Miasto jako domena nieprawomocnego panowania
The City as the Domain of Non-Legitimate Domination

Summary/Abstract: In this article I present the historical process of organising the relations of domination in cities, seeking justifications for Max Weber’s thesis that such domination is, in principle, non-legitimate. This quality has characterised the very essence of the city since the beginning of the existence of this form of human coexistence. By applying typologising idealisations, I carry out a review of the relations of domination in European cities, from Antiquity to the modern day. In them, domination invariable appears as non-legitimate, though to differing degrees. A certain novelty is manifested in the ideas, debates and urban civil movements of today: they are developing for themselves rationale that validate actions taken, and which are supposed to supersede the deficit of legitimisation that is typical of cities. However, their scope is limited, and they are not characterised by authoritative effectiveness as a “maxim of their conduct” (definitional for legitimate domination) adopted by others. In the light of the assumptions adopted, these endeavours appear as the creation of partial validations diverging from the actual sphere of domination and limited to residual spaces and scopes of authority in cities. This confirms the fundamental legitimacy of conclusions deriving from the analysis conducted by Max Weber.

• Details
• Contents