Facing Authority

Front matter

: Fe cing Authority z T A % 7 m A Theory of ~ i ~ -Political T y Legitimacy

Facing Authority

Facing Authority A Theory of Political Legitimacy

Part Ii: Judgment In The Face Of Authority

4. Portraying Power 95 5. Legitimacy as an Existential Predicament 123 6. Judgment as Timecraft 155

Conclusion 190 Bibliography 201

Acknowledgments

While writing this book, I have benefited tremendously from the support of others on both a personal and a professional level. I feel extraordinarily fortunate.

I have worked on this book, on and off, for nearly a decade, building on a PhD dissertation on political legitimacy that goes back even longer. Rutger Claassen and Johan Olsthoorn have been close friends and philosophical conversation partners throughout the years, and their willingness to think with me (without sharing my views and affinities) has helped to shape and sharpen the book. David Owen has followed the project from the beginning, providing pivotal support and constructive feedback on the whole manuscript, sometimes even on different versions of the same chapter. My PhD advisors, Bert van den Brink, Joel Anderson, and Patchen Markell, have remained invaluable mentors. Their encouragement and support were vital, especially in the beginning. Joel has made many fruitful suggestions to this project, chief among which was putting me on Brandom’ trail. Special thanks are due to Herman Siemens, whose invitation to join his research project brought me back to Leiden and enabled me to begin developing this book, which turned out to be far more challenging than either of us anticipated.

It is impossible to fully acknowledge how much I have learned from countless other friends and colleagues. For stimulating conversations and feedback on parts of the manuscript, I wish to thank Lawrie Balfour, Banu Bargu, Robin Celikates, Frank Chouraqui, Wout Cornelissen, Ilaria Cozzaglio, Aart van Gils, James Gledhill, Loren Goldman, Tim Heysse, John Horton, Fiona Hughes, Rob Jubb, J.J. McFadden, Sem de Maagt, Wayne Martin, Tim Meijers, Darrel Moellendorf, Dorota Mokrosinska, Melissa Lane, Marc de Leeuw, Hans Lindahl, Janosch Prinz, Bert van Roermund, Enzo Rossi, Stefan Rummens, Andrew Schaap, Maria van der Schaar, Nica Siegel, Marin Terpstra, Mathias Thaler, and Manon Westphal. Several inspiring conversations with Chris Meckstroth have helped me at key points in the book. David Mak and Gijs van Maanen provided valuable research support and helpful comments. Students in my courses on practical judgment and Bruno Verbeek’s course on authority also provided helpful feedback. I was viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS able to present parts of the work in progress in workshops and colloquia in Amsterdam, Ankara, Bad Homburg, Edinburgh, Essex, Exeter, Frankfurt, Glasgow, Leiden, Milan, Norwich, Prague, Princeton, Reading, Rotterdam, and Utrecht, and am grateful to the participants in those discussions. Thanks to Tim Meijers for organizing a workshop on the manuscript in Leiden, supported by the Research School in Philosophy (OZSW), and to Meike Bokhorst, James Gledhill, Sofia Näsström, and David Owen for their incisive commentaries. Thanks also to Eva Erman and Niklas Möller for engaging critically in print with my earlier contributions, pressing me to clarify my ideas. Several anonymous referees have offered detailed and constructive criticism on the whole manuscript and on papers on which some chapters are based. The late Glen Newey offered characteristically generous and penetrating feedback on an early version; I am sad that we were unable to continue our exchanges.

My home base throughout these years has been the Institute for Philosophy at Leiden University. I am grateful for the institutional support and for the collegial environment. I have learned much from my colleagues and greatly enjoy their company. I would like to make special mention of Frank Chouraqui, Victor Gijsbers, Tim Meijers, Dorota Mokrosinska, and Bruno Verbeek.

It was a privilege and a pleasure to be able to spend time abroad as a visiting scholar on several occasions. Each of these visits was crucial for completing the book, and I am grateful to many colleagues, fellow research fellows, and helpful staff members for making those visits such stimulating experiences. For hosting me, I thank Tim Heysse of the RIPPLE group at KU Leuven, Wayne Martin at the University of Essex, Didier Fassin and Alondra Nelson at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and Rainer Forst and Beate Sutterltity at the Goethe University (Frankfurt) and the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften in Bad Homburg.

I am deeply grateful to my parents, Tom Fossen and Stella Muns, whose unfaltering support throughout my life continues to this day.

Most of all, I wish to thank my partner, Frederike Kaldewaij, for sharing a life with me, and for understanding what it is that Pm trying to do in this book. Besides helping to improve parts of the text with her philosophical mind and her writer’s eye, she has sustained me with joy and confidence, and joined me on adventures to distant lands. Just one day after I submitted a first version of this manuscript, we were joined by our daughter Lea, whose

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1x presence, even though it did not expedite the work that remained, is immensely appreciated.

My research benefited from financial support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO, Venigrant 275-20-047 and Open Competition 360-20-290). A shorter version of Chapter 1 appeared in Social Theory & Practice under the title “Political Legitimacy as a Problem of Judgment” and Chapter 5 in Political Theory as “Political Legitimacy as an Existential Predicament? Chapter 2 restates and hopefully improves upon my earlier attempts in The Journal of Political Philosophy (“Taking Stances, 2013) and the European Journal of Political Theory (“Language and Legitimacy,’ 2019).