Legitimacy is central for the capacity of global governance institutions to address problems such as climate change, trade protectionism, and human rights abuses. However, despite legitimacy's importance for global governance, its workings remain poorly understood. That is the core concern of this volume: to develop an agenda for systematic and comparative research on legitimacy in global governance. In complementary fashion, the chapters address different aspects of the overarching question: whether, why, how, and with what consequences global governance institutions gain, sustain, and lose legitimacy? The volume makes four specific contributions. First, it argues for a sociological approach to legitimacy, centered on perceptions of legitimate global governance among affected audiences. Second, it moves beyond the traditional focus on states as the principal audience for legitimacy in global governance and considers a full spectrum of actors from governments to citizens. Third, it advocates a comparative approach to the study of legitimacy in global governance, and suggests strategies for comparison across institutions, issue areas, countries, societal groups, and time. Fourth, the volume offers the most comprehensive treatment so far of the sociological legitimacy of global governance, covering three broad analytical themes: (1) sources of legitimacy, (2) processes of legitimation and delegitimation, and (3) consequences of legitimacy.

Critical Theory originated in the perception by a group of German Marxists after the First World War that the Marxist analysis of capitalism had become deficient both empirically and with regard to its consequences for emancipation, and much of their work has attempted to deepen and extend it in new circumstances. Yet much of this revision has been in the form of piecemeal modification. In his latest work, Habermas has returned to the study of capitalism, incorporating the distinctive modifications of the Frankfurt School into the foundations of the critique of capitalism. Drawing on both systems theory and phenomenological sociology as well as Marxism, the author distinguishes four levels of capitalist crisis - economic, rationality, legitimation, and motivational crises. In his analysis, all the Frankfurt focus on cultural, personality, and authority structures finds its place, but in a systematic framework. At the same time, in his sketch of communicative ethics as the highest stage in the internal logic of the evolution of ethical systems, the author hints at the source of a new political practice that incorporates the imperatives of evolutionary rationality.

This book discusses how rulers cultivate their identity for their own self-justification and esteem.

'International law' is no longer a sufficient rubric to describe the complexities of law in an era of globalization. Accordingly, this collection situates cross-border norm development at the intersection of interdisciplinary scholarship on comparative law, conflict of laws, civil procedure, cyberlaw, legal pluralism and the cultural analysis of law, as well as traditional international law. It provides a broad range of seminal articles on transnational law-making, governmental and non-governmental networks, judicial influence and cooperation across borders, the dialectical relationships among national, international and non-state legal norms, and the possibilities of 'bottom-up' and plural law-making processes. The introduction situates these articles within the framework of law and globalization and suggests four important ways in which such a framework enlarges the traditional focus of international law. This book, therefore, provides a crucial reference for scholars and practitioners seeking to understand the varied processes of norm development in the emerging global legal order.

A comprehensive collection of original essays by leading medical sociologists from around the world, fully updated to reflect contemporary research and global health issues The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology is an authoritative overview of the most recent research, major theoretical approaches, and central issues and debates within the field. Bringing together contributions from an international team of leading scholars, this wide-ranging volume summarizes significant new developments and discusses a broad range of globally-relevant topics. The Companion's twenty-eight chapters contain timely, theoretically-informed coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and emerging diseases, bioethics, healthcare delivery systems, health disparities associated with migration, social class, gender, and race. It also explores mental health, the family, religion, and many other real-world health concerns. The most up-to-date and comprehensive single-volume reference on the key concepts and contemporary issues in medical sociology, this book: Presents thematically-organized essays by authors who are recognized experts in their fields Features new chapters reflecting state-of-the-art research and contemporary issues relevant to global health Covers vital topics such as current bioethical debates and the global effort to cope with the coronavirus pandemic Discusses the important relationship between culture and health in a global context Provide fresh perspectives on the sociology of the body, biomedicalization, health lifestyle theory, doctor-patient relations, and social capital and health The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology is essential reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in medical sociology, health studies, and health care, as well as for academics, researchers, and practitioners wanting to keep pace with new developments in the field.

