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This chapter provides general conclusions on the study of legitimacy: firstly, a non-normative, descriptive or taxonomic account of legitimacy is worthwhile; secondly, there is a point in separating, analytically, political legitimacy from other kinds of authority; thirdly, some explanatory questions about legitimacy can be misplaced, in that the relationship between legitimacy and other features of government is organic rather than mechanical; fourthly, legitimacy is not a relationship spread evenly and uniformly between the state on the one hand and the mass of its subjects on the other; and finally, the paradox of the state is that the chief threat to legitimate obedience can come from the state itself or from its leaders.

The use of Hooker to promote the doctrine of passive obedience placed the Church in an impossible dilemma following the accession of James II. His reign discredited the Restoration political understanding of Hooker, and threatened Hooker’s guardianship of the English Church through a resurgent Catholic exploitation of his vagaries. James’s enforced abdication, however, brought Hooker’s previously discounted doctrine of original compact back into favour amongst Whigs and some Tories, and more latitudinarian attitudes developed within the Church.

The Mormon church is authoritarian, hierarchical, and rigid. Priesthood correlation and obedience are watchwords. Politics and individualism can collide. The Prophet is absolute spiritual leader. Mormon theology, on the other hand, emphasizes moral agency, human freedom, individual initiative, and spiritual independence.

Chapter 2 examines the emergence of recognition of de facto states. Crafted by early nineteenth‐century American and British foreign policy‐makers in response to unilateral secessions in Latin America, the de facto standard was a repudiation of dynastic rights and an embodiment of the classical liberal belief that people had a natural right to live under an independent government of their choosing. As a corollary of that right of self‐determination, they had a right vis‐à‐vis international society not to be interfered with as they pursued their choice. The requirement that third parties abstain from intervening in the self‐determination process logically demanded their respect for the self‐determination outcome. The formation of an effective entity in which the population habitually obeyed the new rulers was taken as an authoritative expression of the will of the people to constitute an independent state. In the absence of international agreement as to what constitutes a valid method of ascertaining popular will, it was this inference of popular consent that in the American and British eyes converted the fact of new independent states into the right to independence and external recognition.

This introductory chapter focuses on the importance of studying political legitimacy. It also provides a brief overview of the concepts of legitimacy and legitimate authority and discusses three accounts of justifiable and justified obedience. Legitimacy, in so far as it sustains government, can involve both citizenship and subjection. A study of legitimacy provides an opportunity not only to distinguish between various relations of and within government. It can also be employed to examine the various conceptions of government and politics available within political science.

This chapter discusses how Deuteronomistic redactor (Dtr) has shaped the narrative of Jehu (2 Kgs. 9-10) to portray the ruler favourably. Since Dtr's positive perspective is seen most clearly in the righteous regnal evaluation of Jehu, it is discussed first, despite its location toward the end of the narrative (2 Kgs. 10: 30). The chapter then goes on to investigate Jehu's ancestry in both Hebrew and Assyrian sources. Jehu's anointing and divine election are mentioned at the beginning of the narrative (2 Kgs. 9: 1-13) and therefore they are analyzed next in the chapter. The following two sections discuss Jehu's violent rebellion, which dominates the narrative (2 Kgs. 9: 14-10: 27), and Jehu's contracting borders, which is limited to a few verses (2 Kgs. 10: 32-3). Jehu's Assyrian tribute is then discussed (2.7) before the findings of the chapter are summarized.

This chapter highlights the role of international and regional cultures in shaping our behaviors toward others. The influence of worthy and unworthy sports heroes on their admirers is examined with regard to aggression. The actions of third parties are shown to be capable of directly or indirectly influencing levels of aggression in others. A large majority of people are shown to be obedient to authority figures, even following orders to ostensibly harm another person. Large-scale disorders are frequently found to have originated with exceedingly petty provocations that escalate to violence. Gender, racial, and occupational groups are often targets for aggression by others holding stereotypical attitudes.

