Showing papers on "Legitimacy published in 1972"

Our Knowledge of the External World

Abstract: Our Knowledge of the External World is a compilation of lectures Bertrand Russell delivered in the US in which he questions the very relevance and legitimacy of philosophy. In it he investigates the relationship between ‘individual’ and ‘scientific’ knowledge and questions the means in which we have come to understand our physical world. This is an explosive and controversial work that illustrates instances where the claims of philosophers have been excessive, and examines why their achievements have not been greater.

The Uniform: A Sociological Perspective

Abstract: The uniform is viewed as a device to resolve certain dilemmas of complex organizations-namely, to define their boundaries, to assure that members will conform to their goals, and to eliminate conflicts in the status sets of their members. The uniform serves several functions: it acts as a totem, reveals and conceals statuses, certifies legitimacy, and suppresses individuality. The interaction of these components and the acceptance or rejection of the uniform and its associated status by the wearer are described.

The erosion of patron-client bonds and social change in rural southeast Asia

Abstract: This paper attempts to explain how, in Southeast Asia, the strong patron-client bonds which joined peasants to local elites tended to break down during the colonial period—particularly in directly-ruled low-land areas. By examining the effects of social differentiation, the commercialization of subsistence agriculture, and the growth of colonial administration on day-to-day class relations in the countryside, it is possible to show how a relationship the peasant once viewed as collaborative and legitimate came increasingly to be seen as one of simple, if unequal, bargaining or of outright exploitation.Patron-client relationships are seen as a pattern of exchange of goods and services in which the balance of exchange is related to the legitimacy of the relationship. In particular, physical security and subsistence insurance are minimal services the peasant anticipates in exchange for his deference. In the pre-colonial period the greater availability of alternative social mechanisms such as the kindred and village, the existence of unclaimed land, and the absence of strong outside backing of local powerholders served to provide minimal guarantees for clients, with the social and demographic impact of colonialism strengthened, the bargaining power of elites and moved the balances of reciprocity to their advantage the protective power and coverage of deference relations eroded. The result was a loss of legitimacy by agrarian elites.

The rights of the subject in social research: An analysis in terms of relative power and legitimacy.

Abstract: T HE increasing use of social research in American society and its increasing rele­ vance to public policy and social decisions have engendered widespread concerns about the ethical implications of such research activities. Briefly, these concerns are of two kinds: (a) con, cerns relating to the processes of social research, which are exemplified best by the issue of invasion of privacy and its various ramifications; and (b) concerns relating to the products of social research, which focus largely on the fear that social research may provide tools for controlling and manipulating human behavior and, more specifically, that these tools may be used by some segments of the society at the expense of others. Along with many social scientists, I share the conviction that hoth the process and the products of social research-both the attempt to ask syste­ matic and analytic questions about human behavior and social institu tions, and the answers provided by these attempts-are potentially liberating forces in our society. Social research, in my admittedly biased view, can and does contribule 10 enhancing the freedom of choice of the individual and 10 ex­ paDding the range of choices available to him. Yet,

Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis of a Political Phenomenon

Abstract: Many political regimes today draw such legitimacy as they have from a revolution: the destruction of an existing political elite and its replacement by a different group or groups drawn from inside the same society. A large part of the ideological dispute in world politics has come in consequence to turn on an interpretation of the character of revolutions as political and social events. It is extremely difficult to separate ideological assessments of the desirability or otherwise of what has occured in revolutions from causal explanations of why these revolutions occurred, and both major traditions in the analysis of revolutionary phenomena have been damaged by their failure to distinguish clearly between explanation and assessment. In examining eight major revolutions of the twentieth century, John Dunn helps readers to remedy this state of affairs by thinking for themselves.

Toward a New Sociology of Religion

Abstract: This paper questions the assumption that religion, or its functional alternatives, inevitably provides the basis for the cultural integration of all societies. In modern societies the process of differentiation has reached the point at which a normative order based on religious beliefs and values is no longer possible. This development, however, coincides with increases in productive capacity which tend to make less difficult the tasks of motivating enough individuals to work and of providing legitimacy for the social order. As a religious basis to the normative order becomes less necessary, religion will continue to have functions for certain strata and for private individuals, but these functions will be more likely to be expressive than utilitarian.

