Legitimacy

This, as with all other things on this wiki, is a work in progress.

You could read Randy Barnett's paper on Constitutional Legitimacy, or you could read the blog post on his notion of legitimacy I wrote up a few years ago.

To summarize, he shows how consent isn't and can't be the source of governmental legitimacy, and that a government over non-consenting individuals is legitimate to the extent that there are procedural assurances that its actions will protect rights without violating them.

Anyway, I think this approach is pretty rad.

changed February 6, 2009

hober.jottit

Legitimacy