Unsettled Legitimacy: Political Community, Power, and Authority in a Global Era

Steven Bernstein · William D. Coleman

Jul 2010 · UBC Press

About this ebook

Globalization has challenged taken-for-granted relationships of rule in local, regional, national, and international settings. This unsettling of legitimacy raises questions. Under what conditions do individuals and communities accept globalized decision making as legitimate? And what political practices do individuals and collectivities under globalization use to exercise autonomy?

To answer these questions, the contributors to Unsettled Legitimacy explore the disruptions and reconfigurations of political authority that accompany globalization. Arguing that we live in an era in which political legitimacy at multiple scales of authority is under strain, they show that globalization has also created demands for regulation, security, and the protection of rights and expressions of individual and collective autonomy within and across multiple political and geographic spaces. Instead of offering simplistic arguments for or against global governance, enhanced democracy, or economic integration, the contributors provide a sophisticated examination of the complexities of legitimacy and autonomy in a globalizing world.

About the author

Steven Bernstein is an associate professor of political science and associate director of the Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. William D. Coleman is CIGI Chair in Globalization and Public Policy at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo.

Contributors: Ian Cooper, Harvey A. Feit, Tara C. Goetze, Heike H?rting, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, Michael Keating, John McGarry, Margaret Moore, Peter Nyers, Sylvia Ostry, Leslie A. Pal, Nisha Shah, Jackie Smith, Julie Sunday, and Melissa S. Williams