Democracy and Legitimacy

Democracy and Legitimacy

• States rarely maintain existence through force alone
• Legitimacy, or 'rightfulness', is crucial for compliance and political stability
• Democratic legitimacy is viewed as the only meaningful kind of legitimacy, although, this is a relatively new and culturally specific idea
• As major ideologies faltered, democracy emerged as a stable principle in the postmodern political landscape

Key Questions

• Main ways legitimacy is maintained by states
• If modern societies are facing a legitimation crisis
• Reasoning to link political legitimacy with the claim to be democratic
• Core features of democratic rule
• Models that have been advanced for democratic rule.
• Ways democratic systems operate in practice

Legitimacy and Political Stability

• Legitimacy links to political obligation, addressing why citizens follow government authority
• It emphasizes political behavior and beliefs over moral obligation
• Conditions are focused on what encourages people to see authority as rightful and how these shape politics

Legitimizing Power

• Max Weber contributed to understanding legitimacy as a sociological phenomenon by categorizing systems of domination
• Weber sought to identify the basis on which legitimacy is established, which resulted in three types of political rule

Traditional Authority

• Legitimacy is rooted in long-established customs and traditions
• Traditional authority is legitimate because it has always existed, sanctified by history of earlier generations accepting it
• Operates according to unquestioned customs that reflect the way things have always been
• Patriarchalism and gerontocracy are two forms of traditional authority
• Closely linked to hereditary power systems, for example, in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Morocco
• Values such as deference, respect, and duty are kept alive by monarchies in Japan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom

Max Weber

• German political economist and sociologist
• Believed In a scientific and value-free approach to scholarship
• Highlighted the importance of social action of meaning and consciousness
• Known for the thesis that the Protestant ethic encourages the development of capitalism, and for his analysis of bureaucracy
• Some of his most influential works are: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, The Sociology of Religion, and Economy and Society

Limits of Traditional Authority

• Cultural, social, religious and political norms are powerful but often unwritten rules that underpin legitimacy in all political systems
• Public can question the legitimacy of a leader who comes to power despite winning a smaller share of the vote than their opponent by custom

Charismatic Authority

• A form of legitimate domination based on the power of an individual's personality which operates entirely through the capacity of a leader to make a direct and personal appeal to followers as a kind of hero or saint
• Mohandas Gandhi is a rare case of this authority in modern politics
• Gandhi commanded respect and influenced millions through articulate oration, common touch, non-violent philosophy and dedication
• Most charismatic authority is married with traditional or legal authority
• Ayatollah Khomeini was a popular political authority who drove the Iranian Revolution because his appeal transformed him

Tradition

• Anything that is handed down/transmitted from the past to the present
• Denotes continuity with the past in long-standing customs and practices, institutions, and social and political systems
• Traditional societies are structured on basis of status with organic hierarchies
• Modern are on the basis of contractual agreement and by democratic

Charisma

• Originally a theological term for the 'gift of grace'
• Refers to charm or personal power
• A capacity to establish leadership through psychological control over others
• Includes the ability to inspire loyalty, emotional dependence, and even devotion
• Political leaders cultivate qualities through propaganda, practiced oratory, and honed presentational skills

Further Examples Of Charisma

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Margaret Thatcher and Juan Peron augmented legal powers with charismatic prestige by charismatic appeals to the public
• It helps democratic leaders convince legislatures, private interests and other stakeholders to support new policies and reforms
• Some personalist systems of rule become underpinned by 'cults of personality' to manufacture charisma and circumvent legal and traditional authority

Personalist Rule

• Charismatic authority is not based on formal rules, it often has no limits, leader is infallible, masses become followers to submit and obey
• Dictators can reshape political systems around personal authority, sweeping away legal or traditional foundations

Overliving Charisma

• Charismatic authority is linked to a specific individual
• This makes it difficult for regimes or personal rule to outlive their creators
• Four decade dictorial regime in Spain, for instance, only lasted a few years beyond the life of Francisco Franco before transitioning to democracy

Legal Rational Authority

• Weber believed the third type of political legitimacy links authority to a clearly and legally defined set of rules
• Most modern states operate this
• Power of a government figure is determined by constitutional rules that constrain or limit what an office holder is able to do
• It is less likely to be abused because it is attached to an office rather than a person
• Maintains limited government and promotes efficiency through a rational division of labor

Drawbacks To Legal-Rational Authority

• Weber recognized an inhumane dark side, which is related to a depersonalized social enviornment and bureaucractic forms of organization
• With the focus on legitimacy of a regime, it tells little about the challenges to authority due to unpopular policies
• David Beetham stresses that the how of legitimacy is often ignored

