Consent of the Governed
There is the old maxim (was it by John Locke?) that no ruler can govern without the consent of the governed.
If this is true, how can the Burmese military think it can govern the people with its ruthless killing of civilians.
Or the Assad government continue to stand even though it has ruthlessly put down the rebellion?
Or even the Venezuelan government stay in power even though their economy has flatlined in the last ten years?
If this is true, how can the Burmese military think it can govern the people with its ruthless killing of civilians.
Or the Assad government continue to stand even though it has ruthlessly put down the rebellion?
Or even the Venezuelan government stay in power even though their economy has flatlined in the last ten years?

Comments
I think the person who came up with that maxim would say that the government of Myanmar DOES have the consent of most of its people, and that the ones protesting and being killed are a minority of the population.
But that doesn't rule out that the government could LOSE majority support someday, at which point, its days would be numbered.
(Not saying this is neccessarily my view, but I think that's how the reasoning would go.)
I think the author of that maxim was assuming that the consent is freely given. At least, that's the only way it makes sense, in the contexts I've heard it used.
Some can govern for a short period without the consent of the governed. But, the current military rulers of Myanmar can't keep on killing dozens or hundreds of protestors everyday, sooner or later they will cease to govern even to the limited extent that they do now.
Some gain the consent of the governed by deceit, by threats of violence etc ... and, sooner or later the people will learn the truth or gain courage to resist.
Don't think so.
So we know that the law of gravity means that if we drop an apple it will always fall to the ground, but we can't say that a government must always have the consent of the people to govern.
But we can make the maxim fairly true if we realise that
- consent can be a passive thing. It doesn't have to mean that you agree with or approve of the government: it can be as little as you don't yet feel so opposed to it as to stand up against it. It could even be that the consequences of not consenting are so terrifying that despite one's better judgement, one consents: put another way, people will put up with an awful lot if the alternative is having the army open fire on you.
- if a government loses the people's consent (however defined) the fall of that government may be inevitable - but it needn't be instant. And of course if the fall isn't instant, then a government insistent on staying in power has a window to change as necessary. That change may be to make concessions to those who have withdrawn their consent: or as above it could be greater oppression to enforce consent.
"The Stalin regime is accepted by the Russian masses."
(The context was listing examples of true things which certain types of nationalists could never believe.)
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For starters, don't treat "the people" as an undifferentiated mass.
The maxim itself arguably encourages that line of thinking, but it's usually fallacious. Evidence that some of "the people" feel one way or the other is almost never good evidence that all "the people" do.
The other problem is the difference between inner thoughts and outward behaviour. It's perfectly possible to have situations where different members of "the people" are misled as to the number of other members who in fact feel the same way that they do, because they are choosing to behave in accordance what they perceive to be the majority position.
Jefferson said “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . . .” The qualifier “just powers,” not just “powers,” would seem to be relevant here.
It's an interesting assertion. I'd like to see a demonstration of it. Possibly, there were polls taken at the time, that were genuine. Well, I did say possibly. I think he is popular now.
Interesting. In the contexts I've heard it, it was always meant as factual.
A: How can you deny that General Widgetio is a ruthess tyrant oppressing his people?
B: Look, no government can survive without the consent of the governed.
Obviously, the usage by Jefferson above is normative.
Well, that essay was written near the end of the war, and in fact published in May of 1945.
So, if we're talking about that particular period, it might make sense to think that most Russians supported Stalin. And factor in that a lot of Trotskyists, most of whom opposed the war against Hitler, might have taken an even more negative view of Stalin than what was warranted by the facts.
(Mind you, I don't know if Orwell was including the pre-war period in his rosy assessment of Stalin's popularity.)
Your General Widgetio example doesn’t change that, I don’t think—it doesn’t show actual consent of the governed. It merely uses the maxim to suggest that the normative is factual.
Plenty of governments survived for quite a long time without the consent of the governed, or with the consent of only a small portion of the governed.
