Hegemony, Ideology and Legitimacy | PSIR Optional for UPSC (Notes) PDF Download

Hegemony

• The notion of hegemony is especially difficult to enumerate both in concrete political terms and in a less tangible philosophical manner. It is the political, economic, or military predominance or control of one state over others. In Ancient Greece (8th century BCE - 6th century CE), hegemony signified the politico-military supremacy of a city-state over other city-states. The dominant state is known as the hegemon.
• In theoretical viewpoint, hegemony is the expression of society's ruling classes over the majority of the nation or state over whom they propose to rule. Gramsci (1971) describes hegemony as, “a conception of the world that is implicitly manifest in art, in law, in economic activity and in all manifestations of individual and collective life.”
  

Five dimensions of the concept of hegemony

• Military: The hegemon has the strongest military in the world, considerably stronger than any of its rivals. Its military alliance system is significantly stronger than any rival military blocs.
• Economic: The hegemon has the biggest and most technologically advanced economy in the world. It is a major trading partner of most of the nations of the world, including most of the major powers.
• Political: The hegemon has array of political allies, and friendly relations with most nations and major powers.
• Institutional: The hegemon, working with its associates, makes most of the rules that govern global political and economic relations. The hegemon, along with its allies, usually controls most of the international institutions. Thus, most of the policies of the international institutions favour the hegemon and its partners.
• Ideological: The hegemon mainly determines the terms of discourse in international relations. Marx wrote, "The ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of the ruling class." Currently, the predominant ideas about globalization are the ideas of hegemon.
• In the ancient world, Plato and Aristotle categorized the several types of hegemony together to form 'civilisation'. Therefore, to be an Athenian Greek was to be a civilised member of the hegemony of the emerging nation state; to be a 'barbarian' was to be an uncivilised member of the outposts of society, the parts where hegemony had previously failed to infiltrate as a paradigm and as a cultural and economic force. 
• It becomes obvious that hegemony must co-exist with the comprehensive notion of empire, which is itself constructed upon the concrete foundations of economic dynamism harvested through the procurement of resources. The notion of empire changed irreversibly during the beginning of modern history where industrialisation proved to be the catalyst for the significant, seismic shift in the view of hegemony as cultural, economic and political benchmark. 
• The Victorian period observed the traditional European empires of France, Belgium, Britain and Germany use their vast military and economic superiority to carve up the undeveloped world amongst each other with the procurement of raw materials and economic resources utilised as the main motivation for extra territorial action.

Ideology

• Ideology is one of few terms to have originated in political science, having apparently been developed by Count Antoine Destutt de Tracy, who survived the revolution to publish Elements d’Ideologie in 1817 (Hart 2002; Head 1985). The term has been contentious almost from its inception (Sartori 1969).
• In wider perspective, ideology can be explained as the way a system a single individual or even a whole society rationalizes itself. Ideologies may be idiosyncratic (Lane 1962), impractical, or even delusional, but they still share the features of coherence and temporal stability. In the view of Erikson & Tedin (2003), ideology is a “set of beliefs about the proper order of society and how it can be achieved”.
• Napoleon used “ideologue” as a nickname to indicate irrational dedication to democratic principle. By the mid-nineteenth century, the main principle of the ideologues popular sovereignty was attacked from both the right (divine right) and the left (dictatorship of the proletariat). Marxist theory used the concept of ideology to define the process through which the dominant ideas within a given society reflect the interests of a ruling economic class.
• The negative implication of ideology was reinforced by Karl Mannheim, who contended that ideology was inherently conservative because it derived its ideal model of society from the past and who contrasted it with utopian thinking, which he defined as future-oriented (Geoghegan 2004). David McLellan (1995) stated that ‘Ideology is the most elusive concept in the whole of the social sciences.’
• In the start of the twentieth century, the term ideology was rarely employed beyond limited references concerning political philosophy. This obscurity was apparent in the pages of the Review.
• Basically, a political ideology is a belief system that provides a perspective on various political issues, such as the proper role of elected officials and the types of public policies that should be prioritized.

Legitimacy

• In political science, legitimacy is the widespread acceptance of an authority, usually a governing law or a regime. Political legitimacy is considered a rudimentary condition for governing, without which a government will suffer legislative impasse and collapse. 
• In political systems where this is not the case, unpopular regimes survive because they are considered legitimate by a small, influential choice. In Chinese political philosophy, during the historical period of the Zhou Dynasty (1046–256 BC), the political legitimacy of a leader and government was derived from the Mandate of Heaven, and unjust rulers who lost said mandate therefore lost the right to rule the people.

Types of legitimacy

German sociologist Max Weber explained the three types of political legitimacy

• Traditional- Traditional legitimacy derives from societal custom and habit that highlight the history of the authority of tradition. Traditionalists understand this form of rule as historically accepted, hence its continuity, because it is the way society has always been. Therefore, the institutions of traditional government usually are historically continuous, as in monarchy and tribalism.
• Charismatic - Charismatic legitimacy originates from the ideas and personal magnetism of the leader, a person whose authoritative persona charms and psychologically dominates the people of the society to agreement with the government's regime and rule. However, if the charismatic leader has a successor, a government derived from charismatic legitimacy might continue.
• Rational-legal - Rational-legal legitimacy evolves from a system of institutional procedure, wherein government institutions establish and enforce law and order in the public interest. Therefore, it is through public trust that the government will abide the law that confers rational-legal legitimacy (O'Neil, Patrick H., 2010).

Significance of legitimacy

• Legitimacy is significant for all regimes. Legitimacy sustains political constancy as it establishes the reasonableness of a regime, or says, provide reason for the regime to exist. Weber point out that regime must arouse legitimacy belief of the people if they tend to maintain their rule. Election, a significant element of democracy, is very important in the process of legitimization. Authoritarian regimes also tend to continue election, even non-competitive election. 
• Another device for regime to get legitimacy is constitution. Being a set of rules which lays down a framework in which government and political activity are conducted, its legitimization function can be analysed on two ways. First, constitution is almost a prerequisite for a state to be recognized by other states, where the external legitimacy comes from. 
• On the other hand, constitution can be used to promote respect and compliance among the domestic population, thus building up internal legitimacy.
• According to Samuel Huntington, a regime with strong legitimacy must have three kinds of legitimacy (1993). First is ideological legitimacy, that is, the value proposition of regime must be generally, voluntarily recognized by the people. Enforced ideological indoctrination is difficult to sustain such kind of legitimacy. Second is procedure legitimacy. The formation, change and operation of regime must be checked by citizen's vote. The ruling authority is limited and restricted by constitution or legal procedures.
• The third is performance legitimacy, which means that a regime supported by people should have satisfied performance.
• For a regime that only based on single legitimacy, if her performance is unsatisfied, people may question the value and procedures which the regime based on, thus legitimacy crisis would occur. Therefore, he stated that economic crisis is a political barrier that makes difficult for authoritarian regimes to come across. It can be said that Political legitimacy is the people’s recognition and acceptance of the validity of the rules of their entire political system and the decisions of their rulers.