Rules set by global governance organizations affect communities across the world. Such organizations increasingly seek to obtain legitimacy in the eyes of groups beyond their member state elites. This book advances scholarly debate on the politics of legitimacy and legitimation in global governance. It brings together researchers from different subfields of International Relations in order to highlight trends and contradictions in the contemporary politics of legitimacy across areas of sustainable development, humanitarian relief, responsible investment, sustainable fisheries and labour standards. The chapters explore legitimation efforts by various forms of global governance bodies, such as intergovernmental organizations, public–private partnerships and fully private bodies. The book demonstrates that different governance forms beyond the nation state share deep legitimacy challenges and engage in continuous legitimation attempts. Questions on the audiences of such legitimation attempts are particularly pivotal in understanding the politics of legitimacy. Audiences are not predetermined but constituted through interaction between legitimation efforts and the reactions to those of targeted and other groups, mirroring broader global power relations. This book was published as a special issue of Globalizations.

The legitimacy of international and regional organizations and their actions is frequently asserted and challenged by states and commentators alike. Their authorisations or conduct of military interventions, their structures of decision-making, and their involvement into what states deem to be domestic matters have all raised questions of legitimacy. As international organizations lack the coercive powers of states, legitimacy is also considered central to their ability to attain compliance with their decisions. Despite the prominence of legitimacy talk around international organizations, little attention has been paid to the practices and processes through which such organizations and their member states justify the authority these organizations exercise - how they legitimise themselves both vis-à-vis their own members and external audiences. This book addresses this gap by comparing and evaluating the legitimation practices of a range of international and regional organizations. It examines the practices through which such organizations justify and communicate their legitimacy claims, and how these practices differ between organizations. In exploring the specific legitimation practices of international organizations, this book analyses the extent to which such practices are shaped by the structure of the different organizations, by the distinct normative environments within which they operate, and by the character of the audiences of their legitimacy claims. It also considers the implications of this analysis for global and regional governance.

The intricate practices of the elite and how they maintain their dominance. In his new book, Göran Therborn – author of the now standard comparative work on classical sociology and historical materialism, Science, Class and Society – looks at successive state structures in an arrestingly fresh perspective. Therborn uses the formal categories of modern system analysis – input mechanisms, processes of transformation, output flows – to advance a substantive Marxist analysis of state power and state apparatuses. His account of these is comparative in the most far-reaching historical sense: its object is nothing less than the construction of systematic typology of the differences between the feudal state, the capitalist state and the socialist state. Therborn ranges from the monarchies of mediaeval Europe through the bourgeois democracies of the west in the 20th century to the contemporary regimes in Russia, Eastern Europe and China. The book ends with a major analytic survey of the strategies of working class parties for socialism, from the Second International to the Comintern to Eurocommunism, that applies the structural findings of Therborn’s enquiry in the ‘Future as History’. Written with lucidity and economy, What Does the Ruling Class Do when it Rules? represents a remarkable sociological and political synthesis.

The original Handbook of Public Administration was a landmark publication, the first to provide a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the discipline. The eagerly-awaited new edition of this seminal international handbook continues to provide a complete review and guide to past and present knowledge in this essential field of inquiry. Assembling an outstanding team of scholars from around the world, the second edition explores the current state-of-the-art in academic thinking and the current structures and processes for the administration of public policy. The second edition has been fully revised and updated, with new chapters that reflect emerging issues and changes within the public sector: - Identifying the Antecedents in Public Performance - Bureaucratic Politics - Strategy Structure and Policy Dynamics - Comparative Administrative Reform - Administrative Ethics - Accountability through Market and Social Instruments - Federalism and intergovernmental coordination. A dominant theme throughout the handbook is a critical reflection on the utility of scholarly theory and the extent to which government practices inform the development of this theory. To this end it serves as an essential guide for both the practice of public administration today and its on-going development as an academic discipline. The SAGE Handbook of Public Administration remains indispensable to the teaching, study and practice of public administration for students, academics and professionals everywhere.