Abstract
What is and what is not ‘legitimate’ in international politics is becoming a more important question as the certainties of the Cold War disappear. The need to deal more thoroughly with a much wider agenda of issues renders old answers to the legitimacy question irrelevant or unsatisfactory. When is it legitimate to allow new states to come into existence, or old ones to dissolve? Is a global economy increasingly beyond the control of state-based institutions a legitimate development? Is the form of government within a particular state a legitimate area of concern to other actors? When and to what extent is it legitimate to protect human rights declared to be universal? Legitimacy is an important but largely neglected idea, a word used often by those in positions of authority but of dubious content.
I would like to thank Barry Buzan as well as the co-authors of this book for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.
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Notes and References
For an interesting discussion of the wider implications and declining relevance of this divide see H. Williams, ‘International Relations and the Reconstruction of Political Theory’, Politics, 14 (1994) 135–42.
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Williams, J. (1996). Nothing Succeeds Like Success? Legitimacy and International Relations. In: Holden, B. (eds) The Ethical Dimensions of Global Change. University of Reading European and International Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24538-3_4
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