A detailed, in-depth summary of chapter 4 of the book Politics by Andrew Heywood. The summary includes all terms and definitions and is sufficient scope for an exam. This book is often used for first-year political science courses.
- Democracy is here just because it hasn’t collapsed yet
o All other regimes use the virtues of democracy
Legitimacy and political stability
- The problem of political obligation → why should citizens be obliged to a certain authority?
- What are the conditions that encourage people to see authority as rightful and underpin the
stability of a regime
- Legitimacy → (rightfulness) – transforming power into authority
- Legitimising power
o Weber – systems of domination
o 3 kinds of authority
▪ 1. Traditional authority
▪ 2. Charismatic authority
▪ 3. Legal-rational authority
- Max Weber
o One of the founders of modern sociology
o Importance of social action of meaning and consciousness
o Interests: social satisfaction, law, power, organization to religion
o Encouraging the development of capitalism
- Tradition → something that is handed out or transmitted from the past to present
- 1. Traditional authority
o Legitimate because it has always existed, earlier generations have accepted it
o Small tribes and groups → patriarchalism and gerontocracy
o Power of heritage and privilege → Saudi Arabi, Kuwait, Morocco
o Survival of monarchy in modern societies → UK, Belgium, NL
- 2. Charismatic authority
o Based on individual’s charisma, capacity of a leader
o De Gaulle, Kennedy, Thatcher – for them it was based on formal powers
o More appropriate examples: Mussolini, Hitler, Khomeini, Castro
o 2 consequences:
▪ It often has no limits
▪ It is hard for the system t outlive its main figure
- 3. Legal-rational authority
o Most modern states, constitutional
o Attached to an office rather than a person
o Less efficient
- Charisma → capacity to establish leadership through psychological control over others
- Limitations of Weber → tells us little about the challenges
- Beetham: power can only be considered legitimate in 3 conditions
o 1. Power must be exercised through established rules
o 2. Rules must be justified in terms of shared beliefs
o 3. Legitimacy must be demonstrated as expression of consent
Legitimation crisis and revolutions
- Alternative to Webber → neo-Marxists – Habermas. Offe
- Focus on the machinery through which legitimacy is maintained
, - But based on unequal class power
- Contractions between the logic of capitalist accumulation and popular pressures of
democracy
- This has lead to expansion of social responsibilities of the state
o Cannot satisfy both according to Habermas
- Habermas
o Frankfurt school of classical theory
- It is increasingly harder for governments to govern → overload
- Rise of the New right → response to legitimation
o Less responsibilities to the state → reaction to fiscal crisis of the welfare state
Democratic legitimacy
- Democratic legitimacy is now accepted as the only meaningful form of democracy
- 1. Consent
o Citizens are implicitly giving consent to govern – when they participate in the process
(voting)
- 2. Compromise
o Rival groups and interests find a way to live together without fighting
- 3. Feedback system
o Long-term stability
- Is democracy failing to deliver?
o Sense of disenchantment and disaffection
o Emergence of politicians such as Trump
o Example: Arab spring (relative democracy in Tunisia to complete chaos in Syria)
- Ispopulism a democratic force?
o Resembles it → popular sovereignty and majority rule
o But it acts in odds to democracy
o Viewed as a threat to democracy
- Liberal democracy
o 1. The right rule is gained through success in regular competitive elections
o 2. Constraints on government imposed by constitution, protection of minority rights
o 3. Civil society
- Fiscal crisis of the welfare state → the crisis in state finances that occurs when expanding
social expenditures coincides with recession and declining tax revenues
- Revolution → a popular uprising, involving extra-legal mass action, which brings about
fundamental change as opposed to merely a change of policy or governing elite
- Reform → change brought about within system, usually by peaceful and incremental
measures – reform implies improvement
- Consent → assent or permission, in politics usually an agreement to be governed or ruled
- Performance legitimacy → the capacity of a regime to generate public acceptance and a
sense of rightfulness through the delivery of favourable economic and social outcomes
Non-democratic legitimacy
- Non-democratic regimes are by nature illegitimate, but some of them can survive for many
decades
o Of course coercion and repression
- But there are 3 key forms of non-democratic legitimation
o 1. Elections (although they might be one-party) → to keep democratic façade
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