Rulership - Theories of State Legitimacy

Theories of State Legitimacy

Main article: Legitimacy (political) See also: Social contract and State of nature

States generally rely on a claim to some form of political legitimacy in order to maintain domination over their subjects.

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Famous quotes containing the words theories of, theories, state and/or legitimacy:

    The real trouble about women is that they must always go on trying to adapt themselves to men’s theories of women, as they always have done. When a woman is thoroughly herself, she is being what her type of man wants her to be. When a woman is hysterical it’s because she doesn’t quite know what to be, which pattern to follow, which man’s picture of woman to live up to.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    Whatever practical people may say, this world is, after all, absolutely governed by ideas, and very often by the wildest and most hypothetical ideas. It is a matter of the very greatest importance that our theories of things that seem a long way apart from our daily lives, should be as far as possible true, and as far as possible removed from error.
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)

    The average Kentuckian may appear a bit confused in his knowledge of history, but he is firmly certain about current politics. Kentucky cannot claim first place in political importance, but it tops the list in its keen enjoyment of politics for its own sake. It takes the average Kentuckian only a matter of moments to dispose of the weather and personal helath, but he never tires of a political discussion.
    —For the State of Kentucky, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    In New York—whose subway trains in particular have been “tattooed” with a brio and an energy to put our own rude practitioners to shame—not an inch of free space is spared except that of advertisements.... Even the most chronically dispossessed appear prepared to endorse the legitimacy of the “haves.”
    Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. “Cleaning and Cleansing,” Myths and Memories (1986)