B. Find sentences in the texts illustrating their usage.

Ex. 13. Translate the text into English

TEXT 3: ПОЧЕМУ ПРОИСХОДЯТ (TO OCCUR) РЕВОЛЮЦИИ?

Если легитимность помогает обеспечить (to ensure) политиче­скую стабильность и выживание режима, то когда легитимность рушится (to collapse), результатом этого, с определенной степе­нью вероятности, (is likely to be) становится обращение (a resort to) к репрессиям или далеко идущим политическим изменени­ям. Изменения — одна из самых важных характеристик полити­ческой жизни. Однако подходы политических мыслителей к из­менениям полярны (to differ enormously). Если (while) консерва­торов всегда отличает «стремление к консервации» и отказ от изменений во имя преемственности (continuity) и традиций, то либералы и социалисты, как правило, приветствуют изменения как проявление (manifestation) прогресса.

Знаменуют (to mark) ли собой изменения прогресс или раз­рушение, рост или спад, они всегда являются продуктом одного из двух процессов: эволюции или революции. Считается, что жолюционные изменения, (are thought of) как правило, прохо-чят в виде реформ, постепенных улучшений внутри социальной или политической системы. Реформы, поэтому, представляют гобой изменения внутри преемственности, не отмену или заме­ну того или иного института, а его реорганизацию или реструк-i урализацию (rather than).

Революция, напротив, это коренная ломка (root- and- branch ihange). Революции полностью изменяют (to recast) политиче­ский порядок, принося с собой, как правило, резкий и часто насильственный разрыв (break with) с прошлым. До сих пор ве­ется серьезные дебаты по поводу как природы революции, так и исторических, социальных и политических условий, в которых рптлюции происходят с наибольшей вероятностью.

Ул. 14. Translate the text into Russian

TEXT 4: LEGITIMATION CRISES

An alternative to the Weberian approach to Legitimacy has been

Лч eloped by neo-Marxist theorists. While orthodox Marxists were

ik lined to dismiss legitimacy as bogus, seeing it as nothing more

 

than a bourgeois myth, modem Marxists, following Gramsci¹, have acknowledged that capitalism is in part upheld by its ability to secure political support. Neo-Marxists such as Jurgen Habermas² have therefore focused attention not merely on the class system, but also on the machinery through which legitimacy is maintained (the democratic process, party competition, welfare and social reform, and so on). Nevertheless, they have also highlighted what they see as the inherent difficulty of legitimising a political system that is based on unequal class power. In Legitimation Crisis {1973), Habermas identified a series of 'crisis tendencies' within capitalist societies that make it difficult for them to maintain political stability through consent alone. At the heart of this tension, he argued, lie contradictions and conflicts between the logic of capitalist accumulation on the one hand, and the popular pressures which democratic politics unleashes on the other.

From this perspective, capitalist economies are seen to be bent on remorseless expansion, dictated by the pursuit of profit. However, the extension of political and social rights in an attempt to build legitimacy within such systems has stimulated countervailing pressures. In particular, the democratic process has led to escalating demands for social welfare as well as for increased popular participation and social equality. The resulting expansion of the state's responsibilities into economic and social life, and the inexorable rise of taxation and public spending, nevertheless constrain capitalist accumulation by restricting profit levels and discouraging enterprise. In Habermas's view, capitalist democracies cannot permanently satisfy both popular demands for social security and welfare rights and the requirements of a market economy based on private profit. Forced either to resist popular pressures or to risk economic collapse, such societies would find it increasingly difficult, and eventually impossible, to maintain legitimacy.

Ex. 15. What do you think?

1. How do individuals and groups acquire their political attitude and values?

2. Do democratic regimes depend on the existence of a distinctiv

'civic culture'?

3. Are modern societies characterised by free competition between values and ideas, or by a 'dominant' culture?

4. How do regimes maintain legitimacy?

¹ Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) - Italian marxist and social theorist. ¹ Jut-gen Habermas (1929—?) - German philosopher and social theorist.

 

5. Are modern societies facing a crisis of legitimation?

6. What happens when legitimacy collapses? Why do revolutions occur?