Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• VAN DER VOSSEN, BAS

Titel

THE ASYMMETRY OF LEGITIMACY

Ist Teil von

• Law and philosophy, 2012-09, Vol.31 (5), p.565-592

Ort / Verlag

Dordrecht: Springer

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Quelle

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• State legitimacy is often said to have two aspects: an internal and an external one. Internally, a legitimate state has the right to rule over its subjects. Externally, it has a right that outsiders not interfere with its domestic governance. But what is the relation between these two aspects? In this paper, I defend a conception of legitimacy according to which these two aspects are related in an importantly asymmetrical manner. In particular, a legitimate state's external right to rule affords it protections that include and go beyond what its internal right to rule enables it to do. This asymmetrical view, I argue, is preferable to its two main rivals: the view that a state's internal and external legitimacy are separate issues, and the view that internal and external legitimacy are mirroring.