Legitimacy – An IB Global Politics Site

The Arab Spring, Ten Years On

September 6, 2021

Islamists and autocrats have the run of things. But the millions who struggled for freedom should not be forgotten.

After a fleeting season of hope, despair has returned to nurture the pretensions of the ancien regime. “Realists” in distant lands have doubled down, proclaiming the resilience of Arab tyranny. In the American governing class, there is no longer any great sympathy with, let alone active encouragement for, liberal reform. The reactionary right has decided that America’s Enlightenment creed doesn’t apply to the Muslim Middle East; the progressive left is more critical of Middle Eastern tyrannies, with the glaring exceptions of Iran and the Palestinian territories, but has no interest in taking up a “freedom agenda” in Islamic lands.

https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-arab-spring-ten-years-on

Would you recognize the Taliban?

August 18, 2021

The Taliban have returned to power in Afghanistan after two decades. Over the next few weeks and months, a host of foreign nations with a stake in the country’s future will have to make a very tough choice: grant legitimacy to a regime that has committed atrocities against its own people, or risk the potential fallout of turning Afghanistan into the isolated, drug-running state sponsor of terror it was prior to US occupation. For some, the decision will depend on how the Taliban behave, while others seem to have already made up their mind.

Here are a few arguments on both sides of the international recognition debate.

https://www.gzeromedia.com/would-you-recognize-the-taliban

How McKinsey Has Helped Raise the Stature of Authoritarian Governments

August 11, 2021

But the political backdrop did not appear to bother the McKinsey consultants, who posted pictures on Instagram chronicling their Disney-like adventures. In fact, McKinsey’s involvement with the Chinese government goes much deeper than its odd choice to showcase its presence in the country.

What the Tributes to George H. W. Bush Are Missing

August 11, 2021

The 41st president was the last person to occupy the Oval Office whose opponents saw him as fully legitimate.

Since George H. W. Bush’s death, many observers have noted that he embodied a less rancorous, less polarized political era. But underlying that civility was something deeper: Bush was the last person to occupy the Oval Office whose opponents saw him as a fully legitimate president.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/bush-race/577150/