The Alien as a Servant of Power: Court Jews and Christian Renegades

Abstract: Mitchell, Robert E. 1964 "Methodological notes on a theory of status crystallization." Public Opinion Quarterly 28 (June) :315-25. Olsen, Marvin E. 1960 "Two categories of political alienation." Social Forces 47 (March) :288-99. 1968 "Perceived legitimacy of social protest actions." Social Problems 15 (Winter): 297-3 10. Olsen, Marvin E. and Mary Anna Baden 1970 "Legitimacy of social protest: black and white perspectives." Annual meeting of the American Socioligical Association. Rush, Gary B. 1967 "Status consistency and right-wing extremism." American Sociological Review 32 (February) :86-92. Segal, David R. 1969 "Status inconsistency, cross pressures, and American political behavior." American Sociological Review 34 (June) :35259. 1970 "Status inconsistency and party choice in Canada: an attempt to replicate." Canadian Journal of Political Science 3 (September) :471-74. Segal, David R. and David Knoke 1968 "Social mobility, status inconsistency, and partisan realignment in the United States." Social Forces 47 (December): 154-157. Segal, David R. 1969 "Class inconsistency, status inconsistency, and political partisanship in America." Working Paper No. 48 of the Center for Research on Social Organization, University of Michigan. Smith, Thomas 1969 "Structural crystallization, status inconsistency, and political partisanship." American Sociological Review 34 (December): 907-921. Sorokin, Pitirim 1927 Social Mobility. New York: Harper and Row. Sudman, Seymour 1966 "Probability sampling with quotas." Journal of the American Statistical association 61 (September):749-71.

Positive Support for Political Institutions: the Case of Congress

Abstract: T IS a truism that politicial systems, if they are to survive, must convince their relevant publics that they are effective and legitimate. Change produces crises of legitimacy, from which no polity is entirely immune. Although the legitimacy of political institutions in the United States has sometimes been taken for granted, it is clear that it has undergone periodic crises. It is thus appropriate that political scientists have begun to turn their attention to the level of public support for political institutions. Support has been described as a "summary variable" that constitutes a major linkage between the political system and its environment. Survival of a political system depends upon the maintenance of attitudes favorable to, and supportive of, its values and institutions. Fluctuations in support may stress the system in several different ways:

Monarchy, Bureaucracy, and Absolutism in the Political Thought of Ssu-Ma Kuang

Abstract: Contrary to accepted scholarly opinion, Ssu-Ma Kuang was not a leading spokesman for monarchical absolutism during the Sung dynasty. He conceived of “non-action” as a practical technique of government in which the various strata of the administration had their own unique areas of competence. The emperor, in his view, had only limited powers of decision-making. The outline of Ssu-Ma's theory of the proper relationship between bureaucracy and monarchy is that the bureaucracy is the official interpreter of the classical tradition, which was the criterion for the legitimacy of imperial decisions, and that the bureaucracy was to have wide-ranging discretionary power and delegated authority. The emperor was to rule through “non-action” by turning over authority to qualified subordinates.

Legitimacy and authority in the oau

Abstract: The notion of a subordinate African international system is widely posited and accepted. Political scientists have debated the means to, requirements for, and amount of political development in African states but have left largely unstudied the question of whether or not the African international system is developing--by which we mean developing a capacity to cope, by adapting to internal and external challenges. Our purpose in this essay is to study the development of the African system by examining the Organization of African Unity (OAU), with particular reference to its early years.

