Suchergebnisse

Explores the implications for democratic theory & governance of determining the legitimate boundaries of self-governing polities. Four leading political & normative arguments regarding democratic boundaries are reviewed, & problems with traditional spatial delineations of boundaries are outlined, along with arguments for a more social perspective. Comparing "idealist" & "realist" approaches, their definitions of democratic boundaries in line with conceptualizations of (respectively) solidaristic political communities & global power relationships are examined, & theoretical & methodological problems are identified. "Communitarian" & "cosmopolitan" notions of boundaries are also explored, highlighting their emphasis on ideal conceptions of global justice & democracy. In light of the shortcomings of all these approaches, the need for a pluralist account of legitimate democratic boundaries that can accommodate the coexistence of "different normative ideals of justice & democracy at different levels of governance" is emphasized. K. Hyatt Stewart

AbstractSeveral decades of scholarship on international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have established their important role in leading cosmopolitan political projects framed around moral ideals of global justice. But contemporary legitimacy crises in international liberalism call for a reexamination of NGOs' global justice activism, considering how they should navigate the real-world moral contestations and shifting power dynamics that can impede their pursuit of justice. Recent work by deliberative-democratic theorists has argued that NGOs can help resolve disputes about global justice norms by facilitating legitimate communicative exchanges among the diverse political voices of subjected global communities on the correct interpretation and implementation of global justice norms. In response, this essay argues for an expanded account of the political roles of NGOs in global justice activism, which reflects greater sensitivity to the multifaceted political dynamics through which power in real-world global politics is constituted and contested. It is shown that in some NGOs' real-world operational contexts, structural power imbalances and social division or volatility can undercut the operation of the ideal deliberative processes prescribed by democratic theory—calling for further attention to work focused on mitigating power imbalances, building solidarity, and organizing power in parallel or as a precursor to deliberative-democratic processes.

This article addresses the question of how we should understand the normative grounds of legitimacy in global governance institutions, given the social and organizational pluralism of the contemporary global political order. We argue that established normative accounts of legitimacy, underpinning both internationalist and cosmopolitan institutional models, are incompatible with real-world global social and organizational pluralism, insofar as they are articulated within the parameters of a 'statist' world order imaginary: this sees legitimacy as grounded in rational forms of political agency, exercised within 'closed' communities constituted by settled common interests and identities. To advance beyond these statist ideational constraints, we elaborate an alternative 'pluralist' world order imaginary: this sees legitimacy as partially grounded in creative forms of political agency, exercised in the constitution and ongoing transformation of a plurality of 'open' communities, with diverse and fluid interests and identities. Drawing on a case study analysis of political controversies surrounding the global governance of business and human rights, we argue that the pluralist imaginary illuminates how normative legitimacy in world politics can be strengthened by opening institutional mandates to contestation by multiple distinct collectives, even though doing so is incompatible with achieving a fully rationalized global institutional scheme.

This article addresses the question of how we should understand the normative grounds of legitimacy in global governance institutions, given the social and organizational pluralism of the contemporary global political order. We argue that established normative accounts of legitimacy, underpinning both internationalist and cosmopolitan institutional models, are incompatible with real-world global social and organizational pluralism, insofar as they are articulated within the parameters of a 'statist' world order imaginary: this sees legitimacy as grounded in rational forms of political agency, exercised within 'closed' communities constituted by settled common interests and identities. To advance beyond these statist ideational constraints, we elaborate an alternative 'pluralist' world order imaginary: this sees legitimacy as partially grounded in creative forms of political agency, exercised in the constitution and ongoing transformation of a plurality of 'open' communities, with diverse and fluid interests and identities. Drawing on a case study analysis of political controversies surrounding the global governance of business and human rights, we argue that the pluralist imaginary illuminates how normative legitimacy in world politics can be strengthened by opening institutional mandates to contestation by multiple distinct collectives, even though doing so is incompatible with achieving a fully rationalized global institutional scheme.

In this article we investigate the institutional mechanisms required for 'liquid' forms of authority in transnational governance to achieve normative political legitimacy. We understand authority in sociological terms as the institutionalized inducement of addressees to defer to institutional rules, directives, or knowledge claims. We take authority to be 'liquid' when it is characterized by significant institutional dynamism, fostered by its informality, multiplicity, and related structural properties. The article's central normative claim is that the mechanisms prescribed to legitimize transnational governance institutions – such as accountability or experimentalist mechanisms – should vary with the liquid characteristics of their authority structures. We argue for this claim in two steps. We first outline our theoretical conception of political legitimacy – as a normative standard prescribing legitimizing mechanisms that support authorities' collectively valuable governance functions – and we explain in theoretical terms why legitimizing mechanisms should vary with differing authority structures. We then present an illustrative case study of the interaction between liquid authority and legitimizing mechanisms of public accountability and pragmatic experimentalism in the context of transnational business regulation. We conclude by considering broader implications of our argument for both the design of legitimate transnational governance institutions, and future research agendas on transnational authority and legitimacy.

In this article, we introduce the project developed in this special issue: a search for principles of 'real-world' justice in international migration that can offer practical guidance on real political problems of migration governance. We begin by highlighting two sources of divergence between the principal topics of theoretical controversy within literatures on migration justice and the animating sources of political controversy within real national and international publics. These arise first in the framing of the problems on which normative theory is purported to offer guidance, and second in the character of the normative reasons that are invoked as grounds for settling the controversies. In response to these divergences, we propose that the development of action-guiding normative theories of international migration can be supported with resources from broadly 'realist' approaches to political theory. We outline three key dimensions in which the 'real-world' theoretical approaches developed in this collection of papers connect up with important themes in the wider theoretical literature on political 'realism': first, a problem-centred methodological strategy; second, a focus on the value of political legitimacy; and third, a commitment to reconciling systematic engagement with real political problems and circumstances with a critical normative orientation towards political problems.