Law creates legitimacy structurally by formatting power-holders into chains of mutual recourse

Evidence

The law, however, not only guarantees those without power a share in social power; it also arranges the co-operation of different power sources, above all the co-operation of economic, political and military power. With the help of the legal/illegal dichotomy it is possible to format those communications which link several power-holders to chains in which one can make use of the power of another. If we accept an idea of Stinchcombe’s, that such formatted possibilities of recourse to the power reserves of others show one’s power to be legitimate, then we can see that the law as power-code creates legitimacy structurally (and without it being bound to particular values or even the convictions of the power-subject). Legitimacy is then no more than the formation of contingencies within the sphere of power. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 674

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines legitimacy as structural contingency-formation within power, stripped of values — key for the reader’s argument about Darlington’s appeal to honor.
• XREF: Legitimacy as form rather than values connects to Stevens’s faith in the ‘greatness’ of Darlington Hall; the institution lends legitimacy by structuring recourse. — connects to: Legitimacy arises from inclusion plus deliberation filtered through reasons — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 16; A competitive order requires deliberate legal and institutional construction — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 134; The market replaced law as the source of state truth and legitimacy — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 98 (+2 more)