Political Legitimacy And Political Authority

Democracy, in its truest sense, does not exist. There is no political authority currently existing where every person contributes an equal amount to the decision-making process of the authority’s directives. The election of officials and representatives by the populace does not, in itself, automatically result in the most democratic and widely accepted directives being enacted. However, this does not decrease the political power of the authorities, nor does it limit their practical power over their jurisdictions.

Conversely, this might limit their moral authority. Wolff asserts that only possession of a moral right to rule genuinely gives rise to moral obligations that must be obeyed. Furthering this, Shapiro suggests that a lack of moral right to rule results in a lack of legitimate authority, despite being widely accepted. This was termed de facto authority. Under this criterion, Shapiro argued that single-party states such as the Soviet Union lacked political legitimacy, as they did not receive their power through democratic means. It can be argued that political legitimacy is a means of justifying authority.

What is political legitimacy?

At this point, it would be useful to distinguish between political legitimacy and political authority. Buchanan stated that an authority has political legitimacy when “morally justified in wielding political power,” whilst political authority exists only where “in addition to possessing political legitimacy it has the right to be obeyed by those who are within the scope of its rules.”

In Rawl’s view, legitimacy allows political powers to wield power through creating a pro tanto moral duty to obey it. Without legitimacy, the authority would not be justified in exercising power and t...

... middle of paper ...

...nse.

In cases where following the directive would be counterproductive, the issuance of the directive as a pre-emptive reason to act would prevent us from carrying out the correct action. For example, if a car carrying a grievously injured person was stuck in traffic, would it be acceptable to use an empty lane designated solely for buses in order to arrive at the hospital faster? Following the instrumentalist theory, the directive that only buses could use the empty lane would be a pre-emptive reason not to use it, outweighing the reasons that directly applied to the situation. When is it acceptable to override a pre-emptive reason to act? Raz states that even when the authority’s directive is incorrect or mistaken, we “should still conform with them because we are required to do so by the authority, and not because of the other reasons that support the action.”