Religionswissenschaft or Religiology

Abstract: The following essay presents a few reflections on the history of religions as a discipline in the light of certain critical questions that have been raised lately by some authors. Such questions areWhat is history of religions? How is it related to theology ? Has it outlived its usefulness? Has the time come to replace it with a "unified discourse" that is at the same time scientific, theological, philosophical, and pastoral? Since the latter attempts are sometimes called "religiology", the title of the present paper is "Religionswissenschaft or Religiology ?" In the year 1887, P. D. Chantepie de la Saussaye began his Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte by stating that "Religionswissenschaft is a new discipline which developed independently only in the last few decades, and is still partly in the process of becoming and has to fight for recognition of its rights" (21, p. 2). Similar statements have been made throughout the eighty-four years that have passed since then. Method, status, and academic study of Religionswissenschaft are still subjects of discussions by representatives of that discipline as well as by scholars in other fields, among them especially theologians (lo4; 107). On an international scale though, the picture seems to be varied and even contradictory. Thus, in 1968, W. G. Oxtoby, then of the Yale University, testified to the prospering of the field in American universities and colleges (69, p. 590). In 1971, C. Welch states that the recognition of the legitimacy of the academic study of religion is a well established fact (122, p. 6). From these and other voices it could be inferred that, despite all methodological discussions currently carried on, Religionswissenschaft is a firmly rooted and recognized academic discipline that is not any more in the stage of becoming than any other discipline. After all, every branch of learning is in a constant process of development, and especially now wissenschaftstheoretische

Prophecy Effects and Tutorial Instruction for the Disadvantaged Child.

Abstract: In what has become one of the most widely-publicized educational experiments of the decade, Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) found support for the premise that one person's prophecy of another's intellectual performance can come to determine that other's intellectual performance. Their results indicated that a randomly chosen group of children, of whom teachers were led to expect marked intellectual growth, achieved significantly greater IQ gains than did control subjects. But reviews by Thorndike (1968) and Snow (1969) have raised serious questions about the legitimacy of the inferences drawn from that study. These critiques focus on two main points. First, analyses in the now famous experiment were performed on IQs derived from raw scores obtained with the TOGA (Tests of General Ability) which was chosen partly because it would probably be unfamiliar to teachers. Thorndike (1968) and Snow (1969) point up the inadequacy of the TOGA IQ norms for the youngest children tested-those for whom the reported prophecy effect was shown most clearly. Second, the reviewers call attention to the fact that the difference in mean gain between experimental and control groups was essentially zero for all grades except the first two. A methodological issue which has not yet been elaborated, however, is that all testing in the Rosenthal and Jacobson experiment This research was supported by a grant to the first author from the Center for Research and Advanced Studies at San Jose State College. The authors thank Mr. James Henman for his assistance in collecting the data for the study. 2 Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert J. Pellegrini, Department of Psychology, San Jose State College, San Jose, California 95114.

Political Conflict ana Revolution in an African Town

Abstract: The emerging patterns of life in contemporary Africa are most apparent in the often competing social and political groupings which have developed as basically rural populations have attempted to deal with the complexities of modern life. During the colonial period, these new groupings—whether rural or urban—were under the control of a dominant administration and seldom came into overt conflict. However, this is not now the case in most African towns. There, as in Ouagadougou, the capital of Upper Volta, a multiplicity of socio-political factions and multiple governing bodies all claim rights to power and legitimacy. The result is more open competition and conflict. This suggests that the “stability” claimed for colonial African societies was more a function of exogenous political factors than of inherent structural features in the social systems described. Until new dominant political structures emerge in Africa and establish mediating linkages with other institutional forms, there may well be a period of conflict and revolution.

Traditional History and Political Change Among the Matengo of Tanzania

Abstract: During the period of British colonial control of the former mandated territory of Tanganyika, political activity among the Matengo of the extreme south-western part of the country was characterized by opposition and conflict between two chiefly dynasties of the tribe. The issue on which the contending parties focused was that of the legitimacy of conflicting claims to the office of paramount chief. Both dynasties made use of versions of traditional history to support their claims to rulership. In this paper I propose to discuss the major features of these contrasting traditional histories and examine their significance for the understanding of aspects of political conflict and change in Umatengo during the colonial regime.

