Page 206 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

183 Legitimation Problems in the Modern State

identity. Legitimations serve to make good this claim, that is, to
show how and why existing (or recommended) institutions are
fit to employ political power in such a way that the values con-
stitutive for the identity of the society will be realized. Whether
legitimations are convincing, whether they are believed, depends
naturally on empirical motives; but these motives are not formed
independently of the (formally analyzable) justificatory force of
the legitimations themselves. We can also say that they are not
independent of the legitimation potential, of the grounds or
reasons, that can be mobilized. What are accepted as reasons and
have the power to produce consensus, and thereby to shape mo-
tives, depends on the /evel of justzfication required in a given
situation. Since I would like to use the concept of legitimation
in a reconstructive manner, I shall take up briefly the question
of the internal structure of justifications.

II
P. von Kielmannsegg has provided clear criticisms of Weberian
types of legitimacy and proposed that we understand traditional-
ism and charisma as states that every legitimate order can assume.
We can distinguish these aspects of the establishment and main-
tenance of legitimate power from the forms of legitimate power,
the types of domination. Here again we can separate the /egiti-
mating grounds from the institutionalizations of domination.
Certain systems of institutions are compatible with a given level
of justification; others are not.
I cannot characterize the historically familiar levels of justifica-
tion in terms of their formal properties (as would be necessary) ;
instead I shall illustrate them with a few allusions. In early
civilizations the ruling families justified themselves with the help
of myths of origin. Thus the pharoahs represented themselves
first as gods—for example, as the god Horus, son of Osiris. On
this level narrative grounds are sufficient, viz. mythological stories.
With the imperial development of the ancient civilizations the
need for legitimation grew; now not only the person of the ruler
had to be justified, but a political order (against which the ruler
could transgress ). This end was served by cosmologically grounded