Study On The Rousseau's Theory Of Political Legitimacy

As one of the most remarkable philosophers of the Enlightenment during the 18th century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau had much influence on the progress of the political civilization in the whole world. There are a lot of books and studies on Rousseau's ideas and theories, but few on his theory of political legitimacy. Here the author makes a systematic study of Rousseau's theory of political legitimacy. Through a comparison between the virtue of ancient city-state and the degeneration of modern society, Rousseau denied the illusory prosperity of modern society. However, he didn't make the ancient city-state as the only standard for the establishment of legitimate freedom and political order. Instead he backdated to the natural status, that is the very beginning of human society, and proposed to build a social structure similar to the natural status. With this unique idea, Rousseau claimed the political legitimacy was originated from the social contract, and he gave his own theory of social contract different from former scholars. Based on this theory, he invented the doctrine of popular sovereignty that called for the same structure of the rulers and the people and considered the general will under popular sovereignty as the basis of political legitimacy. To maintain political legitimacy in a political system, the general will should play a dominant role. Rousseau put forward a internal structure with institution, morality and religion as the three dimensions, which provided support to the basis of political legitimacy and helped the accomplishment of his magnificent theory of political legitimacy. Even though this theory was imperfect, as there were three paradoxes between natural status and social status, between individual freedom and collective freedom, as well as between populism and elitism, the value of an integrated theory can't be obliterated. It also gives us much enlightenment in building the socialist political civilization.