Michaela Böhme 
Do we need global legitimacy? [PDF ebook] 
A brief history of the concept of legitimacy and why we need to develop it

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Politics — General and Theories of International Politics, grade: 1, 3, Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, language: English, abstract: Legitimacy theory has developed from a western human centric point of view. The initial question was how to control human beings. In answer to this question, the nation state – a hierarchical ordered construct – was invented. The concept of legitimacy refers to the people’s acceptance of this political entity. Thus, the concept of political legitimacy is historically bound to the nation state and its political system. Recent developments attempt to question this. This becomes most obvious when it comes to the global problems we are facing. We live in a complex global governance system and affecting decisions are made by global organizations beyond the nation state. Just as the state is no longer capable of controlling and managing society anymore I argue that the society is no longer capable of controlling the decisions made within – or beyond – a nation state. Neither our traditional tools of domestic democracy, nor such instruments as state consent on a global level are longer sufficient.