This article argues that debate about the relation between legality and legitimacy is the defining concern of western political philosophy. However, it claims that analysis of this question often utilizes rather unreflected conceptual forms, which are largely derived from the antinomical structure of originally metaphysical accounts of the relation between law and power. This inherited theoretical apparatus obstructs adequate and evidentially sustainable discussion of the legal sources of legitimacy, and, by focusing on power as antinomically related to law, it undermines the ability of normative approaches to political institutions to explain why certain legal forms, especially rights, are objectively necessary, or at least probable, preconditions of power’s legitimate exercise. The article claims that appreciation of the legitimating function of legal norms and rights can only be obtained if the metaphysical pre‐constructions that inhere in normative theory are abandoned. To this end, it proposes an alternative to classical normative analysis by outlining a historical‐functionalist method for examining legality and legitimacy, and it explains how the legal/normative structure of legitimate power can be explained through examination of the internal‐evolutionary formation of power as a positive medium of political exchange in modern society.

The proliferation of local forms of governance problematizes the well‐established and highly normative idea that power and democracy in Denmark are organized in terms of a ‘parliamentary chain of government’, according to which the sovereign people elect the parliament, which in turn controls the government that governs the public administration through bureaucratic control. Consecutive waves of devolution have decentralized the Danish welfare state, and the power of local governments is now being challenged by the emergence of new forms of local governance that involve a plethora of private stakeholders, such as business firms, interest organizations, community groups and individual citizens, in the formulation and implementation of public policy. This article argues that participation of private stakeholders in public policy‐making cannot be reduced to an inferior supplement to traditional forms of representative democracy. The supplement is taking its revenge as the interactive policy arenas are expanding and the role of elected politicians is being transformed from sovereign rulers to meta‐governors. This development poses important challenges to the demand for effective and democratic governing of society and the economy.

Antonio Gramsci’s political thought focusses on power, hegemony, and domination. This article attempts to delineate the close and intimate relationship in Gramsci between political power and political space. It argues that political space is a central ingredient in his understanding of hegemony and civil society.

Contemporary Foucauldian research generally considers that our present is characterized by a positive type of power that invests life and posits a radical distinction between sovereign power and discipline/biopolitics. At the heart of this distinction is the supposed incompatibility between the law and the norm. However, a closer study of Foucault’s history of truth lends itself to a rereading of that perspective. The defining feature of contemporary society no longer resides in the innovations that marked the eighteenth century, but are rooted in a fundamental experience of truth: the juridical form of truth. Therefore, sovereign power, discipline, and biopolitics must all be considered as manifestations of a same form of truth which both objectifies and produces effects of domination. The study of this form of truth allows us to consider Foucault’s critical project from a new perspective and highlights the inherent unity of Foucault’s work on power–knowledge apparatuses and to his later works on ethics.

Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom analyzes the racial power conflict in South Africa, and Mandela’s own role as a leader in that struggle. Mandela saw the conflict in variable‐sum, not zero‐sum terms: it was in all sides’ interest to avoid civil war, but without risk‐taking leadership civil war was the likely outcome. Mandela employed several of the strategies for resolving variable‐sum (‘mixed‐motive’) conflict described in Thomas Schelling’s The Strategy of Conflict, including rendering oneself powerless to make further concessions and not pushing an opponent too far. But Mandela’s accomplishments also highlight the limitations of Schelling’s analysis, which minimizes the role of creative leadership in resolving conflict. The episode invites wider reflection on the nature of both leadership and power.

This article conducts a normative assessment of Operation Iraqi Freedom to enquire whether it could be described as a responsible action. It relies on the theoretical framework provided by the English School of International Relations to highlight yardsticks of a responsible action, besides international law, and states that one of them is prudence. This normative criterion is then used to examine Operation Iraqi Freedom. The conclusion states that according to the normative criterion, clarified in this article, the Bush administration’s decision‐making process in the run‐up to the war could not be termed as prudent and responsible.

This paper examines elite power and argues that for a better theoretical understanding of elite power we have to take into consideration that elites often do not initiate power struggles but apply their power ‘defensively’. The ability of Franco‐Mauritians, the white elite of the island Mauritius, to maintain power is the focus of this argument. They established a strong position in colonial times through their involvement in the sugar industry but have since faced numerous challenges to their (ethnic) elite position. Using their power defensively has been effective in facing these challenges and contributed to the relative success of continuing their elite position in post‐colonial Mauritius.

by James P. Pfiffner, Boulder, CO, Paradigm, 2010, 210 pp., $18.66 (paperback), ISBN 978‐1‐59451‐509‐5, $79.05 (hardback), ISBN 978‐1‐59451‐508‐8 The crude barbarian and the dictator is [sic] only ...

by Judith Butler, London, Verso, 2009, 193 pp., £9.99 (paperback), ISBN 978‐1‐84467‐626‐2, £14.99 (hardback), ISBN 978‐1‐84467‐333‐9 Sometimes when faced with photographs and videos of terrible war...