Anthropology, contemporary history, political science, and related disciplines are close to politics and, therefore, close to morality. This is not to imply that much of politics is shaped by morals. Such an assumption would surely lead us astray if we tried to use it to explain what actually happens. What I mean is that moral and normative appeals abound in political discourse, where morals are used as a discursive resource. This discourse is about ‘legitimacy’, ‘corruption’, ‘failed’ states, etc., and it judges states and other forms of organization by comparing their actual forms and outputs with a normative idea about what states or other organizations and institutions should be good for: the common good, justice, security, and so on. Functional thinking persists here. States and organizations are assumed to fulfil a function for the benefit of all of their citizens or members; and if these functionalist assumptions are contradicted by actual observation, they become subject to the two dominant forms of framing or reframing that are applied to social phenomena in our times, namely, juridification and medicalization. Issues such as oppression and poverty – until recently treated in terms of politics – become juridified as human rights issues or they become medicalized as social pathologies. Things are measured against standards of law or standards of health or other such standards. The Weberian ideal-type of statehood also comes into play here. A normative element clearly shines through in all variants of these discourses. And it is good that this is so.