With the growing fragmentation of western societies and disillusionment with the political process, the question of legitimacy has become one of the key issues ...

This chapter highlights how the encouragement of citizens' participation may in fact masquerade their rulers' attempt to create consensus for their ‘superior’ political project. It illustrates in ethnographic detail how rulers have symbolically used the public space, along with policies of urban regeneration, to win popular consensus and, thus, legitimise their position. The analysis addresses a central problem in the dynamics of democratic government, as it shows that lack of responsibility and superimposition of a political rhetoric on good governance eventually (...) leads to people's distrust of those in power. The case of Naples significantly points to the fact that, while people may be granted formal membership of society, rulers' pedagogic approaches and self-legitimisation do in fact deny fundamental citizenship rights, such as social and economic rights. (shrink)

Western élite groups’ moralities and actions can and should be studied empirically. Contrary to belief held in the 1980s in mainstream social anthropology that fieldwork in the classic anthropological fashion could not be done among the western élite, the findings of long-term research in this field have yielded key ethnographic insights leading to academic and public debate. In this article I draw on ethnographic research on legitimacy, power, and governance among key Neapolitan élite groups to offer reflections on a style (...) of governance that has at once engendered and thrived on the blurring of the dividing line between what is legitimate and what is not legitimate in public life. The discussion focuses on powerful, tightly networked groups that, inspired by an elitist philosophy of power, have been hard at work to gain and maintain power, while losing trust and authority. The analysis builds towards an understanding of their implosion and of the corresponding erosion of the relationship between citizenship and governance. (shrink)

Diogenes, Ahead of Print. Western élite groups’ moralities and actions can and should be studied empirically. Contrary to belief held in the 1980s in mainstream social anthropology that fieldwork in the classic anthropological fashion could not be done among the western élite, the findings of long-term research in this field have yielded key ethnographic insights leading to academic and public debate. In this article I draw on ethnographic research on legitimacy, power, and governance among key Neapolitan élite groups to offer (...) reflections on a style of governance that has at once engendered and thrived on the blurring of the dividing line between what is legitimate and what is not legitimate in public life. The discussion focuses on powerful, tightly networked groups that, inspired by an elitist philosophy of power, have been hard at work to gain and maintain power, while losing trust and authority. The analysis builds towards an understanding of their implosion and of the corresponding erosion of the relationship between citizenship and governance. (shrink)

Western élite groups’ moralities and actions can and should be studied empirically. Contrary to belief held in the 1980s in mainstream social anthropology that fieldwork in the classic anthropological fashion could not be done among the western élite, the findings of long-term research in this field have yielded key ethnographic insights leading to academic and public debate. In this article I draw on ethnographic research on legitimacy, power, and governance among key Neapolitan élite groups to offer reflections on a style (...) of governance that has at once engendered and thrived on the blurring of the dividing line between what is legitimate and what is not legitimate in public life. The discussion focuses on powerful, tightly networked groups that, inspired by an elitist philosophy of power, have been hard at work to gain and maintain power, while losing trust and authority. The analysis builds towards an understanding of their implosion and of the corresponding erosion of the relationship between citizenship and governance. (shrink)

Drawing on historical and contemporary evidence from Great Britain and Italy, this article examines actions that fall under official definitions of corruption and actions that are not illegal but are widely regarded as morally corrupt. As a social anthropologist, I argue that when dealing with the complexity of corruption and abuses of power, we need to identify what aspects of the system encourage or generate illicit practices and what aspects could instead generate real change. It is imperative to assess the (...) precise identity of the dividing line between the legitimate and the illegitimate and between the legal and the moral, and to address both the exact relationship of the protagonists in public life to formal law and its production and their perceived legitimacy in the broader society. Empirical evidence suggests that the production of the law must take into account the moralities which inform the definition of legitimacy at the grassroots, for legislation that enjoys such legitimacy is authoritative-therefore effective-legislation, and thus is governance that benefits from and abides by such legislation. (shrink)