Components Of Legitimate Power

• Power must be exercised according to established rules that are embodied in formal legal codes or informal conventions
• Rules must be justified in terms of shared beliefs of the government and the governed
• Legitimacy must be demonstrated by an expression of consent on the part of the governed

Key Features Of Legitimation

• Elections and party competition, allowing popular consent to be exercised
• Constitutional rules that broadly reflect how people should be governed

Legitimation Crises And Revolutions

• Neo-Marxist theorists developed an alternative approach to legitimacy in contrast to the Weberian one
• Modern Marxists acknowledged capitalism is upheld by political support, while orthodox Marxists dismissed legitimacy
• Neo-Marxists, such as Jürgen Habermas and Claus Offe, focused on the machinery through which legitimacy is maintained
• Welfare, social reform, the democratic process and party competition are all aspects of the machinery
• Capitalist societies are challenged in maintaining political stability because of the inherent difficulty of legitimizing a political system based on unequal class power
• Capitalist economies tend to be bent on remorseless expansion, dictated by the pursuit of profit

Contradictions In Capitalist Systems

• Extending rights to build legitimacy stimulates countervailing pressures
• Democratic process leads to escalating demands for social welfare, increased popular participation and social equality
• State responsibilities in economic and social life, and rise of taxation constrain capitalist accumulation
• Capitalist democracies cannot reconcile social security demands with market economy requirements
• Either resisting popular pressures or risking economic collapse, societies find it increasingly difficult to maintain legitimacy

Jurgen Habermas

• German philosopher and social theorist
• Grew up during the Nazi period, politicized by the Nuremberg trials
• Developed critical theory that became a theory of `communicative action'
• Some main works include: Towards a Rational Society, Theory and Practice, and The Theory of Communicative Competence'

Government Overload

• Since the 1970s, a similar problem to legitimation crises has been identified, labeled as government ‘overload'
• Anthony King and Richard Rose argued that governments were finding it difficult to govern because they were subject to over-demand
• Overload was encouraged by politicians and political parties who outbid each other for power, and by pressure groups who sieged government with unrelenting and incompatible demands

Compromised Capacity

• Government's capacity to deliver undermined by a drift towards corporatism which created growing interdependence between government agencies and organized groups
• Neo-Marxists believed the 'crisis tendencies' were beyond the capacity of capitalist democracies to control
• Overload theorists called for a significant shift of political and ideological priorities, and abandon a 'big' government approach

The New Right

• The rise in the 1980s can be seen as a response to the legitimation or overload crisis
• Influenced by growing fiscal concerns, the New Right attempted to challenge the previous theories and values that legitimized the progressive expansion of the state
• Public views extolled rugged individualism and denigrated the ‘nanny state'
• Socialist or labor parties in various nations accommodated broadly similar goals and values, turning from statist policies towards market-oriented, or 'Third Way' politics
• emphasized a political culture with social justice, welfare rights and public responsibilities, gave way to one wherein choice, enterprise, competition and individual responsibility are given prominence.

Why Do Revolutions Occur?

• Revolutions result from disequilibrium in the political system are due to economic, social, cultural or international changes for which the system cannot respond
• Marx believed contradiction at a socio-economic level leads to revolutions, where class struggle develops into an open conflict, overthrowing one class and displacing another

Theories Surrounding Revolutions

• Occur when there is a period of economic and social development which causes a widening gap between popular expectations and the capabilities of the government by 'a revolution of rising expectations'
• Regimes succumb to revolution when they lose their ability, or the political will, through international weakness and/or domestic ineffectiveness
• Evolutionary change is reform and revolution involves root-and-branch change where they can recast the political order entirely, and there is often violence

Role Of Revolutions

• Key when shaping the modern world
• Creation of a constitutional republic independent from Britain by The American Revolution
• Gives practical expression to the principle of representation
• Endorsing democratic ideals and sparking an age of revolution' in early nineteenth century Europe through French Revolution
• Providing a model for subsequent revolutions from the Russian Revolution

Outcomes After Revolutions

• Revolutions include the Chinese and Cuban
• The Eastern European Revolutions re-established the link between revolution and the pursuit of political democracy
• Character can be significantly impacted by ideological character of a revolutionary upheaval with out of step developments seen in the Arab Spring

Democratic Legitimacy

• Discussions about are dominated by its relationship to democracy
• Claim that a political organization is legitimate may be intrinsically linked to its claim to be democratic
• Competing models of democratic rule and consider how democracy operates in practic
• Is considered, with how reliably, democracy is linked to legitimacy

