A Function-Sensitive Approach to the Political Legitimacy of Global Governance

This article draws attention to an aspect that thus far has escaped systematic scrutiny in the theoretical literature on the political legitimacy of global governance – functions. It does so by exploring the idea that the content and justification of a principle of political legitimacy for global go...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:British journal of political science 2020-07, Vol.50 (3), p.1001-1024
Main Author: Erman, Eva
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Civil rights
Contours
Decision making
Democracy
Function
function-sensitivity
global governance
Governance
Human rights
justice
Justification
Law making
Legitimacy
NGOs
Nongovernmental organizations
Policy making
political legitimacy
Political power
Political science
Politics
Principles
Scrutiny
Theory
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Summary:This article draws attention to an aspect that thus far has escaped systematic scrutiny in the theoretical literature on the political legitimacy of global governance – functions. It does so by exploring the idea that the content and justification of a principle of political legitimacy for global governance may depend on the function of the entity it is supposed to regulate (for example, law making, policy making, implementation, monitoring). Two arguments are made: one meta-theoretical and one substantive. The meta-theoretical argument demonstrates the fruitfulness of adopting a ‘function-sensitive approach’ to political legitimacy to address this aspect. The substantive argument develops the contours of an account of political legitimacy by applying this approach. This account consists of five regulative principles, which are sensitive to, and vary in accordance with, different functions in global politics.
ISSN:0007-1234
1469-2112
1469-2112
DOI:10.1017/S0007123417000850