1. Legitimacy
a. What is legitimacy? What role does it serve in governance? Illustrate your response with examples.
In politics and governance, legitimacy is a term that is attributed to a regime, administration or institution that possesses widespread acceptability, support and trust from the public at large (Hague and Harrop 2013). It is this attribute that usually gives a political entity the right to govern and the right to exact obedience from its subjects. Legitimacy, particularly political legitimacy, is said to result from consent, beneficial consequences, and public reason and public approval. The consent theory as related to political legitimacy is aptly illustrated by Locke’s social contract theory in which the people and the state enters into an implicit agreement whereby the latter administers the business of the nation for the good of the people as a whole in return for which the former pay taxes to the state and obey its laws. The theory of beneficial consequences as a source of legitimacy is underpinned by the utility theory whereby a political entity is endowed with legitimacy only if it has usefulness, such as its laws for example, to the people. Finally, the theory of public reason and public approval as a source of legitimacy provides that a political entity or institution can only be legitimate if it exercises the kind of power that the subjects can find reasonable and rational (Peter 2010).
Legitimacy is important in governance because it endows the state with authority to impose its laws and exact obedience from the people. If a government is perceived to be without authority or has lost its authority to govern people will resist and ignore its rule and may even rebel against it. Chaos will ensue creating a domino effect that impacts the economy, society and peace and order. For example, King Louis XVI, who ruled France from 1774 to 1791, was perceived an ineffective ruler. This was aggravated by the fact that he allowed the parliament and public opinion to overwhelm him. His indecisiveness caused the erosion of his legitimacy as a ruler, and in 1792, the people rose up against the king and executed him and his wife, Marie Antoinette (Boyle 2011).
b. When comparing democratic governments with dictatorships, we find that dictators have generally greater difficulty establishing legitimacy than democratic leaders. Why is this the case? Illustrate your answers with examples.
The various theories of the sources of legitimacy stated in Question no. 1, whether consent, beneficial consequences or public reason and public approval, are centered on the people as the underpinning anchor. In the consent theory, it is the people who do the consenting; in the beneficial consequences theory, it is the people who determine whether the government policies and actions benefit them and; in the public reason and public approval, it is still from the perspective of the people whether the actions of the government are rational or reasonable. In other words, legitimacy is endowed by the people and not by the political entity. This contrasts starkly with the concept of dictatorship, since the latter refers to a one-man rule. In a dictatorship, only one person determines how politics is conducted in the country and his decisions are imposed unilaterally on the people without giving the latter to air their opinions and deliberately suppressing the people’s freedom of speech so as to rule all forms of resistance and objections. Necessarily, the atmosphere in a government run by a dictatorship is one of suppression, censorship and oppression. People may suffer this kind of political oppression at one time or another, but not all of the time because a courageous voice of resistance may one day emerge compelling enough to make people realize to see things as they are and trigger an uprising against the one-man rule. This is why a dictatorship can never be a stable form of government, it will always lack legitimacy because people cannot consent to their own oppression, or see themselves as benefitting from laws that suppressed their rights and freedoms or ever find reason in one person dictating every aspect of their lives.
An example of the difficulty of dictatorships to establish legitimacy and secure the stability of their existence is the events of the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring is a principal Arab movement that began in December 2010 in Tunisia and reverberated throughout the Arab World until 2012. The movement toppled several dictators, including Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Ben Ali of Tunisia, and Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya. The Arab Spring affected six countries in the Arab World, yet it was fueled only by a mere Tunisian fruit vendor who set himself on fire after a police officer confiscated his fruits and slapped him after he attempted to take them back. This event triggered protests in Tunisia and in most of the Arab World (O’Malley 2015). The movement illustrated the legitimacy of dictatorships hang by a thread so that a small isolated incident such as the fruit vendor’s self-immolation in Tunisia could have turned the world upside down.
c. It is often noted that in winning the 2000 presidential race, George Bush’s victory provided him with a weak case for legitimacy. Why?
