Jean-Marc Coicaud - Böcker

This book is the product of a multi-year dialogue between leading human rights theorists and high-level representatives of international human rights NGOs (INGOs). It is divided into three parts that reflect the major ethical challenges discussed at the workshops: the ethical challenges associated with interaction between relatively rich and powerful northern-based human rights INGOs and recipients of their aid in the South; whether and how to collaborate with governments that place severe restrictions on the activities of human rights INGOs; and the tension between expanding the organization's mandate to address more fundamental social and economic problems and restricting it for the sake of focusing on more immediate and clearly identifiable violations of civil and political rights. Each section contains contributions by both theorists and practitioners of human rights.

Fault Lines of International Legitimacy deals with the following questions: What are the features and functions of legitimacy in the international realm? How does international legitimacy, as exemplified in particular by multilateral norms, organizations, and policies, change over time? What role does the international distribution of power and its evolution have in the establishment and transformation of legitimacy paradigms? To what extent do democratic values account for the growing importance of legitimacy and the increasing difficulty of achieving it at the international and the national level? One of the central messages of the book is that, although the search for international legitimacy is an elusive endeavor, there is no alternative to it if we want to respond to the intertwined demands of justice and security and make them an integral and strategic part of international relations.

The increase in cases of political corruption, the loss of politicians' credibility, the development of social and political forms of pathology (notably the rise of the extreme right along with exclusionist ideologies), and the role of the State have been at the center of political debates. In one way or another, these problems raise the question of the legitimacy of the established powers. The result is that legitimacy, a key notion of political thought in general, has today become a burning issue. Coicaud examines all these issues and proffers insightful answers to questions such as the connections between morality and politics, how rulers acquire or lose the right to govern, and how one can become the advocate of a theory of political justice that, while establishing limits, respects and even ensures the promotion of plurality within societies.

The increase in cases of political corruption, the loss of politicians' credibility, the development of social and political forms of pathology (notably the rise of the extreme right along with exclusionist ideologies), and the role of the State have been at the center of political debates. In one way or another, these problems raise the question of the legitimacy of the established powers. The result is that legitimacy, a key notion of political thought in general, has today become a burning issue. Coicaud examines all these issues and proffers insightful answers to questions such as the connections between morality and politics, how rulers acquire or lose the right to govern, and how one can become the advocate of a theory of political justice that, while establishing limits, respects and even ensures the promotion of plurality within societies.

This book is the product of a multi-year dialogue between leading human rights theorists and high-level representatives of international human rights NGOs (INGOs). It is divided into three parts that reflect the major ethical challenges discussed at the workshops: the ethical challenges associated with interaction between relatively rich and powerful northern-based human rights INGOs and recipients of their aid in the South; whether and how to collaborate with governments that place severe restrictions on the activities of human rights INGOs; and the tension between expanding the organization's mandate to address more fundamental social and economic problems and restricting it for the sake of focusing on more immediate and clearly identifiable violations of civil and political rights. Each section contains contributions by both theorists and practitioners of human rights.

In a turnabout of the cynical belief that might makes right, nations now see fit to issue apologies to peoples and countries they have wronged. We live in an age that seeks to establish political truth, perhaps best exemplified by the creation of truth commissions in societies seeking to emerge from dictatorial pasts. The most noteworthy result of these efforts has been the near-universal realization that a society will not be able successfully to pass into the future until it somehow deals with the horrors of its past.A number of Western states and institutions have sought to come to terms with their relationships to non-Western states and peoples. Powerful actors and institutions are apologizing to the relatively powerless. What do these apologies mean? Are they an indication of a new international order, either politically or as they relate to international law? Or are these apologies fleeting and insignificant? In The Age of Apology twenty-two law, politics, and human rights scholars explore the legal, political, social, historical, moral, religious, and anthropological aspects of Western apologies in an attempt to answer these questions. Conversely, a nonapology might be as important to study, and several chapters discuss the absence or refusal of apology and how this might be interpreted.

The book examines the significance of the issue of political legitimacy at the international level, focusing on international law. It adopts a descriptive, critical and reconstructive approach. In order to do so, the book clarifies what political legitimacy is in general and in the context of international law. The book analyses how international law contributes to a sense of legitimacy through notions such as international membership, international rights holding, fundamental principles and hierarchy of rights holding, rightful conduct and international authority. In addition, the book stresses the serious limitations of legitimacy of international law and of the current international order that it contributes to regulate and manage. This leads the book to identify the conditions under which international order and international law could overcome their problems of legitimacy and become more legitimate. The book is inter-disciplinary in nature, mobilizing international law, political and legal theory, philosophy, history, and political science.

In recent years, social scientists have increasingly recognized the interconnectedness of thought on emotions. Nowhere is the role of passions more evident than international politics, where pride, anger, guilt, fear, empathy, and other feelings are routinely on display. But in the absence of an overarching theory of emotions, how can we understand their role at the international level? Emotions in International Politics fills the need for theoretical tools in the new and rapidly growing subfield of international relations. Eminent scholars from a range of disciplines consider how emotions can be investigated from an international perspective involving collective players, drawing evidence from such emotionally fraught events as the Rwandan genocide, World War II, the 9/11 attacks, and the Iranian nuclear standoff. The path-breaking research collected in Emotions in International Politics will be a valuable theoretical guide to understanding conflict and cooperation in international relations.

Fault Lines of International Legitimacy deals with the following questions: What are the features and functions of legitimacy in the international realm? How does international legitimacy, as exemplified in particular by multilateral norms, organizations, and policies, change over time? What role does the international distribution of power and its evolution have in the establishment and transformation of legitimacy paradigms? To what extent do democratic values account for the growing importance of legitimacy and the increasing difficulty of achieving it at the international and the national level? One of the central messages of the book is that, although the search for international legitimacy is an elusive endeavor, there is no alternative to it if we want to respond to the intertwined demands of justice and security and make them an integral and strategic part of international relations.

In recent years, social scientists have increasingly recognized the interconnectedness of thought on emotions. Nowhere is the role of passions more evident than international politics, where pride, anger, guilt, fear, empathy, and other feelings are routinely on display. But in the absence of an overarching theory of emotions, how can we understand their role at the international level? Emotions in International Politics fills the need for theoretical tools in the new and rapidly growing subfield of international relations. Eminent scholars from a range of disciplines consider how emotions can be investigated from an international perspective involving collective players, drawing evidence from such emotionally fraught events as the Rwandan genocide, World War II, the 9/11 attacks, and the Iranian nuclear standoff. The path-breaking research collected in Emotions in International Politics will be a valuable theoretical guide to understanding conflict and cooperation in international relations.