Legitimacy in International Society
Ian Clark
Abstract
The word ‘legitimacy’ is seldom far from the lips of practitioners of international affairs. The legitimacy of recent events — such as the wars in Kosovo and Iraq, the post-September 11 war on terror, and instances of humanitarian intervention — have been endlessly debated around the globe. And yet the academic discipline of IR has largely neglected this concept. This book asks that legitimacy be taken seriously, both as a facet of international behaviour with practical consequences, and as a theoretical concept necessary for understanding that behaviour. It offers an historical and theoretica ... More
The word ‘legitimacy’ is seldom far from the lips of practitioners of international affairs. The legitimacy of recent events — such as the wars in Kosovo and Iraq, the post-September 11 war on terror, and instances of humanitarian intervention — have been endlessly debated around the globe. And yet the academic discipline of IR has largely neglected this concept. This book asks that legitimacy be taken seriously, both as a facet of international behaviour with practical consequences, and as a theoretical concept necessary for understanding that behaviour. It offers an historical and theoretical account of international legitimacy. It argues that the development of principles of legitimacy lie at the heart of what is meant by an international society, and in so doing fills a notable void in English school accounts of the subject. The book's conclusion, in the end, is that legitimacy matters, but in a complex way. Legitimacy is not to be discovered simply by straightforward application of other norms, such as legality and morality. Instead, legitimacy is an inherently political condition. What determines its attainability or not is as much the general political condition of international society at any one moment, as the conformity of its specific actions to set normative principles.
Keywords:
legitimacy,
war on terror,
IR,
international society,
morality,
normative principles
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2007 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199219193 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2008 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199219193.001.0001 |
