POLI 100 Lecture 3: Power and Authority
19 Feb 2019
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Power the ability to get people to do what they would not otherwise do: associated with coercion", forcing people, power = authority consent (contract) The state has both power and authority. When a person refuses authority, that authority becomes power because there is no longer any consent: legitimacy is the key concept in understanding the conversion from power to authority, abuse of power can erode authority. Legitimacy: recognition of power by the ruled as legitimate accepted, just, and justi ed. Power consented to (accepted by the ruled) makes it authority: but power > ideas about legitimacy. Mao tse-tung: power ows from the barrel of a gun. : power held ends up legitimizing itself through the generations (david hume) Weber: sees legitimacy as a morally neutral side effect of an inescapable socio-political phenomenon: all rulers legitimize themselves by convincing the people that their rule and their rule only is just rule.
