Bringing together approaches drawn from philosophy, political science, law,history, and sociology, as well as the epistemology of the social sciences, Coicaud takes up the issue of legitimacy and explores its significance and relevanced for modern politics. In the process, he offers insightful views on questions such as the connection between morality and politics, the role of values, political responsibilithy, and political justice. At the same time he challenges crude positivism and scientism in the theory and practice of the social sciences.
Coicaud argues that, far from bidding one to reject the principle of the "right to govern" (as illustrated, for example, by the Weberian reduction of legitimacy to a mere belief) and, more generally, any idea of practical truth, modernity invites as search for normative criteria of justice that are compatible with plurality within and among societies and with the historical dimension of social reality. As such, the book provides a useful framework of analysis for addressing the issue of legitimacy in contemporary democratic culture.
1. What is political legitimacy?
2. Controversies around political legitimacy
3. Modernity, rationality of the social sciences, and legitimacy
4. Social sciences, historicity, and truth
5. Study of politics, relation to history, and de jure judgement
6. Community experience, dynamic of possibilities, and political legitimacy