This chapter examines Barth's pneumatology in Göttingen from three angles: his opposition to the doctrine of the Spirit in neo-Protestant theology, his Reformed doctrine of the Christian life, and sacramental theology. It argues that Barth's opposition to ‘religion’ in modern Protestantism is not based on any dualistic principle, but on his conviction that human beings must relate freely to God. His Reformed instincts lead him to describe the Christian life using the category of obedience, as well as faith; yet he is restricted by the concern that this might result in a form of subjectivism. He attempts to develop a doctrine of baptism that will cover this eventuality, by grounding the Christian subject in an event of grace. However, this will soon be abandoned, for it is only a temporary solution which cannot resolve a dilemma that really stems from a gap in his christology.

In contrast to the hierarchical cosmoi of Plato and Aristotle, in which superior, intelligent beings moved and direct events in the lower realms, and the Christian world, in which God designated and toppled rulers for his own purposes, the Epicureans recognized no superhuman agencies, natural hierarchies, or intrinsic purposes and functions. They explained how conventions of justice and punishment of offenders arose naturally in human societies, putting an end to the condition of war of all against all. Hobbes, reputed as an atheist, was familiar with Lucretius's poem and his account of the emergence of a social contract is similarly naturalistic. The Hobbesian sovereign has no charismatic qualities; it is charged only with maintaining the peace, which for Hobbes implied respecting basic human equality.

Gathering as a sect in England in the 1650s, Quakers believed that each person had a “light within,” illuminating not only his own evil but also available as an inner Christ to lead him to God's will. Obedience to God's principles ensured access to continuing revelation and to the possibility of approaching perfection and dwelling in the Kingdom of God on earth. Quakers emphasized some of God's principles and termed them “testimonies.” Although Quakers believed that God instituted worldly government in order to be a “terror to evil‐doers” and a “praise to them that do well,” non‐Quakers mistrusted them and subjected them to strenuous persecution and suffering.

People are normally encouraged to engage in premeditation—to think about the potential consequences of their behavior before acting. Indeed, planning, considering, and studying can be important precursors to decision-making, and often seem essential for effective action. This view of premeditation is shared by most humans, a kind of universal ideal, and it carries an additional interesting implication: Even the hint that premeditation occurred can serve as a potent cue indicating voluntary action, both to actors and observers. In legal and moral contexts, for example, actors are seen as especially culpable for the consequences of their actions if those consequences were premeditated, whether or not the premeditation influenced the decision. In this chapter, we review evidence indicating that even irrelevant premeditation can lead people to believe that an action's consequences were under personal control. We present research exploring how various forms of premeditation—including foresight, effortful forethought, wishful thinking, and the consideration of multiple possible outcomes of action—may lead actors to prefer and to feel responsible for action outcomes even when this premeditation has no causal relation to the outcomes.

This study of the politics of canonization begins with discussion of the changing policies toward beata mysticism that affected Rose of Lima’s cause for canonization. The chapter further explores how intimate relation with Christ through mysticism created an alternative, extra-institutional channel to deity that was implicitly subversive to Catholic hierarchy and bureaucracy. The concluding sections treat Rose of Lima’s tacit and sometimes excessive obedience as a strategy to subvert authority and her identity as a mujer varonil or Virgin warrior that was later adapted for diverse military purposes.

This chapter tracks religious mendicants’ gross misbehavior as it emerges mostly from the orders’ internal documents. Rather than taking polemicists and other authors at their word, it carefully gauges the frequency and profile of deviance among the brethren, especially but not exclusively Dominicans. Given the brethren’s strong presence in urban centers and in episcopal and secular courts, their misconduct was hard to conceal and even harder to dismiss in light of the ideals they stood for: humility, obedience, and poverty. Deviance, in turn, exacerbated pressures created by the friars’ growing number of antagonists, both within and outside the church, who were able to manipulate potentially isolated events to their own benefit in the context of local and regional power struggles.