Promoting Legitimacy

• Promoted thought consent as citizen involvement in the political process invests authority with a formal 'right to rule'
• Democracy underpins through expanding opportunity for involvement in different ways such as parties, voting, petitions, protests, joining in government
• A process of compromise, governance, conciliation, negotiation with groups is a way to live together in relative peace instead of resorting to force

Supporting Democracy

• Providing broad support in mechanisms of conflict resolution, ensuring power is widely dispersed
• As a feedback system to promote long-term stability, democracy tends towards long-term stability bringing inputs of government into line with pressure upon them
• Creates minimum 'disequilibrium', helping legitimation crises managed

Questioning The Intrinsic Link

• The notion of an inherent relationship between legitimacy and democracy are questioned
• Political stability, low civil strata and popular rebellion in democratic societies are explained by other factors than democracy
• Democratic societies tend to enjoy prosperity and are effective in delivering the goods which creates legitmacy
• Considered by observers that Singapore has enjoyed high rates of public support, largely on the back of strong economy
• These society tend to be liberal as well as democratic for personal freedoms, self-expression, social mobility, and these might be just as important

Falters In Promoting Legitimacy

• Mature democracies seem that the are to be effected by a sense of political disenchantment and disaffection
• Seen by some as a democracy crisis with trend of popular disengagement reflected in the decline in voting and political parties
• Political outsiders and populist advance across Europe to create new political forces that threaten the structures in place.
• However the relationship between populism & democracy is both complex and contested

The US Capitol Insurrection: A Crisis of Legitimacy

• Highlights the complexity of legitimation in democracy during the Trump campaign
• Beetham argues there is norms that root based on shared relief however what happens when a society is deeply divided over these or loses common shared beliefs.

Electoral Impact

• Divided Legal, traditional and charismatic authority came into sharp contrast by bringing Trump from the outside
• People thought of Trump's role as outrageous during his presidency against long standing norms while his establishment thought he was the voice of the people
• Trump has always denied the legitimacy of loss in electoral systems and has claimed that shadows exist which makes it unable to prove otherwise.

Legitimacy Critical Theorist Point Of View

• A poll that has lost its place to prove an election has caused great concern over where American people have gone based on not trusting government
• That socio economic standing and economy can not grow together has concerned many theorists who hope for more radical change
• Habermas feels the system that is destined to fail can not give the benefits they think it should nomatter who leads.

Key Aspects Highlighted By Habermas

• Society is deeply divided over existing rules and norms
• Society struggles to find common to be had due to economic, political and military

Consent

• Implies an agreement to be governed or ruled
• Through regular elections, competition and clear choice, governments should be determined through an election
• Although citizens consent they are not always aware if the government takes action for the benefit
• People are now more involved in politics as organised groups grow

How Legitimacy Can Be Achieved Via Democracy

• By creating a platform in which all people and groups have a say - gives all a opportunity to extend more into having to right to vote
• Democracy as an equal force has to look into Capitalism inherent tendency towards inequality
• Done through social protection to help alleviate poverty

Twentieth Century Negatively Change Democracy

• It's now seemed a lot of people in the system are not able to 'work them', one cause was towards neoliberalism
• Shift it seeks is to foster-away to where it has led into rich get richer and poor get poorer
• For concern toward globalization, its tendency to destabilizing the democratic system derives part of the markedly reduced capacity of government to control

Borderless Economics

• Generation in more borderless economies have felt tensions in especially a mature democratic society
• Voters of the losing side believe that this political process has bias towards leaders and those with interest
• With this said - democracy has been more resilient than other types of systems
• Capitalist and democracies have made themselves resilient and handled each of crisis
• Despite what goes on democracy, populations, poverty still present challenge, capitalism can to adapt to what is necessary

Non-democratic legitimacy

• If democracy is the only basis for legitimacy non regimes are to be illegitimate
• Authoritarian regimes have made it with little disaffection
• Fear exists towards consent as it has an influence on how the democracy has been implemented
• Non democratics seek consolidating not thought coercion, and what claims has it to legitimacy

Ideological legitimacy

• With uphold leaders, the parties goal are try to provide goals
• Marxist-Leninist, as all traditions have to go all means towards legitimacy
• Dictator make what was to justify that continued rule

Examples Of How Power Is To Be Maintained

• Imitating from non elections that impression how the regime could exist
• Political equality to bring about political opinions
• How to bring a consensus has it that more in common can be with an influence that to provide a more free opportunity