Power, Authority and Legitimacy

Question 1

What is power?

Answer 1

• The central concept in political science
• The ability to get other individuals to do as one wants them to
  
  • Physical
  • Intellectual (problem solving)
  • Social

Question 2

What are the three types of power?

Answer 2

• Influence
• Coercion
• Authority

Question 3

What is influence?

Answer 3

• The ability to persuade others, by convincing them to do what you
  want them to
• It’s voluntary, that is those who are being influenced freely chose
  to agree
• Belief in the right thing to do / reap personal benefit

Question 4

What are the types of influence?

Answer 4

• Intellect
  
  • Arguments this is best
• Passion
  
  • Playing to emotions
• Self-interest
  
  • “What’s in it for us”?
• Group solidarity
  
  • Community they belong

Question 5

Does influence still matter?

Answer 5

• Elections
• Interest groups
  
  • Try to persuade

Question 6

What is coercion?

Answer 6

• The deliberate subjection of one to another through fear (or threats)
  of harm
• Compliance is not voluntary

Question 7

What types of coercion are there?

Answer 7

• Violence
• Fines
• Labor Strikes

Question 8

What is Authority?

Answer 8

• Where people obey commands not because of reason or fear but because
  the respect the command
• Parents & children

Question 9

What types of authority are there?

Answer 9

• Natural Authority (traditional)
• Public Authority
• Legal Authority
• Charismatic Authority

Question 10

What is natural authority?

Answer 10

• aka traditional
• Exists when judgement is deferred
• Based on inherited position
  
  • Based on tradition

Question 11

What is public authority?

Answer 11

• Is created by human agreement

- “He’s an authority on constitutional law”

Question 12

What is legal authority?

Answer 12

• One of the general rules binding all participants
• Rule of law
• Crown → Constitution → Government

Question 13

What is charismatic authority?

Answer 13

• Based on the projection and perception of extraordinary qualities
• Impassioning with rhetoric - Obama

Question 14

What is legitimacy?

Answer 14

• The belief in “rightness” of rule

- The feeling of respect for authority in those who obey

Question 15

How is obligation involved with authority and legitimacy?

Answer 15

• Authority → Obligation → Legitimacy

- Right of command → Sense of duty → Belief in rightness of government

Question 16

What is the rule of law?

Answer 16

The principle that every member of a society, even a ruler, must follow the law

Question 17

What is the history of the rule of law?

Answer 17

Magna Carta (1215) → Glorious Revolution of 1688 → Declaration of Independence (1776) → British North America Act 1867 (Constitution Act 1867) → Dicey (1885) → Roncarelli v. Duplessis (1959)

Question 18

What was the Magna Carta?

Answer 18

• June 1215 - Runnymeade

- King John was forced by English Nobles to rule per legume terrae (according to the laws of the land)

Question 19

What was the Glorious Revolution?

Answer 19

• “English Bill of Rights” (1689)
• Established a Constitutional Monarchy where the Royal power to
  suspend and dispense with law was abolished, and the crown was
  forbidden to levy taxation or maintain a standing army in peacetime
  without parliamentary consent
• Monarchy → Parliament
• John Locke

Question 20

Who was John Locke?

Answer 20

• Good theorists, late to the party
• Father of the rule of law
• “As power ought not to be arbitrary and at pleasure, so it ought to
  be exercised by established and promulgated (formally announced)
  Laws: that both the people may know their Duty, and be safe and
  secure within the limits of the Law, and the Rulers too kept within
  their due bounds, and not to be tempted, by the Power they have in
  their hands, to imply it to such purposes, and by such measures, as
  they would not have know, and own no willingly”
• Not making it up as we go anymore
• The people need to understand the limitations (no speed limits)

Question 21

What was the declaration of independence?

Answer 21

• all men are created equal,
• Governments are instituted among Men
• the consent of the governed

Question 22

Who was Dicey?

Answer 22

• Introduction to the study of the law of the constitution (1885)
• Arguably the architect of Westminster common law
• 1. Supremacy or predominance of “regular law”
     - This speaks against the use of arbitrary power on the part of the
     government (i.e. their laws must be made according to established
     procedure and guidelines, and/or have ground for their creation
• 2. Equality before the law - meaning that everyone, regardless of
     whether he or she is a ruler, government official or regular citizen,
     is subject to the same law that is enforced by normal courts
     - Abnormal courts - secret (kangaroo court)
     - Normal court - judge/trial by peers

Question 23

What was Roncarelli v. Duplessis?

Answer 23

• 1959
• Roncarelli
  
  • Montreal restaurateur - liquor license suspended “forever” for providing financial support to Jehovah’s Witnesses (including bail)
• Duplessis
  
  • Premier of Quebec (36 - 39 & 44 - 59)
  • Quebec - Catholic
• Decision
  
  • Justice Rand
  • “To deny or revoke a permit because a citizen exercises an unchallengeable right totally irrelevant to the sale of liquor in a restaurant is… beyond the scope of the discretion conferred… what could be more malicious than to punish this licencee for having done what he had an absolute right to do in a matter utterly irrelevant to the Liquor Act?”
• Could Duplessis pass a law that took Roncarelli’s liquor license forever?
  
  • Of course

Question 24

Are laws equal?

Answer 24

• “do not and cannot affect everyone equally
• clear distinction between being equal before the law as is demanded by the concept of the ‘rule of law’, and having a law affect everyone equally” Jeremy Waldron
• Everyone is treated equal in the face of the law