Authority and Legitimacy

Abstract: In common political language, authority is often confused with legitimacy. In their relation to power, authority and legitimacy are complexly intertwined. Some scholars have defined authority as some kind of power, for example ‘formal power’ or ‘rightful power’. We have explored above (see Chapter 7) the problem of what makes people accept authority, and we have seen that ‘acceptance’ is at times made the central criterion of authority. This tendency has given rise to various interpretations of authority, and to assertions concerning its source. Max Weber1 more particularly has in his discussion of sources of authority failed to distinguish clearly authority from legitimacy, and at times even equated these two related but distinct phenomena. He developed a tripartite theory of the sources of legitimacy, calling them ‘traditional’, ‘rational-legal’, and ‘charismatic’.2 He argued these sources in contrast to older notions which had been developed by earlier thinkers, notably Rousseau. For while the discussion about legitimacy goes in substance back to Plato, it was Rousseau who at the opening of his Contrat Social raised the question explicitly when he wrote: ‘Man is born free, but always he is in chains… what could make this legitimate? I believe I can resolve that question.’ Rousseau argued that it was basically the consent of the governed which could make it legitimate that people are ‘in chains’, that is, subject to government.

Soldiers in Politics: New Insights on Latin American Armed Forces

Abstract: In Latin America the 196os was a period of widening military roles in politics and renewed concern with military behavior in political life. As the armed forces took a larger share in government, there arose a corresponding pressure for explanations and interpretations of military behavior. Historians, however, had barely started basic studies of military institutions in the national politics of individual countries and political scientists had only begun to roll up their guns. In the absence of much information about national military establishments, the studies undertaken in the 196os had to be based on guesses or incomplete information in some important areas. Under the pressure for quick results, the process of appraising and explaining military behavior was also subject to the pull of contrary forces because of the highly controversial nature of the subject. As a result, explanations and judgments of military behavior became influential when they had value as arguments either for or against the legitimacy of the military's roles in politics. Once a stereotype of military behavior was formed, gained currency, and became widely accepted, it gave rise to a countering stereotype in the continuing debate. Consequently the dominant theories used to explain, interpret, and judge military behavior in politics and to provide a basis for analysis and recommendations

Women's Studies: Theory and Practice.

Abstract: youth and denied the honors of the older and more definitely outlined disciplines of the mind Its very title of 'discipline' is contested by many educational leaders Yet at least women's studies is a daring and masterful combination of accepted [disciplines] : of biology, ethnology, psychology, history, economics, and politics As such it is offering its new explanation of many ancient riddles of life and its still newer gospel of social control It not only boldly shows 'why we are so' but why and how we should become something different "x When she wrote this in 1913, Anna Spencer was describing not the new discipline of women's studies, but the brand new and then rather suspect field of sociology Wherever she used the term sociology, I have substituted women's studies, not to compare the two disciplines as disciplines, but just to point out that the content and techniques of sociology that were considered dubious in 1912 we now consider acceptable and sometimes even divinely ordained So much so that any university that did not offer a program in sociology today would be considered beneath contempt But sixty years ago sociology faced problems similar to those that women's studies faces today Women's studies, too, is not considered by some academics to be quite "legitimate" as part of a college curriculum In response to this, one might say simply that the definition of "legitimacy" is itself political, that the notion of legitimacy is a strategy to keep the in-people in, and the out-people out I myself see no reason why a full semester course on D H Lawrence is for some

Personal Qualities and the Intentional Fallacy

Abstract: In their article ‘The Intentional Fallacy’,1 Beardsley and Wimsatt raised problems about the legitimacy of certain critical practices. These problems, raised again in later writings2 and intensively discussed in recent years, remain unsettled and this lecture is intended to throw light upon them.

From "legitimacy" to "legitimations"*

Abstract: In this essay two conceptions of social order maintenance have been examined in the light of Mannheim's argument that concept use reveals the perspectivistic base of all knowledge. The perspectives from within which Weber evolved the concept of legitimacy and Berger and Luckmann the concept of legitima tions have been "imputed" from these concepts' idiosyncratic use. It has been found that legitimacy only has meaning within an "ideological" perspective which values the stabilization of existing institutions while legitimations has meaning within a "utopian" perspective which values the transformation of existing institutions. The concepts of order maintenance examined in this essay have a political function. They not only illuminate order, they seek to alter order by stabilizing or transforming it.