In that book, the Inner Party knows the whole system is a sham, and spends all their time brainwashing the Outer Party, the only group capable of rebellion. But the majority, ie. the proles, are generally left alone, being mostly depoliticized and uninterested in opposing the government.
I think that's right. It's also the kind of statement that can mean different things to different (or even the same) people. For example, I expect that the confederates believed that leaving the union was justified because they did not consent, but had no trouble using the power of the state to continue to enslave people who clearly did not consent. Similarly, it appears that the majority of the Chinese people consent to their current government -- but not the Uighurs, the Tibetans, nor a sizeable slice of the Hong Kong population. So what granularity should we apply for establishing consent? I am loathe to say that the statement is vacuous, but it does seem to have more power as a rallying cry than as an organizing principle.
No government can survive without the consent of the military; no government is morally legitimate without the consent of the governed.
It's arguable, though, that the consent of the military rests upon the consent of the governed. Because if 90% of the population is out in the streets protesting, you're not going to find many soldiers willing to commit murder on the scale neccessary to quell that revolt.
Though in a world where it takes very, very few people to commit an act of mass murder, it is now entirely possible for some terrorist to hold very large numbers of people hostage. Imagine (God forbid) that some ... person ... was able to make an effective, credible threat of nuking a major world symbol. The Kaaba or the Temple Mount, for instance.
Technologically, we're at the point where private acts of violence overlap with governmental ones, and definitions become exceedingly slippery. It's no longer obvious where consent shades over into constraint.
Point is the Myanmar people are out on the street and the military is willing to commit murder.
Personally, I think this is a point where a UN Peacekeeping Force should be inserted for the sake of the people.
Not a cat in hell's chance of the UNSC authorising that. Dictatorships not allowed to slaughter their own people with impunity? Russia and China would veto.
I agree that there is a tipping point where soldiers start to stop obeying orders to shoot because too many of the people being shot are their families. But the past 100 years has shown us time and time again that it can take a long time to get to that point. Typically, all that is needed is for a majority of the population to be cowed into submission. Then, anyone poking their heads above the parapets will get picked off. We also need to take into account the part that control of mass media plays these days. If the military control all the TV and radio stations, it becomes harder than ever for a population to know what is really happening and to resist it.
I am quite gloomy, to be honest, about these things. As you can see in places like Russia and China, all it requires is for a ruler to control the military absolutely and they can do pretty much what they want and suppress any opposition.
But how can that happen without the consent of the Myanmar military? What you are actually talking about here is an invasion by external forces, which is hardly "peacekeeping" no matter how well intentioned.
Not to mention North Korea. I doubt many of them can be said to have given consent to be governed.
Nationalist/Francoist Spain, 1936-1975 (39 years)
People's Republic of China, 1949- (71 years and counting)
Lack of consent did not seem to reduce the lifespan on these governments.
Ah, yes,
But they are not there anymore.
In the case of the Soviet Union, the people finally did have enough when the Communist Party tried to oust Gorbachev.
Francoist Spain started making drastic changes to its government in 1950 in order to survive.
And the People's Republic of China is much different now than in 1946.
Those key words and phrases include: Bastards!!! (or equivalent); "Freeeeeeedom!!! (or equivalent); stand up for your rights!!!! (or equivalent); and "We do not consent to this Government." (or equivalent).
Slogans are great at motivating people if the slogan echoes with what people are feeling. The truth or otherwise of the slogan is irrelevant. What matters is whether it can activate feelings of disquiet, jealousy, hunger, inter alia in a way that makes people move from "something must be done" to doing something.
"The continuation of society rests on: the willingness of each individual to accept the shared values of the society, the willingness and the ability of those in power to remove those who do not support the morality of the society; and the willingness of all to limit the size and complexity of the society to the scope of the consensus required."
I would argue that the oligarchs eventually regained power from the people after the total collapse of the Russian economy. When the Soviet government collapsed, there was nothing to take its place. It was very similar to the collapse of the Great Depression back in the 30s. The biggest difference was we had a barebones structure we could rebuild on. There was nothing there in the former Soviet Union.
