I conclude with a review of my findings in Chapters 3–7. I elucidate the relationship between “oil” and “Islam” and what that relationship teaches us about politics in Gulf monarchies. The overwhelming message is that with their abundant wealth, Gulf rulers have been exploiting not only oil rents but also religious doctrine and its (re-)formulations to function as tools of social management and social control. Their aim is to bolster their authoritarian ambitions: ruling families’ capacity to both dominate and shape their societies and retain their monopoly over resources. For the sake of maintaining – and enriching – dynastic states and constructing the nation, oil and Islam are their principal tools.

The child rights movement does not have a requirement of being built by children. When it speaks on behalf of children, where does its authority to represent children come from? Who has the legitimacy to demand major social change on behalf of children and between children? How can the child rights movement begin to open up to self-critique and discourse on how not to reproduce social inequalities of, for example, race, class, and gender? And when the child rights movement chooses the efficacy of the CRC over a democratic legal order, how is accountability for such decisions exercised?

Bartolus analyses the problem of tyranny according to biblical, Aristotelian, and legal authority. Starting from Pope Gregory the Great’s definition of the tyrant as one who rules without right in the commonwealth, Bartolus distinguishes between a tryant for want of just title, and a tyrant who possesses such just title but is tyrannical in his exercise of power. He is particularly interested in the validity or otherwise of legal transactions conducted by tyrants, and by those living under tyranny, and in how to prove by convincing legal means that a tyranny is or was in existence. The concept of fear, which invalidates certain legal agreements if proved, plays a major role in his argument here. He is especially interested in ‘veiled’ or covert tyrants, who have satisfied the legal formalities for legitimate government but are nonetheless tyrants. This leads him to explore the mechanics of popular election. Bartolus complicates the matter by noting that even legitimate governments need to behave in ways defined as tyrannical by Aristotle, and uses the concept of the common good as the ultimate criterion between legitimate and tyrannical rule.

This chapter offers a ‘realist’ interpretation of the All-Affected Principle, as a democratic principle for distributing political inclusion. This interpretation aims to capture the AAP’s democratic appeal as a basis for political legitimacy in the pluralist institutional landscape of global governance practice. First, it is argued that the distinctive democratic value of the AAP derives from its concern with institutionally empowering those valuable dimensions of individuals’ political agency that are expressed through participation in the practical performance of global governance functions, alongside those expressed through deliberative or aggregative social ‘choice’ procedures. Second, it is argued that this interpretation of the normative point of the AAP supports a pluralist, rather than a cosmopolitan, institutional approach to democratic inclusion: the sites, types, and constituencies of inclusion should vary across institutional contexts, depending on their real-world consequences for the empowerment of individuals’ capacities to advance their interests through institutional collaboration with others. Third, the chapter elaborates the broader ‘realist’ conceptions of global democracy and political legitimacy that are implied by this interpretation of the AAP, and highlights some advantages and limitations of the realist account.

This chapter addresses the widespread perception that rural politics are characterized by irrational antigovernment sentiment, right-wing conspiracy theories, and other ideological drivers. This perception includes the stereotype that rural residents are generally conservatives who “vote against their interests” when liberal policies might appear to help their communities more. The chapter argues that rural views on government are just as often rational reactions to the unique impacts of law, regulation, and government in rural communities. Drawing on legitimacy theory, the chapter argues that rural grievances toward the federal regulatory state specifically reflect predictable concerns relating to procedural justice, substantive outcomes, and a sense that agencies prioritize concerns other than rural residents’ concerns. Although rural views vary, and intersect with other identities such as race, diverse rural populations exhibit common concerns about agencies posing threats to livelihoods and failing to offer protection from environmental threats. The chapter argues that overlap between subjective rural sentiments and objective structural features of the regulatory state lend credence to rural views as not irrational. Barriers to public participation in agency rulemaking, regulatory cost–benefit analysis, and implementation of the Endangered Species Act all illustrate instances of the regulatory state often failing to take meaningful rural concerns seriously.

The modern challenges to social and political stability. The presentation of the book’s modest proposal.

Comparing ancient societies allows us to observe the variety of relationships that prevailed between states — in different forms and at different scales — and their complex legal environments. This chapter explores five dimensions of this relationship. First, we examine the capacity of law to shape state power. While constitutional law, strictly speaking, was comparatively rare in the ancient world, we can yet observe various ways in which law, law-like practices and other cultural norms operated collectively to both empower and constrain the state. The second and third parts of the chapter look at the inverse relationship: state power over law and legal practice in the form of legislative powers and jurisdiction, respectively. In the fourth part, we turn from ideational aspects of state law to the structure of state legal systems themselves, particularly in the context of private or non-state legal practices. Here we focus on those domains of law in which the state was most intimately engaged, what was left to non-state actors and the engagements between both across a sometimes indistinct boundary. The final part of the chapter explores the role of law in legitimizing state power.

This chapter tests cycles of silence in Lagos to evaluate its applicability in a Global South context where, unlike Baltimore, the state and the police have limited resources. The chapter’s results come from an original survey of shopkeepers, paired with interviews and observation, in the city’s expansive markets, pockets in which “area boy” crews engage in violence and extortion. Consistent with the patterns found in Baltimore, area boy violence reduces cooperation by boosting perceived retaliation risk and making cooperation norms appear to be weaker than they are. Underlying cooperation support exists among shopkeepers, the chapter’s final section explains, in part, because the area boy crews have largely failed to gain legitimacy with Lagosians.

The Conclusion first summarizes the study’s findings. It then presents the study’s policy implications that might help inform local actors’ decisions on interventions related to police–citizen cooperation in communities with criminal groups. Additional research questions are also proposed. In particular, how the study’s findings might relate to contexts experiencing political violence such as civil war or insurgency remains an avenue for future research. The final section highlights that populations are projected to grow fastest in countries with strong criminal groups and weak state institutions for fighting those groups. This trend increases the urgency to understand vacuums of justice and how they might be filled.

This chapter tests cycles of silence theory in Baltimore to evaluate its applicability in a Global North context where the state and the police are well resourced. It provides background on how Baltimore residents become exposed to violence by drug crews and details the results from an original survey of residents in the city’s violence- affected communities. Violence heightens perceived retaliation risk, and the heightened risk perception in turn pushes residents who support cooperation to keep that support private. As result, residents share less information than they otherwise would in absence of this norm suppression. The chapter’s final section explains that the underlying cooperation support exists, because the drug crews have largely failed to gain legitimacy in eyes of residents.