Legitimation (political science)

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In political science, legitimation denotes in the narrower sense the justification of a state for its sovereign or non-sovereign action or its result. It establishes the legitimacy of such action, its results, or rule ; Legitimacy requires legitimation. However, the term is also applied to supranational organizations and transnational actors ,

Normative understanding of legitimation

The existence of states is usually normatively legitimized by the purposes of the state : The restrictions that a state always brings with it for its citizens are therefore primarily justified because it guarantees an order of peace in which they are protected from the selfishness and aggressiveness of their fellow human beings protected inside and outside. In addition, it ensures a just community order in which they can freely develop their personality. In political philosophy , the conclusion has been drawn since the early modern period that the legitimacy of the rulers expires as soon as they fail to achieve these ends, i.e. rule unfairly. In this case, the ruled have a right of resistance .

The democratic justification of the state does not add any further state purposes. In the pluralistically understood democratic constitutional state , citizens are allowed to set their own goals and try to achieve them with the greatest possible freedom. At the same time, however, they should participate in state power . In a democracy, the state is legitimized when it seeks to fulfill its regulatory and balancing function with the greatest possible consent and participation of all. In the western democracies, the view prevailed that they are legitimized by the combination of certain value convictions such as human rights , constitutive procedures for participation, decision-making and control of rule, and the principle of the rule of law. In the neo-Marxist theory of late capitalism , this is dismissed as an only apparent “mass legitimation”: By generating “false needs” and satisfying them through the welfare state , the main contradiction of capitalism is distracted.

Sociological understanding of legitimation

The sociology contrast, uses a empirical legitimacy phrase: Do not prescribe when domination is legitimate, but when it is demonstrably kept it. The German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) ideally described three forms of legitimate rule: traditional, charismatic and legal rule. Traditional rule is based on the belief in the sanctity of traditions that have always been in place. It includes, for example, God's grace , in which the monarch is legitimized by birth. The charismatic rule is legitimate because the ruler is assigned extraordinary abilities and, to a certain extent, heroism. It is based on the affective devotion of the subject to the prophet or "leader". Legal or rational rule is legitimate because it is based on “formally correct established orders”. The basis is not the dynasty or the person of the ruler, but the process by which he was selected.

In 1969, the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) developed the system-theoretical idea in his work Legitimation durchverfahren that institutions do not obtain their legitimacy through the deliberate action of the people involved, but that they themselves produce it autopoietically using the social mechanism of the process . The individual intentions of the parties involved would hardly play a role. This thesis was discussed intensively. Empirical studies have shown that it is not just the mere process that creates legitimacy, but the conviction that it is fair.

Input / output legitimation

Input legitimation diagram
Throughput legitimation diagram
Output legitimation diagram

Using the example of the European Union , the German political scientist Fritz W. Scharpf drew up a distinction in 1999 that is based on the concept of political input and political output . He started from the Gettysburg Address , in which the American President Abraham Lincoln defined democracy in 1863 as "government by the people, of the people, for the people".

  • The input legitimation is based on the normative principle of the consent of the ruled ( government by the people ). It is the predominant category of legitimation in jurisprudence . For the criticism concerning input legitimation see legitimation chain theory .
    • Example: The decision of a democratically elected parliament to impose the obligation on vehicle drivers to complete a first aid course every two years in the future is legitimized by the people because it has previously elected the parliamentarians who have now made this decision.
  • The throughput legitimacy is based on the participation of the governed in the legislative process. Approaches in this direction are the forms of direct democracy such as popular initiatives or referendums . Such participation always presupposes the possibility of the participants having access to information, thus administrative transparency and freedom of information .
    • Example: After the spelling reform, the people voted in a referendum for the revision of the spelling reform. The subsequent revision of the spelling reform is (partly) legitimized by the people. Such a system currently only exists in Switzerland .
  • The output legitimacy is based on the functional principle of utility ( government for the people ). The actors who generate the useful services do not necessarily have to be democratically elected or belong to a recognized government.
    • Example: An organization designated by the United Nations as a rebel group is building roads, hospitals and schools in a region it controls, where the official government does not provide these services. Because of these acts, the rebel-ruled locals feel that rebel rule is legitimate.

criticism

The critical rationalism rejects the political legitimacy theory with similar arguments from how he does in the epistemological generalization. Legitimation theory claims that a government has the right to rule if it is "legitimate"; H. chosen according to the rules. However, the Enabling Act of March 24, 1933 came into existence legitimately in this sense. Therefore, the principle of legitimacy is not enough. It is an answer to the question “Who should rule?”. This question is wrongly asked. It must be replaced by the question of how the constitution can be designed so that the government can be got rid of without bloodshed. What matters is not how the government is set up, but the possibility of its removal.

