Rybakova, O. B. Religious Aspect of Legitimation

Abstract: The article is devoted to the concept of legitimation of power from the point of view of personal commitment to the existing regime. To explain and justify the elements of the institutional tradition, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann offer to view legitimation in terms of its cognitive and regulatory components which, as the author of the article states, points out that legitimation also deals with the basic (cognitive and regulatory) functions of religion and therefore directly relates to and depends on the ‘superior reality’ (Talcott Parsons). Based on the classical research of social terms carried out by Emile Benveniste, the author of the article analyzes the semantic meaning of the terms ‘power’, ‘authority’, ‘trust’ and ‘commitment’ in terms of their relation to legitimation. At the end of the article the author concludes that all social terms that have been studied by sociologists and comprise the process of legitimation have roots in religion and relate to religious perception of the world as well as religious vertical relations (between people and God) even more than horizontal religious relations (between people themselves). This proves the above mentioned thesis made by Talcott Parsons. However, while the religious nature of legitimation of theocratic and monarchical regimes seems quite obvious, democratic processes happening under the conditions of social secularism challenge the researchers to conduct a more depth-in research of the motivational aspect of legitimation.

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