Emotional Sovereignty: The Affective Ground That Legitimacy Theories Presuppose

This public preprint advances a meta-foundational account of political legitimacy. It argues that legitimate authority requires non-coerced and non-deceptive affective uptake by those subject to it, a condition named the Affective Uptake Condition (AUC). The paper develops Emotional Sovereignty as the framework built on this claim and examines its implications for public reason, recognition, authority, political membership, and the political “we.”