alicia Frohmann, Claudio Grossman, Anita Isaacs, Anthony P. Maingot, Joan M. Nelson, David Scott Palmer, Karen L. Remmer, Kathryn A. Sikkink, and Fernando R. Teson. "Concern over democracy's uncertain prospects inspired the project that culminates in this volume. Two assumptions shaped the collective effort of its contributors: one, that external actors can contribute to the defense and enhancement of democracy, and two, that tolerance for such external action has increased dramatically-even measures that would once have been widely condemned as impermissible intervention are acquiring a remarkable aura of legitimacy. An increase in tolerance is least marked, however, for unilateral action of a coercive nature, which in the Western Hemisphere usually means action that the Unites States has taken on its own initiative."-from the Introduction

Policing Soviet Society: The Evolution of State Control

Abstract: Since its creation immediately after the Russian revolution,the militia has had a broad range of social,political and economic functions necessary to direct and control a highly centralized socialist state.However,as the communst party lost its legitimacy the militia was increasingly thrust into the front line of political conflict.A task it was unsuited to perform.Despite the efforts of perestroika to reform it,the collapse of the Soviet state also led to the collapse of morale within the militia. Louise Shelley provides a comprehensive view of the history,development,functions,personnel and operations of the militia from its inception until after the demise of the Soviet state.The militia combined elements of continental,socialist and colonial policing.Its functions and operations changed with the development of the state,yet it always intervened significantly in citizen's lives and citizens were very much involved in their own control.Over time the militia became more removed from politics and more concerned with crime control,but it always remained a tool of the party. This is the first book to analyze the militia,which was one of the most vital elements of control within the Soviet State.It will be a crucial aid to understanding the authoritarianism of the communist system and its legacy for Russia and the successor states. Louise I.Shelley is Professor at the Department of Justice,Law and Society and the School of International Service at the American University,Washington D.C.

Policy Legitimacy and the European Union

Abstract: Although numerous contributions have been made towards establishing policy legitimacy in the European Union (EU), to date no comprehensive model has been developed. The aim of this article is to explain why the search for legitimacy of the European enterprise has not ultimately been satisfied. I argue that the reason for underdeveloped policy legitimacy in the Union stems not from the lack of interest on the part of European policy-makers caused by the comfort of ‘permissive consensus’, but from the very nature of the concept of legitimacy as such, i.e. its organic, mythical foundation. Essentially, legitimacy reflects the belief that one system is just because it embodies an accepted superior justificatory principle, the myth. The justificatory message communicated by the myth creates an effective device for legitimation. The myth is understood here in its broad sense as the symbolic values through which people share an idea of origin, continuity, historical memories, collective remembrance, common heritage and tradition, as well as a common destiny, which has often involved a binding political process by which one ethnol has become hegemonic vis-a-vis the rest. Myth expresses and maintains social solidarity because it refers to values of belongingness and originality and a sense of shared collective identity and fate. Such a myth of origin as the ultimate source of legitimacy is missing from the European venture. No mythologein is powerfully operative within the Union, no one can win the consent of the entire Union population. The task of firmly and indisputably establishing Union policy legitimacy therefore encounters serious theoretical difficulties.

Public Service Under Challenge in the Age of Privatization

Abstract: During the second and third quarters of this century, the scope of public service expanded significantly in almost all societies irrespective of their social, economic, political, and ideological predilections. In the past, such an expansive public bureaucracy came under criticism for its various shortcomings and pathological implications. However, recently, a more serious form of assault on the public service has been introduced by the proponents of the current privatization movement. The advocacy of privatization by the dominant national and international forces has created three major forms of challenges to the public service: a challenge to its legitimacy, a challenge to its ethical standards, and a challenge to its motivational foundation. In this article, the nature and intensity of these challenges are analyzed, the claims and assumptions of privatization are reexamined, and some possible remedies are explored.

Sovereignty and Subsidiarity in EU Environmental Policy

Abstract: This article explores the connection between the subsidiarity principle and national sovereignty in the context of EU environmental policy. In addition to providing an historical account of this connection, the article suggests that subsidiarity represents a Janus-faced concept capable of either supporting or undermining the legitimacy of EU environmental policy. By developing explicit criteria by which to apply subsidiarity, a number of areas are identified in which existing EU authority could be replaced by exclusively national action or laws which granted states significantly more discretion over environmental decision making. Examples are then presented where this shift of power back to the member states has already been proposed and in some cases already occurred, recasting the balance between national sovereignty and supranational environmental constraints. Throughout the analysis, particular attention is paid to the efforts of Britain, a primary antagonist in the debate, to preserve its sovereignty...

