The German economist and sociologist Max Weber proposed that societies behave cyclically in governing themselves with different types of governmental legitimacy. That democracy was unnecessary for establishing legitimacy, a condition that can be established with codified laws, customs, and cultural principles, not by means of popular suffrage. That a society might decide to revert from the legitimate government of a rational–legal authority to the charismatic government of a leader, e.g. the Nazi Germany of Adolf Hitler, Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini, and fascist Spain under General Francisco Franco. The French political scientist Mattei Dogan’s contemporary interpretation of Max Weber’s types of political legitimacy (traditional, charismatic, legal-rational) proposes that they are conceptually insufficient to comprehend the complex relationships that constitute a legitimate political system in the twenty-first century.[7] Moreover Prof. Dogan proposed that traditional authority and charismatic authority are obsolete as forms of contemporary government, e.g. the Islamic Republic of Iran (est. 1979) rule by means of the priestly Koranic interpretations by the Ayatollah Khomeini. That traditional authority has disappeared in the Middle East; that the rule-proving exceptions are Islamic Iran and Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the third Weber type of political legitimacy, rational–legal authority exists in so many permutations no longer allow it to be limited as a type of legitimate authority. Forms of legitimate government In determining the political legitimacy of a system of rule and government, the term proper — political legitimacy — is philosophically an essentially contested concept that facilitates understanding the different applications and interpretations of abstract, qualitative, and evaluative concepts such as “Art”, “social justice”, et cetera, as applied in aesthetics, political philosophy, the philosophy of history, and the philosophy of religion.[8] Therefore, in defining the political legitimacy of a system of government and rule, the term “essentially contested concept” indicates that a key term (communism, democracy, constitutionalism, etc.) has different meanings within a given political argument. Hence, the intellectually restrictive politics of dogmatism (“My answer is right, and all others are wrong”), scepticism (“All answers are equally true or [false]; everyone has a right to his own truth”), and eclecticism (“Each meaning gives a partial view, so the more meanings the better”) are inappropriate philosophic stances for managing a political term that has more than one meaning.[9] (see: (Walter Bryce Gallie) Communism — The legitimacy of a Communist state derives from having won a civil war, a revolution, or from having won an election, such as the Presidency of Salvador Allende (1970–73) in Chile; thus, the actions of the Communist government are legitimate, authorised by the people. In the early twentieth century, Communist parties based the arguments supporting the legitimacy of their rule and government upon the scientific nature of Marxism. (see: dialectical materialism) Constitutionalism — The modern political concept of constitutionalism establishes the law as supreme over the private will, by integrating nationalism, democracy, and limited government. The political legitimacy of constitutionalism derives from popular belief and acceptance that the actions of the government are legitimate because they abide the law codified in the political constitution. The political scientist Carl Joachim Friedrich (1901–84) said that in dividing political power among the organs of government, constitutional law effectively restrains the actions of the government.[10] (see checks and balances) Democracy — In a democracy, government legitimacy derives from the popular perception that the elected government abides democratic principles in governing, and thus is legally accountable to its people.[11] Fascism — In the 1920s and the 1930s, Fascism based its political legitimacy upon the arguments of traditional authority; respectively, the German National Socialists and the Italian Fascists claimed that the political legitimacy of their right to rule derived from philosophically denying the (popular) political legitimacy of elected liberal democratic governments. During the Weimar Republic (1918–33), the political philosopher Carl Schmitt (1888–1985), whose legal work as the “Crown Jurist of the Third Reich” promoted fascism and deconstructed liberal democracy, addressed the matter in Legalität und Legitimität (Legality and Legitimacy, 1932) an anti-democratic polemic treatise that asked: How can parliamentary government make for law and legality, when a 49 per cent minority accepts as politically legitimate the political will of a 51 per cent majority?[12]
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 05:20:49 +0000
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