The 2000 US presidential election was fraught with controversy, which is the reason why there was doubt as to the authenticity of Bush’s victory and his legitimacy to assume the country’s presidency. The result of the election was so close that there was doubt as to who really won the election. In fact, Al Gore won the popular election, but George W. Bush won the electoral vote although this was subjected to protest. On the night of the election, no clear winner emerged as races in several states were too close to call and even the media were not unanimous in their reports of exit-polling numbers. Eventually, Florida became the state that would determine the winner as the results in other states were even. Gore was initially favored to win in Florida, but developments during the night showed Bush taking the lead. This led Gore to believe that Bush had won, but figures in the following morning showed that Bush’s lead was diminishing. When the mandatory statewide recount was completed, Bush lead over Gore was only 327 out of the 6 million votes cast. The Gore team challenged the hand recounts conducted in some counties and the use of confusing ballot designs in others. For example, Palm Beach county used the butterfly ballot design, which confused some Gore voters and forced them to vote for Pat Buchanan who, as a result, got 20% of his votes in the state in Palm Beach. The Florida Supreme Court ordered a manual recount of 45,000 ballots that were rejected by machines for unclear markings. This further decreased the lead of Bush to a mere 154 votes. Before the recount could be completed, Bush’s team filed a stay of the Florida Supreme Court order of recount pending the decision of the US Supreme Court of the case. After granting the stay on December 9, 2000, however, the Court issued another order reversing the Florida order of recount on the grounds that such a recount would not meet the December 18 deadline for electoral certifications. This, in effect, made Bush the winner of the elections by 271 over Gore’s 266 (Levy 2016).
The narrow, nay unclear, victory of Bush over Gore in the 2000 elections hounded his presidency for a long time and put in doubt the legitimacy of his assumption to the top position in the Oval Office. As earlier cited under the theory of consent, a political entity’s legitimacy springs from the consent of the people that it governs. Before that entity can assume governance over its subjects, the latter must first of all consent to its assuming the office and governing them. A president, under the US democratic system, can only be a legitimate president if the people elected him to that position under the majoritarian rule. The vote of the majority of the people represents the consent of the people for the person chosen to govern them. The failure of Bush to establish a clear victory over Gore that was not attended by controversy and doubt made his legitimacy as the president of the US suspect and in doubt. As a matter of fact, a political strategist for Bush had once remarked that some people never accepted Bush legitimacy. Moreover, the doubt placed on his legitimacy had made it difficult for him to deal with the public and Congress many times, which means that had his legitimacy not been put into question he would have been a more effective president (Radin and Chanin 2012).
d. How did the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon greatly strengthen Bush\s claims for legitimacy?
The attacks perpetrated by terrorists in the World Trade Center and in Pentagon on September 11, 2001, galvanized the American public as a society against the attackers. Their integrity and safety as a people are at stake and they badly needed a strong and decisive leader who can make the right moves to show that the United States cannot be trifled with or be threatened in their own backyard. George Bush, perhaps seeing the opportunity to shore up his doubted legitimacy, step up to the plate by making decisive actions allaying the fear of most Americans that their country is helpless against terrorism. Bush responded and played on that fear by placing actions against terrorism at the top of his administration’s agenda: thus, the War on Terror. The horrific experience of the public during the attacks and the following days dovetailed with the Bush agenda. For example, when he swiftly ordered military operations in Afghanistan a month after the attacks, his popularity ratings rose to 90% (History.com Staff 2010). At last, the doubt placed on the Bush legitimacy as a result of the 2000 presidential elections was fast disappearing.
The 9/11 attacks, thus, helped Bush strengthened his legitimacy as the country’s true president. By swiftly acting and making decisive actions against terrorism and even gaining support internationally, he has impressed the American public. This once more illustrated that the source of legitimacy is always the public – the people being governed by the political entity claiming legitimacy. Under the theory of public reason and public approval, a political entity gains legitimacy when the public finds reason and rationale in its actions and approve of them. Here, the public needed a decisive and strong leader who can ease the fear they suffer from the trauma of the 9/11 attacks. To the public, the War on Terror makes sense and is reasonable to vindicate the loss of lives and property that resulted from the terrorist attacks. By exercising the kind of power, which in the public’s mind is the correct response to the events, Bush has gained the approval, admiration and respect of the public and his legitimacy as a president is bolstered.
2. Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances
a. What is the key principle of the separation of powers? What value does it serve in the governance of democracies?
The key principle behind the separation of powers is the prevention of tyrannical rule. When vast amounts of power is held in the hands of a few or in one single person, it gives those few the opportunity to exercise such powers absolutely and capriciously to the detriment of the public who are usually at the receiving end. This is the reason why the doctrine of separation of powers is considered the cornerstone of democracy.
Under the doctrine of separation of powers, powers of the government are shared by three branches of government: the executive, the legislative and the judiciary. The legislative makes the laws, the executive enforces the law and the judiciary applies the law. The advantage of this system is that it prevents one entity from imposing itself over the other entities because without the powers wielded by the other branches, its power is not complete and absolute. Had it been otherwise, all powers will be concentrated in one political entity and that one political entity will then have unlimited powers. For example, it is near impossible for the executive to abuse its powers because it is dependent on the legislative to create the laws that it has to enforce. It may influence the legislature, but it cannot directly impose itself on it to pass the laws that it wants pass. Similarly, it cannot force the judiciary to apply the law in a certain way because the Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the law. However, since the US is a common law country, the judiciary is more powerful than the judiciary in civil law countries, because judges can establish case law upon which future cases can be decided on. The legislature is a very powerful branch because it determines what law should govern the people, but it is, nevertheless, limited because it cannot enforce the laws it passed. It cannot even interpret the law it made because this power belongs to the judiciary. The doctrine of separation of powers helps perpetuate democratic rule. Democracy is characterized by the ascendancy or supremacy of the people, which exercise this power through their chosen representatives. Democracy is difficult without a separation of powers because it will always be at risk for the abuse of power or tyrannical rule. Equality among people then becomes impossible and the people are reduced to subjects. Since the doctrine prevents the accumulation of powers in the hands of a few or in one person, it guarantees that democracy reigns supreme.
b. What is the meaning of the concept of checks and balances? How do checks and balances help prevent tyrannical government?
The doctrine of checks and balances is a necessary adjunct to the doctrine of separation of powers – that is, it only becomes possible if there is separation of powers in place. This is because the doctrine presupposes that one political entity can police the other entity freely and independently. Checks and balances, thus, refer to a system in which the three different branches of government is able to check on how the other branches exercise their powers through the use of powers endowed on them by the Constitution. This implies that these branches are not entirely independent from each other. For example, the executive branch can veto the laws passed by Congress although Congress is the law-making body of the land. On the other hand, the legislature can override the presidential veto and even remove the president through impeachment under certain conditions. The judiciary for its part can review executive actions, but it is the executive that appoints the members of the Supreme Court and federal judges. The legislature has the power to create lower courts, but the judiciary can declare passed by the legislature as unconstitutional (Kelly 2015). Checks and balances further cement the prevention of tyrannical government. Since no one branch can exercise absolute and unlimited power even in the powers assigned to them individually, there is a built-in system of equality of all branches. This prevents one branch from overwhelming other branches and emerging more powerful than the others.
References
Boyle, L. (2011). Louis XVI: Last King of France. The Jane Austen Centre. Retrieved from https://www.janeausten.co.uk/louis-xvi-last-king-of-france/
Hague, R. and Harrop, M. (2013). Comparative Government and Politics: An Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan.
History.com Staff (2010). Reaction to 9/11. History.com. Retrieved from http://www.history.com/topics/reaction-to-9-11
Kelly, M. (2015). Checks and Balances. About Education. Retrieved from http://americanhistory.about.com/od/usconstitution/a/checks_balances.htm
Levy, M. (2016). United States Presidential Election of 2000. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-2000
O’Malley, P. (2015). The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine - A Tale of Two Narratives. Penguin.
Peter, F. (2010). Political Legitimacy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Legitimacy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legitimacy/#DesNorConLeg
Radin, B. and Chanin, J. (2012). What Do We Expect from Our Government? Lexington Books.