Insecurity and State Formation in the Global Military Order: The Middle Eastern Case

Abstract: This article argues that within the European state system, the struggle to control the institutions and instruments of organized violence produced an externally-oriented conception of security that rested upon the unconditional legitimacy of the state, a societal consensus over basic values and the near-elimination of violence from political life, which permitted a strong identification of the security of the state with the security of its citizens. The conditions for such identification do not hold in many parts of the world, and hence this conception cannot address either the threats to state structures or regimes that do not emerge from other states, or the threats that states and regimes can pose to their own citizens or societies.A more historically-sensitive three-dimensional matrix for studying security on regional/interstate, state/regime and societal/individual levels possesses greater explanatory power, while remaining true to the traditional concerns of security studies with the role and influe...

Liberalism, Samaritanism, and Political Legitimacy

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Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World

Abstract: Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World, by Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi`. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. xii + 264 pages. Notes to p. 333. Bibl. to p. 365. Index to p. 370. $19.95 paper. Contrary to the view that a "total vacuum of Islamic intellectualism" exists in the modern Arab world, the author of Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence, a professor of Islamic studies at Hartford Seminary, affirms that Islamism "has emerged as a viable intellectual movement invoking the authority and seeking the legitimacy of the central Islamic tradition" (p. 45). Stressing that Islamic resurgence in general is more than a political phenomenon, Ibrahim Abu-Rabi` says that it must "be treated in philosophical terms as well, and it should be placed in the larger category of modern Arab intellectual history" (p. II). Modern Islamic resurgence is a reaction not only to the political and military burdens of colonialism, but also to Western values and institutions regarded by Muslims as a threat to their way of life. The challenges to Islamic values posed by modernity, which makes man the creator of his own world and destiny, may be subsumed under the headings of secularism, nationalism, rationalism, and humanism. To overcome these challenges, Islamism proposes an Islamic state to be governed by Islamic law, education, and ethics. Such a scheme calls for a return to the original sources of Islam, in particular, the Quran and the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad). The slogan "Islam is the solution" encapsulates the various ways in which these sources are understood and interpreted. In chapter one of Intellectual Origins, AbuRabi` describes the context within which Islamic resurgence has developed and the phases that preceded the resurgence. He expounds the ideas, views, and interpretations of leading Arab/Muslim intellectuals and representatives of the nahda (renaissance) phase, who responded in one form or another to the challenges of secularization and Westernization. The central issue confronting most Muslim writers today is how to reconcile the turath (Islamic heritage) with modernity-how to become modem and remain Muslim at the same time. Abu-Rabi` notes that two major schools of thought emerged to address this issue. A reformist school sought to reinterpret Muslim thought in terms of modem culture, and the second, a modernist school, was Western-oriented and secular, without necessarily rejecting the whole Islamic tradition. Both schools, in the author's opinion, failed, leaving a vacuum to be filled by the modern Islamic resurgence. The "formative phase" leading to the Islamic resurgence, in the modern Arab world, began with the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood movement by Hasan al-Banna, an Egyptian preacher and religious activist. Al-Banna's thought and ideas are the "intellectual underpinnings" of the resurgence, along with ideas of some of his prominent disciples, most notably Sayyid Qutb. Steering clear of al-Banna's political activities, which led to his assassination in 1949, Abu-Rabi` concentrates on the Islamic discourse al-Banna originated, which represented the most serious challenge to secular and traditional religious discourse. Al-Banna's thought has been dealt with extensively, and the author avails himself (with acknowledgement) of an abundance of sources, original and secondary, to weave a cogent portrait of the founder of the most influential Islamic movement in the 20th century. Supreme Guide al-Banna's basic idea, which shaped the thought of all his followers, "is based on a worldview of Islam, understood as a religion, civilization, a way of life, an ideology and a state" (p. 65). AlBanna's ideological and uncompromising position, that the Islamic tradition is superior to modem culture, is responsible for certain rigidities in his thought, and, in Abu-Rabi"s words, rules out "any rapprochement between Islamism and the West" (p. …