Legitimacy in the Modern State

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Transaction Publishers, 01.01.1981 - 359 Seiten
This analysis of the concept of authority in Western society constitutes a central work in political sociology and a fundamental critique of the process of modernization. Schaar proposes that legitimate authority is declining in the modern state. Law and order, in a very real sense, is the basic political issue of our time -- one that conservatives have understood with greater clarity than their liberal adversaries. Schaar sees what were once authoritative institutions and ideas yielding to technological and bureaucratic orders. The later brings physical comfort and a sense of collective power, but does not provide political liberty or moral autonomy. As a result, he argues, all modern states exhibiting this transformation of authority into technology are well advanced along the path of a crisis of legitimacy.

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Inhalt

Foreword
1
Legitimacy in the Modern State
15
The Uses of Literature for the Study of Politics The Case of Melvilles Benito Cereno
53
Review of Diana Trillings We Must March My Darlings
89
The American Amnesia
99
America the Homogeneous
109
The Circles Of Watergate Hell
117
Reflections on Rawls A Theory of Justice
145
Equality of Opportunity and Beyond
193
Equality of Opportunity and the Just Society
211
And The Pursuit of Happiness
231
Insiders and Outsiders
251
Violence in Juvenile Gangs
273
The Case for Patriotism
285
Power and Purity
313
Decadence and Revitalization Reflections on the Present Condition
331

Some Ways Of Thinking About Equality
167

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Seite 220 - And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul : neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
Seite 134 - The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
Seite 154 - Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.
Seite 292 - Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there need be no bloodshed or war.
Seite 154 - Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.
Seite 233 - NOTHING can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a Good Will.
Seite 84 - Though in general not very demonstrative to his officers, he had congratulated Lieutenant Ratcliffe upon his good fortune in lighting on such a fine specimen of the genus homo, who in the nude might have posed for a statue of young Adam before the Fall.
Seite 20 - Legitimacy involves the capacity of the system to engender and maintain the belief that the existing political institutions are the most appropriate ones for the society.
Seite 134 - Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood : it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their...

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