What Confers Political Legitimacy in a Modern Society?

In this essay Wight considered several sources of legitimacy for a modern Western society. A well-functioning state bureaucracy is a necessity. Popular consultation involving the consent of the governed is also essential. In Britain elective parliamentary democracy meets this need. Citizens must agree on the principle of respecting current laws pending their revision through legal channels. A new authoritative source of legitimacy may replace an old one if citizens transfer their loyalty to it. Time may either heal the injured and legitimate the results of social conflicts or exacerbate antagonisms. Communist regimes and right-wing autocrats such as General Franco in Spain and the Shah of Iran appealed to a principle of ‘legitimation by success’. Other legitimation myths have included ‘childhood ideas of Robin Hood’, ‘the siege’, and ‘the pilgrimage’, but the most fundamental source of legitimacy resides in the blood shed for a society’s independence and the rebirth of its great founding principles. This bloodshed justifies the society’s rededication to pursuing its unfinished work. An opposing question concerns the individual dissenter’s political legitimacy, which must hinge on certain criteria (such as rationality and conscientiousness) to win moral respect. The ‘rationalist illusion’ supposes that citizens can be critical spectators in the proceedings of their own society and its politics. Such detachment is not attainable, and derives from the fallacy that political life can be reduced to the conscious and purposeful management of material needs.

1. The Starting Point

This chapter discusses what makes British politics distinctive and recognizable: its parliamentary democracy, uncodified constitution, and pattern of party government. It begins by outlining some recent events that have made British or UK politics so fascinating and controversial. The chapter then describes the political system, particularly the institutional rules that affect what happens and govern how politics takes place. Parliament, composed of the House of Commons, House of Lords, and the Crown, is the supreme legal authority in the UK. The chapter also provides a summary of the British constitution. It places the UK in a comparative context, to be studied alongside other nation states. Finally, the chapter sets out the information and concepts that help in understanding the nature of and limits to British democracy.

Fifteen Years of Right to Information Act in India: A Long Way to Go

The passing & enactment of Right to Information Act, 2005 in India has been rightly considered as a milestone in the evolution of Indian Parliamentary Democracy which attempted to ensure transparency & good governance at the grass root levels by making the public authorities accountable & responsible. This Act liberated the harassed commoners who now had a very potent weapon to seek information which had hitherto remained suppressed in the dusty files of Babus (Bureaucrats) under the garb of official secrecy & confidentiality. However, in spite of many initial success stories over a period of time this Right to Information act has been losing its effectiveness & potency as it has failed to adopt the dynamism of complex Socio-Political realities. This paper attempts to give an overview & explain the history of RTI in India, its present status, limitations/drawbacks /challenges & and suggests some remedial measures to ensure its relevance in the rapidly transforming geo political context.

The Dayton controversies – public decision-making between parliamentary democracy and partitocracy

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the pluralization of society and the state began during 1990. This is the time when political parties are formed and the first multi-party parliamentary elections are held. Due to the strong influence and domination of the ethnic principle, political parties were formed in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1990 in two basic forms: as ethnic or people's (national) parties, and as civic (multiethnic) parties. In almost all election cycles from the beginning of the pluralization of Bosnian society until today, ethnic political parties have won the elections. Ethnic political parties have appropriated a monopoly in the promotion of national interests since the 1990 election campaign, guided by the idea of protecting the national interests of “their“ peoples. The continued rule of ethnic parties without a coalition political agenda and agreement has strengthened ethnic pluralism in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus, instead of democratic decision-making and competition between the majority and the opposition, the representative bodies in Bosnia and Herzegovina have become an arena and a place of mutual competition and confrontation between the parties that make up the parliamentary majority. The lack of the necessary democratic consensus between the ruling ethnic political parties at the state level was compensated and compensated by the High Representative of the International Community (OHR), who, on the basis of the Bonn powers, promulgated certain laws. Hundreds of laws in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been promulgated by high representatives. This prevented blockages in the work of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the absence of the necessary consensus of the ruling ethnic parties, it is not possible to develop or strengthen the power of parliaments as the highest representative body of the people and citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Instead of parliamentary democracy, classical partitocracy is at work. The situation is similar at the entity level, and at the cantonal level in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity. All this, along with heterogeneous and complicated decision-making procedures and processes, ultimately reflects on the adoption of laws and decisions of importance to society and the state. Complicated forms of decision-making and the existence of a famous mechanism for the protection of vital national interests are some of the obstacles to the development of the state and society. All of these are some of the essential problems, but also the controversies that follow the decision-making processes in the representative bodies in the country. This is especially true of the adoption of important and significant public policies aimed at solving socio-political problems. Only decision-making at the level of local self-government units (municipalities and cities) can serve as a positive example. In general, the local level of government has so far proved to be the most efficient level of government in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The basis for strengthening the democratic decision-making capacities of the representative bodies of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina is contained in the application of the democratic principle on which parliamentary democracy is established and functions. Applying almost all basic and general scientific research methods, as well as the method of analysis (content) of relevant documentation as a method of data acquisition, will identify key problems and controversies of public decision-making and policy making in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the period after the Dayton Peace Agreement. today. A conclusion will be drawn on the need to establish a parliamentary majority based on the coalition agreement and the political program of that coalition, which significantly affects the public decision-making processes and the adoption of the necessary state public policy. Bosnia and Herzegovina is required to reconstruct public decisions in the direction of strengthening state public decisions and policies and building European standards, in order to more efficiently compose them with the requirements and directives of the European Union.

Masks, Mingling and Magic: Gibberish Law in the Age of Covid

The experience of Covid-19 has taught us many things, not least the consequence of what John Milton termed ‘gibberish law’. Law drafted amidst the ‘throng and noises of irrational men’. The closer purpose of this article is the attempt to regulate ‘gatherings’ during the coronavirus pandemic, including the re-invention of a bespoke crime of ‘mingling’. A jurisprudential curiosity which, it will be suggested, is symptomatic of a broader malaise. An assault on the integrity of the rule of law which is only too familiar; much, it might be said, like the arrival of a pandemic. The first part of the article will revisit three particular gatherings, in part to debunk the myth of the unprecedented. But also to introduce some themes, literal and figurative, of masking and muddle. The conjuring of what Shakespeare called ‘rough magic’. The second part of the article will then take a closer look at the jurisprudential consequence of this conjuration. The final part will venture some larger concerns, about the crisis of parliamentary democracy in the ‘age of Covid’.

Canada

Canada is a federal parliamentary democracy with a bicameral legislature at the national level. Members of the upper House, styled the Senate, are appointed by the prime minister, and members of the lower House, the House of Commons, are elected in single-member plurality electoral districts. In practice, the House of Commons is by far the more important of the two chambers. This chapter, therefore, investigates access to the floor in the Canadian House of Commons. We find that the age, gender, and experience of MPs have little independent effect on access to the floor. Consistent with the dominant role of parties in Canadian political life, we find that an MP’s role within a party has by far the most significant impact on their access to the floor. Intriguingly, backbenchers in the government party have the least access of all.

Israel

This chapter investigates the factors affecting floor access in the Israeli national parliament—the Knesset. Although Israel is a parliamentary democracy with a proportional, closed-list electoral system, the Knesset’s rules of procedure give little control to parties over floor access. Analyzing over 46,000 speeches over three terms between 2009 and 2019, even in debates where party leadership does have control over who takes the floor, we find no strong evidence that such control is used to give more speech time to highly ranked representatives. This is at odds with predictions made by others in two ways: First, in that the parliamentary rules do not reflect the electoral incentives of party leadership; Second, in that parties do not appear to utilize whatever ability they possess to control their representatives’ speechmaking.