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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 June 2018

Eva Erman
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Abstract

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.

Keywords

political legitimacyglobal governancefunction-sensitivitydemocracyjustice
Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , July 2020 , pp. 1001 - 1024
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018

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Footnotes

*

Department of Political Science, Stockholm University (email: eva.erman@statsvet.su.se). I owe special thanks to Thomas Christiano, Rainer Forst, Jens Steffek, Jonas Tallberg and Michael Zürn for comments on earlier drafts of this article. Thanks also to the participants of the ‘Legitimacy Beyond the State: Normative and Conceptual Questions’ conference organized by Antoinette Scherz, Nate Adams and Cord Schmelzle in Bad Homburg in early 2017, and to the participants of the ‘World Government or Else?’ workshop in Zürich in June 2017, organized by Attila Tanyi. Moreover, I wish to thank editor Hugh Ward and the anonymous referees of the journal for valuable comments and guidance. In addition, I am grateful for the generous funding of this research from the Swedish Research Council and Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation.

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