VCE Politics (Year 11) · Unit 1 — Politics, Power and Political Actors · 11m read

Power, Authority and Legitimacy — The Core Concepts of Politics

Politics is about who gets what, when and how. Power, authority and legitimacy are the concepts you will use in every Politics response from Unit 1 to Unit 4.

Learning objective: Define and apply the concepts of power, authority and legitimacy, including different forms of power.

By the end of this lesson you can:

• I can distinguish power from authority.
• I can explain what makes power legitimate.
• I can give examples of hard and soft power.

The teacher and the bully. A bully may have power over classmates, but a teacher has authority — power that the school community accepts as rightful. That acceptance is legitimacy.

Key concepts

POWER — the ability to influence others or outcomes.
• Hard power: coercion through force, threats or economic pressure.
• Soft power: attraction and persuasion through culture, values and diplomacy (term popularised by Joseph Nye).
• Economic power, political power, people power (mass participation).

AUTHORITY — power that is formally recognised as rightful.
Max Weber identified three types:
• Traditional (custom, e.g. monarchy).
• Charismatic (personal qualities of a leader).
• Legal-rational (rules and laws, e.g. an elected government).

LEGITIMACY — the acceptance that a person or body has the right to exercise power. Sources include free and fair elections, constitutions, the rule of law, effective government and popular consent.

Worked example (Medium)

A military general seizes control of a country in a coup and rules by force. Analyse their power, authority and legitimacy.

1. Power. High hard power through control of the military.
2. Authority. No legal-rational authority — power was taken outside the constitution.
3. Legitimacy. Low: citizens and other states may not accept the government as rightful.

Answer: The general has significant coercive power but lacks constitutional authority and is likely to have low legitimacy.

Common mistakes

• Using power and authority as synonyms Authority is a specific type of power. Fix: Authority = power recognised as rightful.
• Assuming legitimacy only comes from elections Legitimacy also comes from tradition, performance and consent. Fix: Identify the source of legitimacy in each case.

Practice questions

1. Power based on attraction and persuasion is called:

   1. Hard power
   2. Soft power
   3. Coercion
   4. Traditional authority

   (1 marks)

2. An elected parliament’s authority is best described as:

   1. Traditional
   2. Charismatic
   3. Legal-rational
   4. Coercive

   (1 marks)

3. Explain the difference between power and legitimacy, using an example.

   (3 marks)

Summary

• Power = ability to influence; hard vs soft.
• Authority = recognised, rightful power (Weber’s three types).
• Legitimacy = acceptance of the right to rule.
• Always apply concepts to examples.