Beyond belief: an emotional critique of Weber’s political legitimacy

Political legitimacy has been a fundamental concept of analysis since the ancient Greeks, and remains of enduring interest across the social sciences. Yet, divisions exist, with explicitly normative analyses dominating in political theory concerned with the justifications for political authority (e.g. Hobbes, Locke, Rawls, Pettit), contrasting with more descriptive approaches in sociology and political science (e.g. Dahl, Lipset, Parsons), along with more hybrid approaches linking the two (e.g. Habermas, Beetham). The work of Max Weber remains a cornerstone for all strands, and for whom legitimate domination or rulership (Herrschaft), which ‘constitutes a special case of power (Macht)’ (Weber, 1978, p.941), itself has two sides – one associated with the ‘objective’ system of political order, another with the ‘subjective’ realm of social action. The stability of the former, and its claim to political legitimacy, is fundamentally predicated on the latter and especially on the belief in its legitimacy (Weber, 1978, p.212; Netelenbos, 2016). Yet, this focus on belief has been subjected to critique by many, for instance, Beetham (1991), who introduces a moral dimension. Yet, in this literature, little attention is given to the emotional dimensions of political legitimacy, and some of the old problems that the sociology of emotions has confronted in recent decades – such as the reason/emotion dichotomy and disembodied models of social action – remain in evidence. This paper aims to make a theoretical contribution to the emerging sub-field of the political sociology of emotion, based on a critique of Weber, and by exploring a new, emotions-centred understanding of political legitimacy.