ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on recognition of governments, a process closely related to but distinct from recognition of states. Though international lawyers outline rules that should guide decisions about recognition of governments and seek to expand the area of consistency in state behaviour, the actual practice of individual states and groups of states is perennially inconsistent because political considerations weigh heavily in decisions about who should be accorded that status and when. The interplay of political considerations inclining governments to maintain discretion and international lawyers’ efforts to limit discretion through general rules will be examined in three parts. This chapter first specifies the legal connection between a state and its government that gives recognition of governments its basic significance. Then it identifies the occasions when a new government’s status can be questioned and the arguments that have been made about when and for what reason states can accept or decline to accept a new set of rulers coming into power in another state as its government. The third part addresses the political and legal effects of according or denying recognition as a government to the current rulers of another state for relations with the rulers and for the situations of private persons living in a territory affected by arguments about whether its rulers deserve to be regarded as the government of a state. A concluding section considers the analytical advantages of combining the perspectives of international lawyers and scholars of world politics for understanding recognition of governments.
