... closed consultations rather than publicly. Personal relations between national leaders always play a much more important role than any multilateral institutions and mechanisms (as demonstrated by the Qatar diplomatic crisis of 2017).
3. Restoring the legitimacy and effectiveness
of national governments through internal political compromises and national-level reconciliation. National governments need to regain the monopoly to violence and the enforcement of law and order within the borders of their ...
... being perceived in a negative light.
Continuing our exploration of the constituent components of sovereignty, we should talk about another equally important element, one often mentioned by the constructivists – namely, sovereignty as a reflection of legitimacy. Many constructivist researchers pay great attention to the significance of national identity, “ontological security” and the sociocultural foundations for legitimization in the establishment and functioning of sovereignty.
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The key ...
The Wikipedia article on Putin is quite balanced, and gives a brief summary of his career. It should help you understand what kind of leader Putin is.
Whether or not Putin can reasonably be called a “dictator” is a more difficult question to answer. The concept “dictator” is vague, used in many different senses, and its meaning is in large part in the mind of the beholder.
You can read the Wikipedia article on dictatorship, but it won’t help you much. Some dictatorships...
In totalitarian countries . .
The government tortures, kills and suppresses unions and the press.
Whereas in authoritarian countries . .
These functions are left to the private sector.
Jules Feiffer cartoon on statement by former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Jean Kirkpatrick
In order to judge whether there has been a “rollback of democracy” in Russia, we need to be clear about what is meant by the democratic state of affairs believed to exist before democracy was “rolled back.”...
... obedience is obligatory, that disobedience is blasphemy. Even a ruler who seeks to secure compliance by holding guns at the heads of all subjects needs the cooperation of at least those holding the guns and those managing the gun-holders.
Foundations of legitimacy have varied greatly across the many kinds of regimes that have existed throughout history. Foundations of legitimacy change, sometimes slowly and imperceptibly. It is instructive that the monarchs who established modern centralized states in ...
