The problem of political legitimacy : a comparative analysis of the theories of John Rawls and Seyla Benhabib

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The purpose of this thesis is twofold: In the first place, I aim to define the main features ofthe problem of political legitimacy – understood as the normative justification of agoverning regime – together with the criteria which a convincing theory of politicallegitimacy must fulfil. In the second place, I evaluate two influential theories of politicallegitimacy in light of these criteria: John Rawls's liberal principle of legitimacy and SeylaBenhabib's theory of deliberative democracy. My conclusion is that the latter provides uswith a better standard for evaluating and justifying political rule than the liberal modeldeveloped by Rawls. In order to reach this conclusion, I begin by interrogating the conceptof political legitimacy generally. I argue for a normative rather than a purely descriptiveunderstanding of political legitimacy, give a brief overview of the historical developmentof the question of legitimacy and then turn my attention to the current state of the debateabout the normative justification of political authority. From the preceding investigation, Iextrapolate five criteria that a convincing account of political legitimacy must fulfil. Suchan account must: 1) provide a coherent method for evaluating – as opposed to merelydescribing citizens' beliefs about – any particular government; 2) address the problem ofplurality; 3) provide normative grounds for the authority of a governing regime; 4)account of the relationship between such authority and citizens' duties/obligations; andlastly 5) incorporate the pursuit of stability. With these five criteria in hand, I move on tothe evaluation of Rawls's and Benhabib's theories of political legitimacy. Chapter Two isdevoted to Rawls's position. After explaining the main tenets of this position, I evaluatehis theory in light of the five specified criteria, and conclude that his account of politicallegitimacy ultimately fails to account for genuine plurality in so far as he seeks to limitpolitical conflict to a very small and tightly defined public sphere. Chapter Three isdevoted to Benhabib's theory of deliberative democracy, and follows much the samestructure as the previous chapter. I first set out the main tenets of Benhabib's theory, andthen evaluate this theory in light of the specified criteria. I conclude that the theory of deliberative democracy provides us with a more convincing theory of political legitimacythan the liberal model espoused by Rawls, for three reasons: 1) contrary to Rawls'sattempt to minimize, contain and ultimately remove fundamental disagreement within ourpolitical lives, Benhabib takes the deep and dividing disagreements among citizensseriously, and develops a theory of political legitimacy that is able to incorporate these disagreements within a more expansive public sphere; 2) as a direct result of the previousfeature, the theory of deliberative democracy is better able to account for the relationshipbetween political authority and citizens' duties and obligations, and hence 3) resolves theproblem of stability in a way that Rawls's liberal model of political legitimacy is unable to do.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University