 Even contemporary theorists acknowledge that the problem of rightful authority is especially difficult in the case of the waging of revolutionary war, the discussion is often at too abstract because it fails to distinguish between different domains of action in which legitimacy can be an issue. Even if, for example, it can be shown that a particular group of revolutionaries is the legitimate leadership in the sense that it can be taken to represent the people as a whole and rightly act on their behalf, it is a separate question as to whether it has the sort of legitimacy required for certain particular activities such as conscripting individuals to fight, using coercion to suppress rival claimants for leadership, or “punishing” traitors or informants.