4 DEMOCRACY

• legitimacy - from the Latin legitimare, meaning ‘to declare lawful. ’broadly means ‘rightfulness’. Legitimacy therefore confers on an order or command an authoritative or binding character, thus transforming power (see p. 5) into authority (see p. 4).
• Three types of authority by Weber:

  • traditional
  • charismatic
  • legal-rational
• Features of Legitimation:

  1. elections & party competitions
  2. constitutional rules that reflect how people feel about how they should be governed
• How can democracy promote legitimacy?

  1. Consent
  2. Process of compromise, conciliation, negotiation
  3. Operated as feedback system
• Are non-democratic regimes illegitimate?

  • fear instead of consent
• Three forms of non-democratic legitimation:

  1. Elections -> non-competitive, rigged, oneparty
  2. Performance legitimation -> ability to deliver
  3. Ideological legitimation -> establish broader goals and principles, sense of rightfulness
• democracy - a system of rule that serves the rights and interests of

  minorities by placing checks upon the power of the majority
• Models of Democracy

  • Classical Democracy
  • Protective Democracy
  • Developmental Democracy
  • People's Democracy
  • Liberal Democracy
• Classical Democracy:

  • overlap between ruled and ruler
  • no need for representation
  • direct democracy
• Protective Democracy

  • Indirect democracy -> representative form of gov’t
  • Lockean -> protect citizens from over-mighty gov’t
  • gov’t by consent (representative assembly)
  • denote indiv rights and liberties of only property owners
• Developmental Democracy

  • Rousseauist
  • democracy as means to achieve freedom
  • citizens are “free” if they participate in community
  • concerned with the development of individual and community
  •  indirect democracy -> representative form of gov’t
• People’s Democracy

  • indirect democracy -> representative form of gov’t
  • from communist regimes
  • goal of social equality brought about by common ownership of wealth
• Liberal Democracy

  • limited government -> limited powers to secure individual rights and liberties
  • constitutional democracy
  • indirect and representative
  • based on competition and electoral choice -> through political pluralism
• Cosmopolitan Democracy

  • construction of world parliament vs reform of existing international organizations
• Pluralist view of democracy

  • rule by many -> divided gov’t, separation of powers, bicameralism, federalism
  • part competition
• Elitist view of democracy

  • rule by a privileged minority
• Corporatist view of democracy

  • integration of economic interests into gov’t
  • Major groups compete to shape gov;t policy
• The New Right view of democracy

  • defense against arbitrary gov’t
  • advocates free market
• Marxist view of democracy

  • power concentrated on the ruling class
• Political system - A network of relationships through which government

  generates ‘outputs’ (policies) in response to ‘inputs’ (demands

  or support) from the general public