International Legitimacy

Wight defined international legitimacy as ‘the collective judgment of international society about rightful membership of the family of nations’. International legitimacy derived mainly from prescription and dynasticism, the customary rule of hereditary monarchs, until the American and French Revolutions instituted the popular and democratic principle of the consent of the governed. The increasing reliance on popular politics led to the triumph of national self-determination in the 1919 peace settlement, with certain exceptions, notably the decision not to conduct a plebiscite in Alsace-Lorraine. New principles, such as territorial contiguity and integrity, influenced decisions about the legitimacy of the frontiers of the states formed from the breakup of European colonial empires after the Second World War. India, for example, referred to the principle of territorial integrity to justify the acquisition of Hyderabad and Goa. Critics of colonial arrangements have regarded them as illegitimate and unacceptable by definition. A state seeking independence via secession can succeed in its bid for self-determination only if it can gain sufficient external support. Therefore Biafra’s bid failed while that of Bangladesh succeeded. Communist principles of legitimacy emphasize the self-determination of the proletariat under the guidance of the Communist party. Legitimacy principles are subject to pragmatic constraints, and in practice governments generally recognize whoever controls state power.

Refusing relocation: Urban street vendors and the problem of the neoliberal device

In 2010, the City of Dakar published its new master plan for a clean, competitive, modern city. This plan entailed the relocation of thousands of walking street vendors to free up traffic circulation and reduce the economic costs of congestion. Unlike previous relocations, this program required the political participation of vendor associations in the planning and design of a new commercial center. It also required the vendors to pay user charges: monthly payments for the use of the center and its utilities. Yet most Dakar's street vendors unequivocally refused to relocate, citing the building's poor location, bad design, and high price. Such user charges have become a contentious device with which governments across the world are financing the provision of public services. In this article, I analyze the politics of this device by tracing the linkages from Dakar's relocation program back to the political philosophies of prominent intellectuals commonly associated with “neoliberalism.” In doing so, I reveal how popular refusal is not beyond or opposed to a depoliticizing neoliberalism, but instead forms an integral part of neoliberal reflections on popular politics. I conclude by analyzing the political effects of this neoliberal device in Dakar: it introduced a new style of political engagement—consumption—through which individual vendors could dispute their relocation. And this individualized refusal to consume incited their representative associations to extend a popular mode of valuation—negotiation—into the calculation of the building's price.

Middle East Popular Politics in Gramscian Perspective

This article outlines a theoretical framework for researching popular politics in the Middle East and North Africa. It sketches a Gramscian alternative to existing approaches in materialist Marxism, cultural studies, and social movement studies. It also aims to think a Gramsci useful to historians, political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists, beyond the common loci of Gramsci scholarship in political theory, comparative literature, and international relations. With a start point in Gramsci's philosophy of praxis, it puts forward a concept of popular politics as a mostly slow-moving, complex, and many-layered transformative activity, a form of historical protagonism comprising a variety of moments, capable of working changes on existing forms of hegemony and founding new social relations. The point is to enable researchers in Middle East studies to see and research popular politics, carry on a critique of transformative activity, and inform transformation in the present.

Field, Sandra Leonie (2020). Potentia: Hobbes and Spinoza on Power and Popular Politics

Field, Sandra Leonie (2020)Potentia: Hobbes and Spinoza on Power and Popular PoliticsNueva York: Oxford University Press, 320 p.ISBN 9780197528242

Eine moralische Ökonomie der Steuern?

This article analyses the conflicts over imperial taxation in 17th-18th century Germany at local level. As imperial taxes have been mostly studied for the 16th century and usually from the perspective of Vienna, observing them from below gives a completely different perspective. One can observe, in particular, very strong and long-lasting conflicts between subjects and territorial princes. The article defends the idea that taxation conflicts are not only due to the size of the tax burden, but also linked to social and political considerations. They provide an excellent vantage point for analysing the Empire from below and the popular politics that emerged within the imperial body politic.