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Consent of the governed

"Consent of the governed" is a political theory stating that a government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power are, or ought to be, derived from the people or society over which that power is exercised. This theory of "consent" is historically contrasted to the divine right of kings and has often been invoked against the legitimacy of colonialism.

In the United States

Using thinking similar to that of English political scientist John Locke, the founders of the United States believed in a state built upon the consent of "free and equal" citizens; a state otherwise conceived would lack the legitimacy and the authority to exercise legal authority

References

• Etienne de La Boétie, Discourse of Voluntary Servitude
• Pettit, Philip, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997 (in which he argues, against a theory of the consent of the governed, in favour of a theory of the lack of explicit rebellion; following a Popperian view on falsifiability, Pettit considers that as consent of the governed is always implicitly supposed, thus trapping the social contract in a vicious circle, it should be replaced by the lack of explicit rebellion.
• David Hume, Of the Original Contract
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right (1762)
• H.B. Paksoy, IDENTITIES: How Governed, Who Pays?

Further Reading

• Future of Democracy