A Study On The Legitimacy Of Political Order

The legitimacy as the core concept of political science and political philosophyhas become the focus of political theory.since ancient times. With history ofphilosophy as background systematic analysis the meaning,funding sources andinternal structure of legitimacy, and show the pluralistic structure of the legitimacyand its contemporary development. This article expand these ideas through fivechapters.Among them, the first chapter is the introduction. First is a brief introduction ofthe background and purpose of writing this article. Try to clear the possible sources oflegitimacy, and demonstrate legitimacy-based content of the political order. Thenconclude the status quo and the theoretical results at home and abroad. In this paper,the domestic research is divided into two part, the comprehensive study and typicalstudy, also propose three stages of the development of legitimacy theory.Chapter II, through the analysis of historical documents, examines the etymologyof "legitimacy" of and the evolution of it’s meaning,and then through the contrast ofthe philosopher’s points of different times, sum up the key implications of"legitimacy" so as to determine the definition of "legitimacy". At the same time,through the analysis of the existing academic literature on the legitimacy,uses"political order" as the defined word of the legitimacy. Next, we give a detailedanalysis of the perspective of the study,this is the emergent approach and teleologicalapproach.Chapter III analyses the power base of the legitimacy of political order in theperspective of emergent approach, that is the consent rom the members of theCommunity. This part puts forward that the consent theory involves three aspects:First of all is contract which is based on the whole consent and provides the strongestlegitimacy;then is democracy with the characteristics, one-person-one-vote and themajority to decide to, in the political life,it provides strong legitimacy, but facingsome insurmountable predicament; Finally, the theory of implied endorsement, the strength of legitimacy need to distinguish between the specific circumstances. We canfind that the behavior of consent only can provide limited legitimacy, theestablishment of legitimacy also need a solid continuation of the public good, so weneed a good governance of the political order.In the fourth chapter, we analyses good governance which also can providelegitimacy in the perspective of teleological approach. The concept of goodgovernance is in line with the requirements of the globalization and democratizationtimes.the key content of Good governance is the government’s own capacity tomake a good governance, which is based on the effective good government, and iscarried out on a balance state covered by the government,society and individuals.Then we discuss the internal logic connections of good governance and legitimacy,and summarizes five standards of good governance to meet the requirements oflegitimacy.Finally, in conclusion,we argue that the legitimacy has a compositestructure,which is based on the consent and make good governance as thesuperstructure.Legitimacy itself is different in degree of strength. The liberaldemocracy alone can not fully reflect the intrinsic meaning of the legitimacy, on thebasis of the development of democracy, we must continue to raise the government’scapacity to govern, to broaden the inclusiveness of the political order and internalcohesion in order to achieve a state of harmony under multi-governance by thegovernment society and individual.