An Analysis of Politics and Legitimacy under Circumstances of Modern Society

Democratic politics in the modern society provides the necessary premise for reflection on legitimacy of political power.The paper analyzes the three criteria for justification of political legitimacy,namely,empiricism,use of norms,and utilitarianism,and maintains that in the modern society,the essential resources that support political legitimacy lie in legitimacy of rise and operation of political power,legitimacy of the value system,and legitimacy of provision of the public political products.Any single resource of legitimacy is insufficient to support legitimacy of modern political power.Therefore,the modern government should be highly concerned with the integration of legitimate resources in order to raise the quality of governance and to guarantee legitimacy of its power accordingly.