Page 201 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

5 Legitimation

Problems

in the Modern State

This paper was presented at a meeting of the Deutsche Vereinigung fir
Politische Wissenschraft in October of 1974. Remarks referring to or
based on the occasion have been omitted.

To know whereof one speaks is always beneficial; this is especially
true when dealing with the problem of legitimacy. ... After (1)
making a few conceptual distinctions, I would like (2) to ex-
amine the principle of legitimacy in modern times. I shall then
show (3) how the modern problem of legitimacy arises from
structures of the bourgeois state and (4) how the problem shifts
in developed capitalist states. In the final section I shall (5) ex-
amine several concepts of legitimation with the aim of justifying
the reconstructive concept used here.

I
Legitimacy means that there are good arguments for a political
order’s claim to be recognized as right and just; a legitimate order
deserves recognition. Legitimacy means a political order’s worthi-
ness to be recognized. This definition highlights the fact that
legitimacy is a contestable validity claim; the stability of the order
of domination (also) depends on its (at least) de facto recogni-
tion. Thus, historically as well as analytically, the concept is used
above all in situations in which the legitimacy of an order is