This chapter analyzes four additional case studies of international courts (ICs) reviewing state practices. In their constitutional review role, ICs hold international and state actors accountable to constitutional procedural and rule of law expectations, invalidating legislative acts that conflict with higher order legal requirements. Constitutional review is perhaps the most controversial IC role in that it involves ICs confronting highly legitimated actors and rejecting policies that may have been legally enacted. The discussion of constitutional review authority in action explores how local cultures of constitutional obedience condition whether IC constitutional rulings are seen as rendering unconstitutional acts null and void. However, like their domestic counterparts, ICs cannot really force governments to comply with their ruling.

Chapter 5 examines contemporary responses to the decline of Essex’s career, both positive and negative. It reconsiders the substance of his fabled popularity, and the growing divisions between those who were warily critical towards the earl’s behaviour and mentality, and those who adopted Essex’s own concept of his sufferings. Detractors, including his client and advisor Francis Bacon, were increasingly troubled by the earl’s public expression of unseemly attitudes towards political obedience, and the codes of virtue and honour to which he adhered. Meanwhile, surviving evidence of the attitudes of Essex’s more ardent partisans is surprisingly provocative in its defence of his rightful role in the polity, and even its description of the queen’s involvement in Essex’s plight. The vehement denunciation by queen and regime of Essex’s popular reputation prefigured the development of deeper suspicions of the earl’s instability and of his future ambitions.

The chapter examines the principles underlying Hobbes’s account of absolute sovereignty and our duty of obedience to it. Hobbes’s concerns about uncertainty generating controversy are over-stated, although he identifies a central problem for more complex systems. But there is a deeper problem for absolutism in Hobbes’s suggestion that we are obliged to keep the laws of nature when safe to do so, since that implies that obedience to the sovereign is also constrained by the laws of nature. This means that much turns on how we understand the nature of a final arbiter and his decisions.

This chapter studies letters for what they tell us about women's social relations. By analysing how women wrote to a range of individuals, it investigates the balance of power within a range of relationships. Central here is the degree to which the manner of women's writing was affected by the gender of recipients. How far in practice were women subservient in their writing to men other than their husbands and fathers? Did letters to male correspondents differ significantly from those to female correspondents? It argues that rank, family and social status, and local influence had as much impact, if not more, than gender on levels of power and authority observable in women's letters. Thus, while a woman might be deferential in letters to her husband, she could usually expect respect from sons and obedience from male servants and tenants, and could thus correspond with an aura of confidence and command.

This chapter sets out a theory of law and force or coercion. It distinguishes between direct and indirect force and discusses force, direct or indirect, exerted by another's action. It first examines the force of law in the specialized sense of legislation; then the force of the living or communal moral law; and, following that, the force of threat. The chapter discusses different possible reasons for obedience and distinguishes between autonomy and heteronomy. It considers the criterion of effectiveness as a measure of the severity of a threat. The function of the threat of undesired consequence following non-compliance is to make compliance more likely. Whether or not it is effective depends entirely on the person against whom it is directed. Finally, the chapter considers another criterion as a measure of the severity of a threat — that of taking into account the interest of the person subjected to a threat.

Rules are cognitive entities that carry behavioural consequences. Phenomena of commitment, obedience, status quo preference, and reciprocity are brought about by rule preference, viz. the desire of men to act sensibly and in a justifiable way.

A person can utter a statement in answer to a question with the intention of merely giving an answer and without wanting it to be the true answer; but also without wanting to make a false statement or to lie. A person can make a statement sincerely (i.e. considering it to be true) without wanting others to think it true, for instance, because he is indifferent to the matter or because he does not desire the possible effects that its being taken to be true can have on the person to whom the statement is addressed. But he can also make a statement and want others to think it true, knowing that it is false and therefore not wanting it to be true at all: a person can lie consciously.