Lesson 2

Legitimacy and authority (Max Weber)

- Politics represents the struggle for power.

- Being a leader means having the power to make decisions for the well-being of the people of the state

- Decision making = having power

- Why should the ones who are ruled listen to the ruler, why accept domination? Because there are 3 types of
legitimacies/ types of domination, pure, ideal types – which will never be found as such in history, just as a
mixture:

1) Traditional domination (patriarch, monarch)

2) Charismatic domination (prophet, war lord, demagogue)
3) Legal domination = “legality” (servants of the state)

*the demagogue is peculiar to the Occident

Professional politicians can ether live for politics (those that have a calling) or off politics.

There are 4 major types of prof. pol:

– the clergy
– the educated literati (humanistic age)
– the court nobility
– the trained jurists

Politicians by vocation appeared in the modern state due to the complexity of the state

Political administration follows other laws than capitalist enterprises

The state represents a compulsory association which organizes domination. There has to be a separation of
public functionaries into administrative officials and political officials.

The civil servants’ honor = ability to execute conscientiously the order of the superior authority

The honor of the political leader = exclusive personal responsibility for what he does

The decisive means for politics is violence.

Qualities of politicians:

– sense of proportion (balance in decision making)

– responsibility (to not abuse the power he has)
– passion (believing, being involved)
There are 2 ways of acting for politicians:

– acting according to final means (ethic of ultimate ends)

– acting according to responsibility (ethic of responsibility)

Politics as a science: political science

Political science is a social science because it is:

– empirical
– explanatory
– peer-reviewed
– non-normative (objective, unbiased, non-judgmental)

Political science:

– -does not have an already made object;

– it formulates its own questions, it conceptualizes, compares;
– is interested in ideologies, in the relationship between party and electorate; compares
parties as institutions;
– can’t afford to use stereotypes (it has to deconstruct them)
– is not ideology (these are subjects of study)
– is not the same as political behavior
– never use private perception
– pol. Scientist are not the same as pol. Commentators (that are somewhere between
journalists and public intellectuals)

Political science differs thus from journalism, as the later one gathers information regarding
current concerns, the focuses are already made objects, uses stereotypes and should create
political or social awareness.

Social Sciences were born in the 19th century due to:

– scientism
– industrial revolution (mass-ification, individualism, estates)
– the evolution of educational institutions (modern universities, public libraries)

Political science came to be as a result of major historical changes:

– the nation-state (with its administration and population)

– massification of citizenship => democratization => political rights
– large number of political actors
– simultaneous birth of economy
*after the Second World War important factors were the new technologies for storing
information and behaviorism