More on Egypt and the Global Legitimacy Crisis

I don’t want to belabor the point I made in a recent post about a global crisis of legitimacy, and I should clarify that I don’t think the West and the world in general is dozing indolently on a bed of potential revolution. But a couple of seemingly unrelated news items here in France draw out the inchoate dynamic I was trying to put my finger on. France’s Foreign Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie already got into hot water during the initial round of protests in Tunisia when she suggested in testimony to a parliamentary committee that French gendarmes could help train […]

Who cares about the United Nations Security Council? Over the past year, major powers have certainly been taking the council increasingly seriously. U.N. experts who argue that the council’s credibility rests on its appeal to big players in the global system were comforted by Germany, India and South Africa’s successful campaigns for two-year seats on the council last year. But some poor, weak governments have decided to defy it, with a series of African leaders, in particular, showing contempt for the council’s authority. In January 2010, President Idriss Déby of Chad insisted that the U.N. withdraw peacekeepers charged with protecting […]

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