Legitimacy Flashcards
Why do we comply?
- Normative social influence
- Consent to the rules out of self-interest
- Fear of consequences
- Recognize the authority of rule-makers
Define power
The ability for an agent A to make an agent B do something that he would otherwise not do (robert dahl)
Define legitimacy
To be in line with the law. Conforming to known principles or established or accepted rules or standards that can be different from the law.
What defines “real power”?
Real power is not reliant only on terror, coercion, and the use of terror; it is too costly and unsustainable.
La Boetie and Voluntary Serivce
The idea that one is not coerced out of genuine coercion but because they allow it.
X is only in power because we allow them to be, if we take away consent they are nothing.
Arendt’s view on authority
True authority would not rely on force. Once force is used, it means authority itself has failed.
HOBBES’ State of Nature
The Leviathan 1651
First comprehensive theory of nature and human behavior since Aristotle.
State of nature = no place for industry, no culture, no knowledge, no civilization. Individuals live in continual fear / danger of violent death and are moved by rationality, self-preservation, and selfishness.
There is radical freedom and radical equality.
Prevalence of frustration, envy, and competition.
No notions of right vs. wrong, just vs. unjust.
“The war of all against all.”
HOBBES’ Social Contract & the Commonwealth
Rationally, humans will enter a contract that is the political organization to escape the state of nature, ensure their survival, and out of simple intelligence and reason.
There will be a formation of an artificial commonwealth, where individuals are brought together through a contract.
They will voluntarily delegate their power to a third entity, an artificial man who represents them all.
HOBBES theories’ implications
Fear does not corrupt consent: agree or fight!
Hobbes doesn’t care what the means were, very utilitarian understanding of consent.
John LOCKE’s State of Nature
Man is defined by peace, good will, mutual assistance, & preservation.
Human beings are naturally industrious and property owners: they work with natural resources to feed themselves and to survive.
Human beings are rational and reasonable, moral.
Humans posses natural rights conferred by God on their body and the work of their labor.
LOCKE’s Social Contract
Locke acknowledges that some form of civil society and social organizations can exist in the State of Nature - yet these would be unstable and cannot ensure that all people will respect natural rights.
Therefore, enforced collective rules are needed to preserve individual liberties; which can be achieved through a government.
LOCKE’s theories’ implications
Idea that liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others, which cannot be, where there is no law.
Legitimacy is based on consent!
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU’s State of Nature
Man is a noble savage living in a life of solitary idyllic blissfulness and primitive simplicity.
At the State of Nature, men are equal, self-sufficient, and good.
Civilization has corrupted this good; it brought property and vanity, division of labor, and inequalities.
ROUSSEAU’s Social Contract
Given: governments are illegitimate because they legitimize inequalities that are unnatural to the spirit of humankind,
Therefore: new social contract should be made to regain liberty and equality.
Ideal organization of government is some kind of democratic, collective self rule.
Popular sovereignty and general will as key — individual freedom is surrendered to the will of the majority.
What makes political power legitimate?
- Procedure of political decisions taken by consented body of citizens (with various conceptions of consent).
- Content of political decisions ; do they preserve and strengthen societal values?
Consent, conformity, ideology, hegemony.
What does consent look like in democratic procedure?
There is no original contract but elections and political participation as renewed consent.
Voting, participation in political organizaitons and parties, and demonstrations.
Accountability of governments.
Contract of citizenship in case of naturalization process.
ARENDT on Collective Power: Legitimacy is grounded in ____
Continuous consent.
Power lies in possibility to act in concert, emerges in action.
What is often more powerful than rationality when it comes to giving consent? What question does this beg?
Normative social influence — perhaps governments are legitimate not because we rationally consent to them but because they are all we know.
MARX & ENGELS on legitimacy of governments
Government legitimacy does not come from consent or vote, it is legitimized through ideology.
What is the Marxist critique of consent as a basis for legitimacy?
Popular compliance to political power is not the result of free consent but of false consciousness, there is no such thing as true consent in our current societies.
How could the people possibly accept and consent to what looks like an unequal society?
Critique of Marxist critique
Too deterministic, people are more than just products of illusions.
GRAMSCI’s Revision of Marxism
Compliance not as ideology; as HEGEMONY.
Ideas are strong enough to mute class struggle.
Cultural production is part of the hegemony — it will reflect the dominant ideas of a specific society.
HOBBES’ legitimate reason to disobey
If the state fails duty of protection.
LOCKE’s legitimate reason to disobey
If state breaches natural rights.
