Sustaining state legitimacy in the punch of political scandals

This volume features ten papers in political philosophy, addressing a range of central topics and represent cutting-edge work in the field. Papers in the first part look at equality and justice: Keith Hyams examines the contribution of ex ante equality to ex post fairness; Elizabeth Anderson looks at equality from a political economy perspective; Serena Olsaretti’s paper studies liberal equality and the moral status of parent–child relationships; and George Sher investigates doing justice to desert. In the second part, papers address questions of state legitimacy: Ralf Bader explores counterfactual justifications of the state; David Enoch examines political philosophy and epistemology; and Seth Lazar and Laura Valentini look at proxy battles in just war theory. The final three papers cover social issues that are not easily understood in terms of personal morality, yet which need not centrally involve the state: the moral neglect of negligence (Seana Valentine Shiffrin), the case for collective pensions (Michael Otsuka); and authority and harm (Jonathan Parry).

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Legitimacy

10.1093/oso/9780198825265.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Keyword(s):

International Law ◽

The State ◽

State Sovereignty ◽

International Courts ◽

The Rule Of Law ◽

State Legitimacy ◽

The Relationship ◽

Supranational Institutions

This collection brings together scholars of jurisprudence and political theory to probe the question of ‘legitimacy’. It offers discussions that interrogate the nature of legitimacy, how legitimacy is intertwined with notions of statehood, and how legitimacy reaches beyond the state into supranational institutions and international law. Chapter I considers benefit-based, merit-based, and will-based theories of state legitimacy. Chapter II examines the relationship between expertise and legitimate political authority. Chapter III attempts to make sense of John Rawls’s account of legitimacy in his later work. Chapter IV observes that state sovereignty persists, since no alternative is available, and that the success of the assortment of international organizations that challenge state sovereignty depends on their ability to attract loyalty. Chapter V argues that, to be complete, an account of a state’s legitimacy must evaluate not only its powers and its institutions, but also its officials. Chapter VI covers the rule of law and state legitimacy. Chapter VII considers the legitimation of the nation state in a post-national world. Chapter VIII contends that legitimacy beyond the state should be understood as a subject-conferred attribute of specific norms that generates no more than a duty to respect those norms. Chapter IX is a reply to critics of attempts to ground the legitimacy of suprastate institutions in constitutionalism. Chapter X examines Joseph Raz’s perfectionist liberalism. Chapter XI attempts to bring some order to debates about the legitimacy of international courts.

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Social Security Enrollment as an Indicator of State Fragility and Legitimacy: A Field Experiment in Maghreb Countries

Social Sciences ◽

10.3390/socsci10070266 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (7) ◽

pp. 266

Author(s):

Walid Merouani ◽

Claire El Moudden ◽

Nacer Eddine Hammouda

Keyword(s):

Labor Market ◽

Social Security ◽

Social Insurance ◽

Discrete Choice Models ◽

Formal Sector ◽

Social Security Systems ◽

State Fragility ◽

Informal Workers ◽

Informal Labor ◽

State Legitimacy

State legitimacy and effectiveness can be observed in the state’s approach to delivering welfare to citizens, thus mitigating social grievances and avoiding conflicts. Social security systems in the Maghreb countries are relatively similar in their architecture and aim to provide social insurance to all the workers in the labor market. However, they suffer from the same main problem: a low rate of enrollment of workers. Many workers (employees and self-employed) work informally without any social security coverage. The issue of whether informal jobs are chosen voluntarily by workers or as a strategy of last resort is controversial. Many authors recognize that the informal sector is heterogeneous and assume that it is made up of (1) workers who voluntarily choose it, and (2) others who are pushed into it because of entry barriers to the formal sector. The former assumption tells us much about state legitimacy/attractiveness, and the latter is used to inform state effectiveness in delivering welfare. Using the Sahwa survey and discrete choice models, this article confirms the heterogeneity of the informal labor market in three Maghreb countries: Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. Furthermore, this article highlights the profiles of workers who voluntarily choose informality, an aspect that is missing from previous studies. Finally, this article proposes policy recommendations in order to extend social security to informal workers and to include them in the formal labor market.

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Promissory Capital: State Legitimacy among Women Community Health Workers in India

Qualitative Sociology ◽

10.1007/s11133-021-09487-y ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Vrinda Marwah

Keyword(s):

Community Health ◽

Community Health Workers ◽

Health Workers ◽

State Legitimacy

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A study on the perception of the corruption phenomenon within the Inland Revenue

Rivista di Psicopatologia Forense Medicina Legale Criminologia ◽

10.4081/psyco.2018.26 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 29-33

Author(s):

Maurizio Longhi

Keyword(s):

International Studies ◽

General Terms ◽

Inland Revenue ◽

Criminological Theories ◽

Political Scandals

In spite of many national and international studies on the causes of corruption, it is rarely investigated in which terms the criminological theories can provide useful suggestions to better understand the etiology of this form of criminality. The present work aimed to study how the corruption phenomenon is perceived by the employees of the Inland Revenue. The research was conducted on a sample of 50 subjects between 30 and 65 years old. For the purposes of the research, a questionnaire consisting of 19 items was distributed to them. It was significantly found that the subjects did not have problems to respond to general questions, despite particular questions, where instead the sampling found considerable difficulties. Therefore the knowledge is resulted in general terms and not in specific terms. A limitation of this study is that perceptions can rapidly change as a result of political scandals or different cultural settings. The different answers can be influenced by both the quality in the formulation of the application and the little experience of the interviewed subjects. Given the found data we can consider that this study confirms what is already evident in the literature. Corruption is the result of contacts with criminal patterns and the removal from anti-criminal patterns, since each individual assimilates the culture surrounding him.

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