Leadership cult, terror, abdication and the transition to democracy: Soviet relations of domination and their il/legality and il/legitimacy An elaboration of social, political and legal theory
An elaboration of social, political and legal theory
Although there is wide agreement among students of social and political theory that the basis of legitimacy of any authority is rooted in a harmonious cohabitation between a tangible/objective dimension – the right to use coercive force in the name of legality – and a less tangible/subjective dimension – the manipulation of a set of values claimed to be shared by its followers -, the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate authority remains blurred. Max Weber himself, the theorist whose works provided us with the first comprehensive conceptual and empirical framework of problems of legitimation acknowledged this issue. He stated that “…the legitimacy of a system of domination may be treated sociologically only as the probability that to a relevant degree the appropriate attitudes will exist, and the corresponding practical conduct ensue” and only as long as the administrative apparatus is in a position to carry out authoritative commands (Weber, 1978, p. 214).
Later research concerned with problems of power, authority, domination, legitimacy, and illegitimacy incorporated the Weberian account by theorizing domination as a relationship of command and obedience. Moreover, Weber’s three types of legitimacy – rational-legal, traditional and charismatic – have been and continue to be utilized in the analysis of power and authority as employed by various political regimes, whether democratic, authoritarian, totalitarian, militaristic, socialist, communist or fascist. But despite the bulk of the work that has included such a variety of regime types and their different scenarios of endurance and dissolution, social and political theories have not yet produced a theory of domination that successfully distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate domination. Past and current cases show that certain regimes manage to stay in power without any significant popular support and only through passive compliance and coercion. What is less evident is the degree of opposition and lack of genuine support involving both subjects and bureaucratic personnel that could lead to the breakdown of a political order.
Analysts of the Soviet case were also caught in this dilemma and tried to explain the mechanism through which communist regimes and especially the satellites of the Soviet empire, attempted to manufacture their legitimacy by adjusting or departing from Marxist-communist ideology. In describing these regimes they used terms such as “paternalism” (Feher, 1983), “new traditionalist legitimacy” (Heller, 1982), “goal-rational legitimation” (Rigby, 1982) or “totalitarianism” (Friederich/Brzezinsky 1952, Arendt 1966). Such characterizations were useful in indicating that these regimes were trying to cope with their lack or loss of legitimacy by trying to ‘nativize’ the regime, by co-opting its subjects into passive compliance, or by enhancing the power of coercion of the administrative apparatus. What these theorists failed to address was the extent to which these methods of legitimation could prolong and/or lead to the collapse of the communist authorities.
As a working group, our goal is to clarify these unanswered questions and to further elaborate a theory of domination, which sharpens the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate domination and at the same time incorporates legal theory.
- We can accomplish these goals by using an interdisciplinary methodological and conceptual framework that cuts across the disciplines of history, law, sociology and political science. We will focus on the following aspects and cases of former communist regimes:
- The examination of the consequences, in the 1950s and beyond, of the lengthy and unprecedented terror that spread throughout all areas of the Soviet system (economic, military, cultural) and penetrated the highest echelons of the communist party in respect to the illegitimacy of Soviet and imperial relations of domination. The long-term legacies of terror led to disillusionment and disidentification with communist parties and their networks that in turn determined the failure of any attempts at reforms and mobilization from within the system (the worker’s councils in Hungary in 1956 and in the former Czech and Slovak Socialist Republic in 1968, Gorbachev’s attempts at reform and mobilization in the late 1980’s etc.).
- An analysis of centralized ideological domination as promoted by the Soviet regime through censorship, rules and conventions that governed communication and confined the ideological debate within the boundaries of both the communist party and unrefined Marxist Leninist ideology as well as within the existing administrative and political hierarchies.
- An exploration of the relationship between forms of political legitimacy employed by the communist regimes in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania and the subsequent models of revolutionary change. Although in all four cases communist authorities failed in promoting rational-legal forms of legitimacy, the differences in the composition of bureaucratic personnel influenced the role and position of the leadership of communist parties in 1989 and after.
- A study of the cult of personality as a strategy for legitimating the communist regime in Hungary before 1956 under Rakosi’s leadership and after 1956 when the anti-cult stance became a crucial component of Kadar’s government.
We expect to examine the following issue that would enable us to fill the gaps within the Weberian account of domination, power and authority:
- It is necessary to maintain the distinction between three levels of analysis – the political and economic order, relations of domination, and mobilization for action – in order to understand and draw the distinction between il/legal and il/legitimate regimes.
- Along with terror and coercion, conventions that become deeply inscribed in the established practice of public communication are equally important in preserving the domination of the regime or in eroding its legitimacy.
- Regimes become vulnerable and susceptible to breakdown when rulers lose belief in their own authority and legitimacy. The deeper this loss is, the more abrupt and violent is the experience of dissolution.
Even if this undertaking is retrospective, it has very strong implications for the current turmoil experienced by socialist regimes in China and Cuba. It also has broader relevance for the large number of regimes that have emerged as a result of the fourth wave of democratization and are caught between electoralism and authoritarianism (e.g. Central Asian Republics, Georgia).
Working Group Coordinator
Monica Ciobanu, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at State University of New York Plattsburgh. Monica received her Ph.D. in sociology from the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science at the New School for Social Research in New York in the spring of 2005. Her doctoral dissertation was titled Problems of Political Legitimacy and Democratic Consolidation in Post-Communism: the Case of Romania in Comparative Perspective.
Contact: monica.ciobanu [at] plattsburgh.edu
Members
Balasz Apor, Chris Armbruster, Timur Atnashev, Thieu Besselink
last modified: 2007-03-29
