Political Legitimacy and Democratic Control

Prof Paul Patton (University of New South Wales)

Abstract: Recent republican theory of government relies on an account of political legitimacy that is established by the fact of citizens exercising a certain kind of effective control, to a certain degree, over the policies of government. This ‘control’ theory of legitimacy is contrasted with consent based approaches and, importantly, with approaches that rely on hypothetical judgments about the principles informing the exercise of government. This talk will examine the arguments put forward in favour of the ‘control’ theory in Philip Pettit’s On The People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy (2012) in order to question the claim that it offers a superior theory of political legitimacy. A particular focus will be to ask whether the control theory can avoid the kinds of hypothetical judgments attributed to political liberalism.