See also

literature

  • Ralf Dahrendorf : Challenges to Liberal Democracies. Lecture on the tenth anniversary of the Federal President Theodor Heuss House Foundation (= Federal President Theodor Heuss House Foundation, Kleine Reihe 19), Stuttgart 2007.
  • Quirin Weber: Parliament - Place of Political Decision? Legitimation problems of modern parliamentarism - illustrated using the example of the Federal Republic of Germany. Basel 2011, ISBN 978-3-7190-3123-7 .
  • Bettina Westle : legitimation . In: Everhard Holtmann (Ed.): Political Lexicon . 3rd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2000, ISBN 978-3-486-79886-9 , pp. 341-346.
  • Franz-Reiner Erkens : sacredness of rule. Legitimation of power in the course of time and space. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2002 (Reprint 2015), ISBN 3-050-03660-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gernot Sydow: Administrative cooperation in the European Union (=  Jus publicum: Contributions to public law . Volume 118 ). Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2004, ISBN 3-16-148553-X , Part Three: Legitimation of Cooperation Processes, p. 235, fn. 1 ( restricted preview in Google book search [accessed on May 2, 2019] "As a habilitation thesis on recommendation of the Law Faculty of the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg printed [...] "):" Legitimation is a process, legitimacy its result. "
  2. ↑ Helge-Marten Voigts: The subjectification of common good interests as the democratization of administration (=  studies on administrative and administrative procedural law . Volume 2 ). Lit Verlag, Münster 2016, ISBN 978-3-643-13352-6 , The pair of terms “legitimation” and “legitimacy”, p. 136 ( limited preview in the Google book search [accessed on May 2, 2019] Diss.): "The term" legitimation "refers to the process or the act at the end of which legitimacy is to be achieved."
  3. ^ Gernot Sydow: Administrative cooperation in the European Union . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2004, Third Part: Legitimation of Cooperation Processes, p. 235 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed on May 2, 2019]): "Administrative procedures and administrative decisions require democratic legitimation based on the rule of law - not only within a national framework, but also within transnational and supranational cooperation structures."
  4. ↑ a b Reinhold Zippelius : Allgemeine Staatslehre. Political science. A study book . 16th edition, CH Beck, Munich 2010, p. 95.
  5. ↑ Alexander Schwan : Political Theories of Rationalism and the Enlightenment . In: Hans-Joachim Lieber (ed.): Political theories from antiquity to the present. Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1993, pp. 157–258, here p. 193.
  6. ^ Bettina Westle : Legitimation . In: Everhard Holtmann (Ed.): Political Lexicon . 3rd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2000, ISBN 978-3-486-79886-9 , p. 342 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  7. ^ Bettina Westle: Legitimation . In: Everhard Holtmann (Ed.): Political Lexicon . 3rd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2000, ISBN 978-3-486-79886-9 , p. 342 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  8. ↑ Martin Endress : Sociological Theories compact . 2nd, updated edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-486-73508-6 , pp. 53-66 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  9. ↑ Stefan Machura: Legitimation through procedure - what remains? In: Soziale Systeme 22 (2020) Heft 1–2, pp. 331–354.
  10. ^ Fritz W. Scharpf: Governing in Europe: Effective and Democratic? Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 1999; also on the following Vivien A. Schmidt: Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union . In: Erik Jones, Anand Menon and Stephen Weatherill: The Oxford Handbook of the European Union . Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2012, pp. 665–672.
  11. ↑ Karl Popper : Freedom and intellectual responsibility (1989), in: ders .: All life is problem solving. On knowledge, history and politics , 14th edition, Munich 2010, pp. 239-254.