Journal Article

Political Legitimacy for Our World

Möller, Niklas, Erman, Eva

2018

Overview

A common denominator of recent proposals suggested by political realists has been a rather pessimistic view of what we may rightfully demand of political authorities in terms of legitimacy. In our analysis, three main justificatory strategies are utilized by realists, each supposedly generating normative premises for this “low bar conclusion.” These strategies make use of the concept of politics, the constitutive features of politics, and feasibility constraints, respectively. In this article, we make three claims: first, that the two justificatory strategies of utilizing the concept of politics and the constitutive features of politics fail, since they rely on implausible normative premises; second, that while the feasibility strategy relies on reasonable premises, the low bar conclusion does not follow from them; third, that relativist premises fit better with the low bar conclusion, but that this also makes the realist position less attractive and casts doubt on several of its basic assumptions.

• Publisher: University of Chicago on behalf of the Southern Political Science Association,University of Chicago Press
• Subject: Enzo Rossi / Feasibility / John Horton / Legitimacy / Matt Sleat / political legitimacy / political realism / Politics / Realism / Relativism / Strategies