What Confers Political Legitimacy in a Modern Society?

In this essay Wight considered several sources of legitimacy for a modern Western society. A well-functioning state bureaucracy is a necessity. Popular consultation involving the consent of the governed is also essential. In Britain elective parliamentary democracy meets this need. Citizens must agree on the principle of respecting current laws pending their revision through legal channels. A new authoritative source of legitimacy may replace an old one if citizens transfer their loyalty to it. Time may either heal the injured and legitimate the results of social conflicts or exacerbate antagonisms. Communist regimes and right-wing autocrats such as General Franco in Spain and the Shah of Iran appealed to a principle of ‘legitimation by success’. Other legitimation myths have included ‘childhood ideas of Robin Hood’, ‘the siege’, and ‘the pilgrimage’, but the most fundamental source of legitimacy resides in the blood shed for a society’s independence and the rebirth of its great founding principles. This bloodshed justifies the society’s rededication to pursuing its unfinished work. An opposing question concerns the individual dissenter’s political legitimacy, which must hinge on certain criteria (such as rationality and conscientiousness) to win moral respect. The ‘rationalist illusion’ supposes that citizens can be critical spectators in the proceedings of their own society and its politics. Such detachment is not attainable, and derives from the fallacy that political life can be reduced to the conscious and purposeful management of material needs.