The LIOn's share: How the Liberal International Order Contributes to its Own Legitimacy Crisis. Harvard CES Open Forum Series2019-2020

The liberal international order (LIO) is experiencing a legitimacy crisis in its Western heartland. What causes this crisis? Existing approaches focus on the LIO’s unequal allocation of wealth and values that produces losers and thus breeds dissatisfaction. Yet, why this dissatisfaction translates into a delegitimation of the order rather than a contestation over policies remains unaccounted for. Complementing the cultural and economic backlash hypotheses, this paper advances an institutionalist explanationfor the current crisis of the LIO, which accounts for the growing resistance to the LIO with a political backlash hypothesis. Our argument is that the institutional characteristics of the LIO’s political order trigger self-undermining processes by inciting opposition that cannot be politically accommodated and is thus bound to turn into polity contestation. In particular, we hold that IOs’ predominantly technocratic legitimation rationale on the one hand, and their increasing political authority with distributional effects on the other, create a democracy gap. It implies that avenues to absorb opposition through input channels are largely missing and thus incite the erosion of the LIO’s general acceptance. We illustrate the plausibility of this argument with evidence from the European Union (EU) as well as the international regimes on trade and human rights

Backlash Against Democracy: The Regulation of Civil Society in Africa

This paper builds on TrustAfrica funded research regarding the legislative environment for non-governmental organizations. The first section of this paper provides a brief overview of the recent history of state-civil society relations in Africa. The second section examines the current trend in repressive NGO legislation in Zambia, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe, which include: (1) barriers to entry; (2) barriers to operational activity and free speech; and (3) barriers to resources. The third and final section frames this trend within the history of democratization in Africa and identifies new directions for research and analysis

Rethinking the Foundational Critiques of Lawyers in Social Movements

This Article argues that the current moment invites reconsideration of these critiques. The rise of new social movements—from marriage equality to Black Lives Matter to the recent mobilization against President Trump’s immigration order—and the response of a new generation of movement lawyers eager to lend support has refocused attention on the appropriate role that lawyers should play in advancing progressive social change. Rather than fall back on familiar critical themes, the time is ripe for developing a new affirmative vision

Courts, Social Change, and Political Backlash

On March 31, 2011, Professor of Law, Michael Klarman of Harvard Law School delivered the Georgetown Law Center’s thirty-first annual Philip A. Hart Lecture: “Courts, Social Change, and Political Backlash.” Included here are the speaker\u27s notes from this lecture. Michael Klarman is the Kirkland & Ellis Professor at Harvard Law School. Formerly, he was the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law, Professor of History, and the Elizabeth D. and Richard A. Merrill Research Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. Klarman specializes in the constitutional history of race. Klarman holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, a D.Phil. from Oxford University and an M.A. and B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. He has won numerous awards for his teaching and scholarship, which are primarily in the areas of constitutional law and constitutional history. His book, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (2004), received the Bancroft Prize

Rethinking the Foundational Critiques of Lawyers in Social Movements

This Article argues that the current moment invites reconsideration of these critiques. The rise of new social movements—from marriage equality to Black Lives Matter to the recent mobilization against President Trump’s immigration order—and the response of a new generation of movement lawyers eager to lend support has refocused attention on the appropriate role that lawyers should play in advancing progressive social change. Rather than fall back on familiar critical themes, the time is ripe for developing a new affirmative vision

International democracy promotion: a role for public goods theory?

The state of international democracy promotion is in flux. After more than fifteen years of increasing activity and with more organisations and resources devoted to promoting democracy than ever before, a mood of uncertainty surrounds democracy support's current performance and future prospects. The last decade has also seen the emergence of a new literature on global public goods theory, offering fresh analytical perspectives on pressing issues in international affairs like peace, security, development, and environmental sustainability. The future of democracy promotion will be determined chiefly by the realities of the political market place, in societies on both sides of the relationship. But could recent theorising about the market for global public goods offer some analytical support for making sense of its current condition and, by identifying the democratic peace as a global public good strengthen the case for greater international cooperation in promoting democracy as means to achieve that end

Overlegalizing Human Rights: International Relations Theory and the Commonwealth Caribbean Backlash Against Human Rights Regimes

This article raises the intriguing claim that international law can be overlegalized. Overlegalization occurs where a treaty\u27s substantive rules or its review procedures are too constraining of sovereignty, causing governments to engage in acts of non-compliance or even to denounce the treaty. The concept of legalization and its potential excesses, although unfamiliar to many legal scholars, has begun to be explored by international relations theorists analyzing the effects of legal rules in changing state behavior. This article bridges the gap between international legal scholarship and international relations theory by exploring a recent case study of overlegalization. It seeks to understand why, in the late 1990s, three Commonwealth Caribbean governments denounced human rights treaties and withdrew from the jurisdiction of international tribunals. I refer to these events as the Caribbean backlash against human rights regimes. My study of this backlash has two objectives. The first is to show how overlegalizing human rights can lead even liberal democracies to reconsider their commitment to international institutions that protect those rights. The second objective is to assess three competing international relations theories that seek to explain the conditions under which states comply with their treaty commitments. To provide a more persuasive analysis of these issues, the article includes empirical data analyzing changes in the filing and review of international human rights petitions against Caribbean governments during the 1990s

Dignity and Social Meaning: \u3ci\u3eObergefell\u3c/i\u3e, \u3ci\u3eWindsor\u3c/i\u3e, and \u3ci\u3eLawrence\u3c/i\u3e as Constitutional Dialogue

The U.S. Supreme Court’s three most important gay and lesbian rights decisions—Obergefell v. Hodges, United States v. Windsor, and Lawrence v. Texas—are united by the principle that gays and lesbians are entitled to dignity. Beyond their tangible consequences, the common constitutional evil of state bans on same-sex marriage, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and sodomy laws was that they imposed dignitary harm. This Article explores how the gay and lesbian dignity cases exemplify the process by which constitutional law emerges from a social and cultural dialogue in which the Supreme Court actively participates. In doing so, it draws on the scholarly literatures on dialogic judicial review and the role of social meaning in constitutional law. It illuminates how the Supreme Court interprets democratic preferences and constructs social meaning in order to apply fundamental constitutional norms to emerging legal claims. Contrary to the speculations of some commentators, “dignity” in these cases did not operate as some new form of constitutional right. Rather, the identification and protection of dignitary interests served as the unifying principle for a process, unfolding in three cases over thirteen years, through which constitutional law was brought into alignment with evolving public attitudes and policy preferences. The dignity decisions should be understood as majoritarian, not as acts of judicial will. They were broadly accepted because the Court’s insights about the status of gays and lesbians in American society were consistent with dramatic and long-term changes in cultural and public attitudes. As culture and attitudes evolved, so did the social meaning of anti-gay laws. Sodomy laws and marriage restrictions, once accepted as presumptively constitutional protections of tradition and public morality, increasingly came to be understood as impositions of stigma and humiliation—the kind of expressive harms that the U.S. Constitution forbids

Democracy promotion and civil society

The annual Global Civil Society Yearbooks provide an indispensable guide to global civil society or civic participation and action around the world. This year, the Yearbook will focus on communicative power and democracy, investigating different forms of democracy promotion and communication with a view to understanding the relationship between communication, democracy and media. The Global Civil Society Yearbook remains the standard work on all aspects of contemporary global civil society for activists, practitioners, students and academics alike. It is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the key actors, forms and manifestations of global civil society around the world today