Authority and Legitimacy

Abstract

In common political language, authority is often confused with legitimacy. In their relation to power, authority and legitimacy are complexly intertwined. Some scholars have defined authority as some kind of power, for example ‘formal power’ or ‘rightful power’. We have explored above (see Chapter 7) the problem of what makes people accept authority, and we have seen that ‘acceptance’ is at times made the central criterion of authority. This tendency has given rise to various interpretations of authority, and to assertions concerning its source. Max Weber¹ more particularly has in his discussion of sources of authority failed to distinguish clearly authority from legitimacy, and at times even equated these two related but distinct phenomena. He developed a tripartite theory of the sources of legitimacy, calling them ‘traditional’, ‘rational-legal’, and ‘charismatic’.² He argued these sources in contrast to older notions which had been developed by earlier thinkers, notably Rousseau. For while the discussion about legitimacy goes in substance back to Plato, it was Rousseau who at the opening of his Contrat Social raised the question explicitly when he wrote: ‘Man is born free, but always he is in chains… what could make this legitimate? I believe I can resolve that question.’ Rousseau argued that it was basically the consent of the governed which could make it legitimate that people are ‘in chains’, that is, subject to government.