Thoughtful piece from Will Hutton in The Observer today, worth a mention here.

I stumbled upon a most excellent article called The Meaning and Measurement of State Legitimacy by Dr Bruce Gilley, formerly of Princeton University and now at Portland State.   One of the most useful pieces of the article is the definition of State Legitimacy, which from my first reading appears to be interchangeable with the term political legitimacy.  Gilley explores the subjects, objects and sub-types of legitimacy.  Gilley then proceeds to do essentially what I have been discussing – a ‘strategy to achieve replicable cross-national measurements of legitimacy is then outlined and implemented, including a discussion of data sources and three alternative aggregation methods.’  He also has a book (right), which I’ve ordered.

Continue reading “Gilley on Political Legitimacy” →

While globalization generally has an impact on the role and nature of the State, there are specific components of globalization – including communications technology and the impact on community, frequency and immediacy of travel and the impact on territorial integrity – that should each be dealt with independently.  One of those is the development of supranational institutions, and the extent to which they may have an impact on state legitimacy, and/or legitimacy.  This can be a very legalistic argument, as it concerns itself with Public International Law, but it is a necessary foundational consideration for this part of the State Legitimacy Economy.

Continue reading “Do Supranational Organisations Compromise State Legitimacy?” →

Sebastian Faulks in the Guardian helps pull together a global visualisation (well, Global to the extent that the Globe is represented by Twitter) of sentiment.  Call me an old cynic, but I suspect someone in his publisher’s publicity team was probably more responsible than the grand old man himself.  Nevertheless, it stirs some interesting dirt from the bottom of our social media puddle.

Continue reading “Feeling, Emotion, Attachment, and Twitter” →

Ecuador is tonight alleging that the UK authorities have threatened to arrest Julian Assange inside its embassy in London.  Mr Assange, Wikileaks founder and darling of the far left (and some moderates too) has essentially skipped bail following the rejection of his appeal against extradition to Sweden to stand trial for sexual assault.  It is of course part of a bizarre super-story that has been running for two years now, starting with the publication of diplomatic cables between and about governments, the imprisonment and alleged torture of US Marine Bradley Manning, who is accused of leaking the cables in the first place.  There is no small irony in the threat from British authorities to cast aside one pillar of diplomacy – the sanctity and sovereignty of the embassy – in order to prosecute the casting aside of another – the leaking of diplomatic cables.

Continue reading “Assange: Secrecy and Sovereignty” →

The tension between the collective and the indididual is probably one of the most important themes of modern political thought.  The isolationism that seems to inevitably follow from giving the individual, as it were, enough rope, is clearly something that society should seek to avoid.  But should society tell the individual what to do?  Kurt Anderson doesn’t take a view in today’s New York Times, though selfishness is a pejorative term, right?