The democratic authority and the system of political authorization: a concept and a model

Abstract

Democratic Authority is seen as a especific form of authority relations, present in modern liberal democracies. It can be distinguished from other forms by its persuasive, rational content. Increasingly, key political decisions need to be justified and judged one by one. A whole new group of professional public-relations experts, spokesmen and pollsters has to deal with these new demands. Weber's and Simmel's conceptions of authority are re-examined and revised in order to accommodate conditional and persuasive processes of authorization. Following the definition of Democratic Authority, an analytical model of an Authorization System is presented and described. This model may help to understand authority relations in a given political culture, by providing the sociologist with clearly demarcated authority zones and their respective communities. Several of the interactions between these are discussed along with arguments on the relationship between political regimes and different systems of authorization. The article ends with some thoughts on the possible evolution of democratic authority relations in developed liberal-democratic political systems.