Because of course every oppressed citizenry rises up against their oppressors in such numbers? May I invite you to read about Apartheid?
- What would be the cost of forcing a regime change? (deaths, violence, property loss)
- What would be the likelihood of forcing a regime change? (Are the people united, or is it just a single faction interested in change?)
- What would we gain with a regime change? (Comparing current power and opportunities with possible power and opportunities after a regime change).
- What could we lose if unsuccessful?
- What's the level of uncertainty involved? (What's the likelihood of a given outcome? How much do we actually know, and what can we only guess at?)
This creates a series of situations where a regime can continue without the consent of the population (or at least significant fractions of it), for instance:
- As long as the tyranny of the regime is not too harsh, then the costs of change can be greater than the interest in forcing change.
- As long as the people believe they will gain little or nothing at all from a regime change, then the gains of overthrowing a regime becomes insufficient compared to the cost.
- As long as the people are kept in the dark, they lack the ability to understand their own power and ability to create change.
The basic point is that there can be a lot of situations where the majority of the population doesn't consent to the current regime, but the risks and costs of change are too great to attempt to force change.
But when the average Black South African refrained from rising up against apartheid, was it because he really wanted to rise up, but had been terrorized into staying docile, OR was it because his everyday life under apartheid was such that challenging the system simply wasn't part of his frame-of-reference?
(And yes, this raises the issue as to what extent apartheid itself created the sociopoliitical conditions where it might be plausible that a large percentage of the population could have such a limited frame of reference.)
The Soviet Communist Party wanted to reverse Gorbachev's reforms, not install democracy, and the failure of the coup of August 1991 led to rule by oligarchs/kleptocrats and organised crime, not the people. Putin regularised this by bringing his oligarchs into government and removing the rest. Franco was still executing opponents in the 1970s, only he called them terrorists.
And as for the PRC, ask Hong Kong how much it has changed, even if the Cultural Revolution has ended.
There are also the empires which survived for centuries* without the consent of the colonised peoples. The fact that they eventually won their freedom in the 20th century, after long years of occupation, is not an argument that you cannot govern without consent of the governed.
* e.g. British Empire, 1600s-1960s. Both of those dates can be argued: the Irish might suggest a start date of 1170, others might say that the continued existence of British Overseas Territories (or whatever they are now called) means the sun has still not set.
Plus, as arbitrary as things can be in current-day China, in comparison to the days of the Cultural Revolution, rule-of-law is king.
I mean, you can ask almost any foreigner who is currently working or investing in China, if they would have wanted to do so back in the days when 12-year olds were running around murdering people at will.
No seeing how this helps the point in question.
I recognise what you are driving at, but to describe China as governed by the rule or law is surely misleading, as you recognise by acknowledgement of its arbitrary aspects. China is not ruled by a non-partisan administrative structure overseen by an independent judiciary and policing system but by the Communist Party which dominates all institutions deemed necessary for social and political control. It may be generally preferable to the anarchic circumstances of the cultural revolution, but the rule of law it is not, more like an efficient police state.
There's not neccessarily a contradiction between being a police state, and having a greater degree of ROL relative to some other time or place.
South Korea, where I live, still has vestiges of its police-state past, eg. you can still be arrested for explicitly advocating Communism. But there's still more ROL in South Korea than there is in the People's Republic Of China, which in turn has more ROL than North Korea.
Authorise the use of force, whether that's peacekeeping or full-scale military action a la Iraq in 1991.
Is that a serious suggestion?
It wasn't a suggestion at all, just an answer to the question of what the UNSC could do, as in, "what does it have the legal power to do", not "what would be wise, good or politically feasible to do".
A sternly worded statement? Do they really work? I think the UN has done that several times with Israel. Has not worked with them. Then there is Assad. Serbia. That sounds like a paper tiger--and a toothless one at that.
I suspect that was @Dafyd 's point.