Power and Legitimacy in Democratic States
Power and Legitimacy
The Legitimacy of State Power
The need to establish mechanisms for legitimizing power is crucial to understanding why citizens respect laws and submit to the State. Authority implies the right to exercise power, and when this right is recognized, power is considered legitimized. According to Max Weber, there are three forms of power legitimation:
Traditional Legitimacy
This form appeals to tradition to justify the power exercised by certain families or dynasties. It’s based on hereditary or divine beliefs. Its lack of rationality makes it difficult to defend.
Examples: Hereditary monarchies and classical empires.
Charismatic Legitimacy
Power is legitimized through charisma, a gift that enables some individuals to attract and mobilize the population. This form is considered personal, not hereditary.
Examples: The rise of fascist regimes and leaders like Hitler or Franco; revolutionary figures like Che Guevara and Gandhi; charismatic leaders like Stalin or religious figures like the Pope.
Rational-Legal (Bureaucratic) Legitimacy
Power is legitimized through law. Legal-bureaucratic procedures confer authority, and democratic processes shape the law. A state’s power is legitimate because it results from a reasonably acceptable agreement or arrangement with the public, establishing mechanisms for rational argument.
Example: Democracies.
These forms of legitimacy rarely exist in pure form. Some analysts criticize the tendency to emphasize charisma in choosing rulers, as it risks replacing rational political debate with the leaders’ charismatic appeal.
Representative Democracies
After World War II, democratic regimes emerged in Europe, founded on universal suffrage, parliaments, and political parties. These systems establish intermediaries between the general population and the government, creating “forms of representation” for citizens. These forms are also state structures, giving them unique characteristics. Citizen participation occurs at different levels, with varying responsibilities and tasks.
Levels of Political Participation
Level 1: The Population
Political activity is limited to voting. Choices, timing, content, and candidates are determined by institutional apparatuses beyond voter control. The right to vote becomes a choice among pre-established options with limited indirect influence.
Level 2: Party Structures
Active party members analyze, shape, decide, and create the options presented by their group or ideology. This involves electoral expectations, cultural elements, and social perspectives. Relationships within parties are hierarchical and often governed by interest groups.
Level 3: State Powers
Positions within state powers are occupied by members of the winning party, who govern on behalf of all and often seek to maintain power.
Party relations in democratic states resemble competition. The citizen resembles a consumer rather than an active participant in a social project.
Consequences of Elite Systems
- Reducing political intervention to a single vote turns citizens into isolated individuals whose choices are limited to YES/NO responses to pre-selected options.
- Citizen power diminishes as public affairs become the domain of party structures and technical advisors.
- Parties detach from their social base and become part of the state political apparatus. They function as representatives in name but act as state organizations.