Antidote to Civil War? European ‘small states’ and political legitimacy during World War II

2. Weber used the term Herrschaft which can be translated as `domination' in the sense of `established authority that allocates the right to command and the duty to obey': Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait, London: Methuen, 1966, 290-291.

3. Contemporary European History, special issue, 13.4 (2004); and Peter Romijn and Ben Frommer, `Legitimacy in Inter-War Europe', in Martin Conway - Peter Romijn (eds.), The War for Legitimacy in Politics and Culture 1936-1946, Oxford: Berg, 2008. It should be noted that neither work covers the states of Southeast and Eastern Europe.

4. The term `consent' is used throughout the text as denoting a minimum level of agreement with decisions taken by a delegated authority, elected or otherwise. It is distinguished from `consensus' in the sense of a high level of agreement with a decision collectively reached.

5. This could entail not only greater state intervention in the economy, but also bans on labour action and `extremist' political activity.

6. For a thorough discussion of the crisis of legitimacy facing liberal democracies in Europe during the 1930s, see Conway - Romijn 2008, 29-65.

7. Ireland, Sweden, and Switzerland.

8. Portugal, Spain, and Turkey.

9. For a succinct account of the Danish experience during World War II, see Niels Wium Olesen, `The Obsession with Sovereignty: Cohabitation and Resistance in Denmark 1940-45', in Gilmour and Stephenson 2013, 45-72.

10. In connection with the governments-in-exile formed in the aftermath of Germany's stunning victories in 1939-41, it has been remarked that their recognition and reception in London owed less to their ability to command allegiance at home or continue the war and more to the anxiety of the British to legitimize their own war effort as part of an `Allied front': Lagrou 2000, 27-28.

11. Various indices have been proposed for `measuring' legitimacy, such as a regime's `practice of power, the evidence of consent', and the compatibility of its actions with the prevailing political culture: Conway and Romijn 2008, 10, 13; Romijn and Frommer 2008, 46, 57.

12. Following the Weberian analysis of legitimacy, Romijn and Frommer observe that the principle of legality binds `both rulers and ruled to proper procedures of political decisionmaking'. This entails respect for the `rules of the game', guarantees predictability and provides the security necessary for much social and economic activity. See id. 2008, 38-39.

13. For instance, the authors observe different sources of legality which, to some extent, could co-exist `like the accretions of successive geological periods': succession, election, anointment and performance: Conway and Romijn 2008, 10-13; similarly, Romijn and Frommer 2008, 37; Romijn - Conway - Peschanski 2008, 69-73.

14. Political collaboration is defined as `an arrangement in which institutions and persons being considered by a majority of the population as their legitimate representatives, collaborate with the (foreign) organs of the occupation': Ole Kristian Grimnes, `Hitler's Norwegian Legacy', in Gilmour and Stephenson 2013, 167.

15. For an elaboration of `fragmented legitimacy' among different contenders in pre-war and wartime Europe, see Romijn - Conway - Peschanski 2008, 74ff. The fragility of the public approval for collaboration, which was initially observed in many European countries, is demonstrated by Nico Wouters, Niels Wium Olesen, and Martin Conway, `The War for Legitimacy at the Local Level', in Conway and Romijn 2008, 128-130.

16. The Scandinavian states stand out as exceptions of countries with a high level of cohesion. On the Danish experience of `active co-operation' with the enemy as the price for salvaging internal sovereignty, see Olesen 2013, 52-59. In Norway, the German occupation helped to overcome the acute polarisation between the `bourgeois' parties and the Labour left during the interwar period: Tom Kristiansen, `Closing a Long Chapter: German-Norwegian Relations 1939-45', in Gilmour and Stephenson 2013, 96. For the Finnish case of co-belligerency with the Axis, see: Oula Silvennoinen, `Janus of the North? Finland 1940-44', in Gilmour and Stephenson 2013, 129-146; Juhana Aunes- luoma, `Two Shadows over Finland', ibid., 200.

17. Bloody reprisals and plunder easily spring to mind, but, as Romijn, Conway, and Peschanski observe, the requisitioning of workforce, especially for labour in the German Reich, may have been `the single most important factor' in alienating populations from collaborationist regimes: id. 2008, 88-89.

18. Various authors agree that, despite the ascendancy of the local at the expense of the national and the boosting of supranational designs, the occupation did not really signify the demise of the nation-state as the focal point of loyalty and framework of political agency: Romijn - Conway - Peschanski 2008, 98; Wouters - Olesen - Conway 2008, 136-141. An obvious exception was secessionist movements which led to the formation of puppet entities under Axis tutelage.

