Portraying Power

Abstract

Abstract What is the relation between representing a regime (as, say, a parliamentary democracy or a police state) and judging its legitimacy? This chapter argues that the question of legitimacy is profoundly a matter of what power is like in a particular situation. Representing power is integral to judging legitimacy, not prior to it. This runs counter to the separation of practical and theoretical judgment on which normativist approaches rely. The chapter distinguishes different meanings of the concept of representation and analyzes the practice of representing power, proposing a moderate constructivism about the nature of authorities. Good judgment is conceived here as calling for truthful and virtuoso modes of practical involvement with the object of judgment, as well as a reflexive relation to one’s own judgmental activity. The argument is illustrated with reference to struggles for legitimacy in Egypt.