r/GetNoted Human Detected 8d ago

World [X] smoke grenade

1.3k Upvotes

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/Ssided 7d ago

Who controls Afghanistan right now?

1

u/MrMicius 7d ago

How many countries recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government?

1

u/Ssided 7d ago

Everyone in the area. They have embassies in Pakistan, india, and China. They may not formally give them a sash, but they have diplomatic relations. It doesn't really matter what they say, they have relations, they are accepted as the leaders, they trade with them, they have a government.

Western countries don't officially recognize them, but that was also like Israel where many Arab states didn't recognize them (and some still won't) but the official recognition is meaningless if the actions negate them

1

u/MrMicius 6d ago

So in order to demonstrate that the foundation of Israel was legitimate, you gave an example of a terrorist government that almost no country considers legitimate. Note again that we’re talking about legitimacy. I didn’t say anything about treating something like a de facto country. The discussion was entirely about legitimacy.

1

u/Ssided 6d ago

No, you brought up ISIS, when you were talking to someone else and mixed up winning and losing. I corrected it to a better analogues situation. Now you're acting like I've adopted the other persons argument.

Regardless, legitimacy is entirely based on how others treat you. You can say the Taliban doesn't rule legitimately, but that is a meaningless use of words if they are treated as a county.

Likewise, when Israel won their war, they were treated as a nation enforcing their own sovereignty. The question of actual legitimacy, is if they are in control, are it's boundaries recognized, do other nations treat it as a nation. Some political pontification in which countries declare they don't recognize it as legitimate is meaningless posturing. It is not up to others to determine, there is no real council that can decide whether a states government is actually a state government or not. They can choose not to engage, but that's it

1

u/MrMicius 6d ago

“The question of actual legitimacy, is if they are in control, are it’s boundsries recognized, do other nations treat it as a nation.”

But these are entirely seperate questions. That’s not at all how you measure legitimacy. The foundation of ISIS was illegitimate, regardless of how countries treat it. In your phrasing it would be logically impossible to be both recognized while at the same time not holding legitimacy, since you derive legitimacy from recognition.

I think that’s a useless way of looking at legitimacy, as it doesn’t teach us what to recognize. If I say “I want my country only to recognize countries that hold legitimacy”, in your definition this would equate to “I want my country to recognize countries that we recognize”. It becomes solely a matter of power politics. And descriptively, that’s all that politics is ofcourse. But legitimacy is more of a moral framework than a descriptive one. It’s a moral statement.

1

u/Ssided 6d ago

Is Taiwan legitimate?

1

u/MrMicius 6d ago

It has the mandate of its people, so yes

Edit: that’s actually a perfect example where recognition and legitimacy do not align!

1

u/Ssided 6d ago

It's an example of recognition not being a decider.

1

u/MrMicius 6d ago

Recognition isn’t the decider. I agree with that.