19. A notable exception to this rule was the Norwegian resistance which remained committed to the restoration of democracy and loyal to the government-in-exile: Kristiansen 2013, 93; Grimnes 2013, 162-163.

20. On the importance of local institutions and their adaptability under German occupation, see Wouters - Olesen - Conway 2008, 109-146. On the cultural and psychological preconditions of this phenomenon, see Mary Vincent and Erica Carter, `Culture and Legitimacy', in Conway and Romijn 2008, 147-176.

21. The word `restoration', Lagrou notes, was to be avoided in favour of `renewal' which better served the need to legitimize the post-war order. Its meaning was that the appropriate lessons had been learned, and pre-war weaknesses would be overcome: Lagrou 2000, 22.

22. Lagrou 2000, 26; Pittaway and Dahl 2008, 190-191; Geoffrey Warner, `Allies, Government and Resistance: The Belgian Political Crisis of November 1944', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 28 (1978), 45. The same conclusion with reference to local politics is reached in Wouters - Olesen - Conway 2008, 141.

23. The Charter, signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill on 14 August 1941, acknowledged the democratic principle through its recognition of self-determination as a foundation of a `better future for the world'. The leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom pledged to `respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live'.

24. Signed by the representatives of 26 states on 1 January 1942, the Declaration endorsed the Atlantic Charter and expressed commitment to the defence of `life, liberty, independence and religious freedom', and the preservation of `human rights and justice'.

25. The Yalta declaration was signed by Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin on 13 February 1945. It also reaffirmed the commitment of the `Big Three' to the principles of the Allied Charter. Significantly, it interpreted the `right of all people (sic) to choose the form of government under which they will live' enunciated in the Charter as identical with their right `to create democratic institutions of their own choice'.

26. Stalin's attitude towards liberated or former enemy countries has long been identified with his remark recorded by Yugoslav communist leader Milovan Djilas, two months after Yalta: `This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army has power to do so. It cannot be otherwise': Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962, 90.

27. This principle, which is central to the political culture of parliamentary democracy, would eventually be enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948, which stated in Art. 21.3: `The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures'.

28. This was done chiefly through the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). For a succinct account of its activity in liberated Europe see Hitchcock 2008, 215-248.

29. For a discussion of this, all important factor, see Romijn - Conway - Peschanski 2008, 103; Pittaway and Dahl 2008, 194-196.

References

1. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties.

2. S.S. Wolin. Max Weber: Legitimation, Method, and the Politics of Theory, in William Connolly (ed.), Legitimacy and the State, Oxford: Blackwell, 1984, 75.

3. R. Bendix. Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait', London: Methuen, 1966.

4. J. Habermas. Legitimation Crisis (tr. by Thomas McCarthy). Boston: Beacon Press, 1973.

5. P. Lagrou. The Legacy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945-1965. Cambridge: C.U.P., 2000.

6. M. Conway, P. Romijn. Introduction//Contemporary European History. Vol. 13, No. 4, Theme Issue: Political Legitimacy in Mid-Twentieth Century Europe (Nov., 2004).

7. M. Pittaway, H.-F. Dahl. Legitimacy and the Making of the Post-War Order, in Conway and Romijn, 2008.

8. M. Conway, P. Romijn (eds.). The War for Legitimacy in Politics and Culture 1936-1946. Oxford: Berg, 2008.

9. P. Romijn, B. Frommer. Legitimacy in Inter-War Europe, in Martin Conway - Peter Romijn, 2008.

10. M. Vincent, E. Carter. Culture and Legitimacy, in Martin Conway - Peter Romijn, 2008.

11. P. Romijn, M. Conway, D. Peschanski. National Legitimacy - Ownership, Pretenders and Wars, in Martin Conway - Peter Romijn, 2008.

12. R. Overy. Scandinavia in the Second World War, in J. Gilmour and J. Stephenson Hiltler's Scandinavian legacy, 2013.

a. Little. Conclusion, in J. Gilmour and J. Stephenson `Hiltler's Scandinavian legacy, 2013.

13. M. Conway. The sorrows of Belgium: liberation and political reconstruction, 1944-1947. Oxford, 2012.

14. N. Wouters, N. Olesen, M. Conway. The war for legitimacy at the local level, in M. Conway, P. Romijn, 2008.

15. Political Intelligence Report on the Netherlands to the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Forces Europe, 31 March 1945, quoted in William I. Hitchcock, Liberation: The Bitter Road to Freedom, Europe 1944-1945, New York: Free Press, 2008.

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