Power, Authority, and Legitimacy in Political Thought
Power, Authority, and Legitimacy
Power is intimately linked to values and beliefs. This link is essential for establishing lasting relationships and stable power, minimizing the need for constant recourse to force. Max Weber distinguished between power and authority.
Authority is the institutionalized exercise of power, leading to a more or less permanent differentiation between rulers and ruled—those who govern and those who obey. Authority involves several assumptions:
- A supra-subordinate relationship between two individuals or groups.
- The expectation of the superordinate group to control the behavior of the subordinate group.
- The linking of this expectation to social positions, relatively independent of the individuals occupying them.
- The possibility of obtaining obedience being limited to specific contexts, not absolute control over the subordinate group.
- Disobedience being punishable by a system of rules related to a legal system or a system of extralegal social control.
Weber refers to the routinization of obedience and its connection to the values and beliefs supporting the political system. Power becomes legitimized authority when it gains acceptance. But what constitutes legitimacy? According to Weber, something is legitimate when people feel it is legitimate. Obedience is achieved without force when the mandate aligns with a commonly accepted value or belief and is part of a group consensus.
Weber identifies three types of legitimacy:
- Traditional Legitimacy: Appeals to the belief in the “sanctity” or correctness of immemorial traditions as the foundation of power and authority. Legitimate governments are those exercising power in accordance with these traditional values.
- Charismatic Legitimacy: Appeals to the belief in the exceptional qualities of heroism or character of an individual and the normative order they represent. Obedience is granted based on the mandates of this person or order.
- Legal-Rational Legitimacy: Appeals to the belief in legality and procedures as the rational justification of political order. Obedience is given to those elevated to authority under established rules and laws. Thus, obedience is directed not to individuals, but to the laws themselves.
The legitimacy of a decision or authority rests on the belief in the process by which the decision was made or the authority was established. This is a purely legal legitimacy. Similarly, the legitimacy of exercising authority depends on strict adherence to the law.
Power and Democratic Legitimacy
An alternative concept of power and legitimacy is based on the idea of communicative action or consensus.
Communicative action seeks to form a common will (not forced or manipulated) through communication to solve collective problems. Hannah Arendt challenges the idea of power as a means-to-an-end mechanism, defining it as the “human capacity not only to act but to act together in concert.” Power is not held by an individual but belongs to the group and exists only as long as the group remains united. Without the “people” or the group, there is no power.
In a representative democracy, citizens are assumed to grant power to those who govern.
Power is consensual and inherent in political communities; it arises wherever people gather and act together. The procedure for making decisions becomes more important than the decisions themselves. Power, rather than a means to an end, is an end in itself, as it enables a group to think and act collectively. Power is not the manipulation of another’s will but the formation of a common intention aimed at achieving agreement.
Arendt develops a theory of institutions and laws as the materialization of power. Laws are not mandatory or demanding obedience but function as directives or rules of the game. They provide a framework for action, not specific instructions on behavior. Political actors must share and voluntarily submit to these rules, recognizing their validity. While rules can be changed or transgressed, denying them altogether signifies a refusal to participate in the community.
Political reality doesn’t always follow this consensual and deliberative model. Arendt argues that imposing one’s will on another is not power but violence. Power and violence are opposites; violence appears where power is threatened, but unchecked violence destroys power. For Arendt, power is the sword of Damocles hanging over rulers, while for Weber and his followers, it is the sword in the rulers’ hands.
Jürgen Habermas distinguishes between power and the generation of power. Only in the latter case does Arendt’s concept of deliberative and consensual power become relevant. No political authority can maintain power if their position isn’t tied to laws and institutions based on shared beliefs, deliberations, and consensus. The entire political system relies on this power, understood as joint deliberation, to sanction and provide a basis for strategic power. While strategic action is important for maintaining power, it remains dependent on the process of forming a rational and concerted will among citizens. This is the “impotence of the powerful”: they must borrow their power from those who produce it.
It’s crucial to distinguish between power arising from deliberation and power manipulated for the benefit of a few. This requires addressing the issue of legitimacy and the justification of collective political norms.
Habermas identifies minimum formal requirements or procedures to differentiate between rational, general-interest deliberation and deliberation based on force, manipulation, or deception. A legitimate deliberative process must meet three conditions:
- Freedom of speech: Parties must be free to express their views without limitations.
- Equality: All parties’ views and arguments must carry equal weight.
- Strength of the better argument: The discussion should be guided by the strength of the best argument, without coercion or violence. The definition of the “best” argument may vary historically, but participants must be able to recognize its strength according to their convictions, beliefs, and values, free from manipulation.
Within Arendt and Habermas’ paradigm of procedural legitimacy, an action, rule, or institution is legitimate if it can be justified within a deliberative process governed by freedom, equality, the principle of the better argument, and the exclusion of coercion.
Tilly’s Thesis on the Formation of European States
Charles Tilly argues that European states formed through a process of war-making and extraction. Those who controlled the means of coercion (armies, navies, etc.) sought to expand their control over population and resources. Successful conquerors became rulers, and the competition among rulers shaped the development of state power. Warfare drove rulers to extract resources from their subjects, creating the organizational structures of the state. The organization of social classes and their relationship with the state varied between coercion-intensive and capital-intensive regions. The nation-state eventually emerged as the dominant form of state in Europe due to the increasing scale of war and the interlocking of European states through commercial, military, and diplomatic interactions.
Institutional Features of the Modern State
The Renaissance saw the emergence of new state institutions, particularly in Spain, France, and England. Kings established centralized control, building armies, bureaucracies, and tax systems. Jurisdictional immunities were eroded, and the power of cities and representative assemblies declined. Kings legitimized their rule through divine right. The Peace of Westphalia solidified the state system, with sovereign states recognizing no higher authority.
Machiavelli’s Political Thought
Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince marks a turning point in political thought. Machiavelli argued that politics is the science of what is, not what should be. He emphasized the importance of force and the need for princes to use all means necessary to maintain power. Machiavelli’s focus on effectiveness over morality remains controversial. He argued that cruelty is not inherently bad but depends on its political effectiveness. However, his instrumentalization of morality raises concerns about the consequences of such principles. Some interpret Machiavelli’s work as a critique of power, revealing its hypocrisy. Others, like Gramsci, suggest that The Prince, if addressed to the people, could be seen as a tool for challenging oppressive rule.
Machiavelli also offers a new perspective on freedom, emphasizing the ability to act upon and change the external world. He introduces the concepts of fortuna (fortune) and virtù (virtue). Fortuna represents the constraints of circumstance, while virtù is the ability to adapt and act decisively. Machiavelli’s ideas suggest that the prince has a different morality than ordinary citizens and that Christian virtues are relevant only insofar as they affect political action. His thought contains the rudiments of the “reason of state” doctrine, prioritizing the interests of the state above all else and justifying any means necessary for its preservation.