Power or Authority; Actions or Beliefs

Abstract

The reflections concern the theoretical framework Alter, Helfer and Madsen provide in their edited volume International Court Authority, New York, Oxford University Press (2018), and how it fits with the substantive chapters. What do they seek to measure with their metric – and are the findings actually about authority? Furthermore, AHM go to great lengths to proclaim methodological agnosticism about actors' beliefs and motives, and argue for the irrelevance of normative legitimacy for this research project. Yet the former claim seems incorrect and the second is both unnecessary and ill defended.