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You're arguing the completist case: that of a totalitarian state, where legitimacy is significantly a function of the execution of power against part of the pop

by com 16y ago

You're arguing the completist case: that of a totalitarian state, where legitimacy is significantly a function of the execution of power against part of the populace. One intermediate form of a state is a rule-of-law state which regularly trades significant power for increased legitimacy - examples are chartered government agencies that have a goal (source of core legitimacy), are governed by public legislation and regulation, and who are restricted in the the types of power they may wield in all situations and who are subject to an independent administrative, judicial or political review which may be triggered by aggrieved members of the populace. They gain additional legitimacy by the fact that they may only use the least force or power that is considered by the populace as necessary to achieve their legitimate goals. I quite like rule-of-law states, and find the current rebalancing of minimum power/legitimate goals very interesting in a historical context, viz. security theatre and traditional concepts of civil liberties.

ataggart 16y ago
>You're arguing ... legitimacy is significantly a function of the execution of power against part of the populace. I was not advocating anything, merely describing what often goes undescribed. Further, I wasn't arguing from where the legitimacy emerges, only that it exists, and that that extant legitimacy, coupled with the extant power and willingness to engage in otherwise-criminal acts is what makes a government a government. Take away one or the other and we wouldn't call it a government. >I quite like rule-of-law states Here ya go, a long but rather good piece written by a former professor of mine: http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm
- com 16y ago
  I'm sorry if "arguing" means "advocating" to you, my meaning was that the conclusion that you reached was an extreme end of a continuum. Decrease one or the other and you can still call it a government for many possible points on the continuum. Thanks for the article, it was quite interesting as I don't have a US background. I was a bit surprised that the author thought that people might assume that a system of explicit rules, judgements and binding agreements could be anything other than political in practice. We use language to create these legal instruments, and interpret them as language users in a community, each of us with our own interests. Politics is what we call this interpretation, negotiation and transformation process. But the fact that there is a political process (whether you agree about the current scope of these state-sanctioned instruments, or whether you'd prefer that civil society manintains them instead) is a classic marker of a rule of law society: totalitarianism, as the extremis case you describe, has very little of this political process and for very good reasons - it's not necessary in the broad.

by com 16y ago

ataggart 16y ago

>You're arguing ... legitimacy is significantly a function of the execution of power against part of the populace. I was not advocating anything, merely describing what often goes undescribed. Further, I wasn't arguing from where the legitimacy emerges, only that it exists, and that that extant legitimacy, coupled with the extant power and willingness to engage in otherwise-criminal acts is what makes a government a government. Take away one or the other and we wouldn't call it a government. >I quite like rule-of-law states Here ya go, a long but rather good piece written by a former professor of mine: http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm

com 16y ago
I'm sorry if "arguing" means "advocating" to you, my meaning was that the conclusion that you reached was an extreme end of a continuum. Decrease one or the other and you can still call it a government for many possible points on the continuum. Thanks for the article, it was quite interesting as I don't have a US background. I was a bit surprised that the author thought that people might assume that a system of explicit rules, judgements and binding agreements could be anything other than political in practice. We use language to create these legal instruments, and interpret them as language users in a community, each of us with our own interests. Politics is what we call this interpretation, negotiation and transformation process. But the fact that there is a political process (whether you agree about the current scope of these state-sanctioned instruments, or whether you'd prefer that civil society manintains them instead) is a classic marker of a rule of law society: totalitarianism, as the extremis case you describe, has very little of this political process and for very good reasons - it's not necessary in the broad.