A Theory of Political Power and Rights: A Secret Exchange for Legitimacy

Abstract

As of today, debates over political power are divided between theorists who see empowerment as a shrewd ruse of power, leading to domination (Nietzsche, Foucault 1983) and theorists who consider empowerment as the key to overcoming domination in more or less sophisticated forms (Kant 1781, Lukes 1974). This opposition dictates that power in our understanding of modern society is a domain of apparent antinomies (Gallie 1956; Dean 2012; Forst 2013a). However, it seems that the deeper study of modern society shows that both positions have some truth to it. The main question of this work is “What is legitimate political power? In my Ph.D. dissertation, I have investigated the concepts of political power and rights. I tried to transcend the notion of political power and distinguished it from mere exercise, domination, or subject dispositions. I aimed to criticize authoritarian and totalitarian regimes – monarchies and polyarchies -, their instruments of power: Natural Law, the miranda, and credenda of power (Merriam 1934) and their legal order. I elaborated on the legitimacy of power and principle of democratization to show that it is the right of people to question political power and its instruments to the extent that such critique helps to reach a political equilibrium –in procedural and effectual consequence- in which there is mutual recognition of the right and the authority between those who govern and those who are governed. More importantly, I investigated in the nature of power. This mean, how power restricted itself or empowered itself and with which instruments. This is one of the main theories proposed in my investigation which I called “political consciousness”. I will argue that “a consciousness on the government's part that it has a right to govern and with some recognition of that right by the governed” (Ibid) would be one of the essential characters of a legitimate power. The result of this research is to show that the theory of ‘political consciousness is one of the important social-political empowerment’ and cornerstone of a legitimate power. It is also to show that political power is an ‘essentially integrated concepts of ‘power’ and ‘right’: it comprises the concept of political ‘power’ - qua authority - and political ‘rights. In this sense, the obligation and empowerment are two sides of political power: it gives the right of justification to an authority –power over- and give the right of political participation to the people- power to/of. Furthermore, the result of this research shows that power is a Janus-Faced. The combination of ‘power as domination’ and ‘power as right’ would be determining aspect to assess whether to see power as the reason for domination or power as the reason for empowerment. In any case, this work shows how a power can be legitimate or illegitimate.