The Legitimizing Function of Solidarity

This paper aims to clarify the notion of solidarity and to argue that it is an essential condition to support the descriptive legitimacy of a polity. Solidarity is a contested concept (Stjernø, 2009, p. 2), but its prime meaning is relatively straightforward: it connotes the ‘set of feelings’ (Parijs, 2004, p. 375) of belonging together, which supports ‘attitudes of mutual acceptance, cooperation and mutual support’ (Banting and Kymlicka, 2017, p. 3). Solidarity is also often associated to the idea of solidarity as a ‘set of transfer’ (Parijs, 2004, p. 375) involving ‘redistribution of resources in favour of those in need’ (Bayertz, 1999) through the national welfare state. The connection between solidarity as communal feelings and as welfare transfers goes both ways, as redistributive policies contribute to reinforcing feelings of mutual solidarity (Beer, de and Koster, 2009). In turn, solidarity feelings support redistributive policies as they ‘tend to cause people to seek out situations in which there are strong feeling of cooperation, mutual identification, and similarity of status and position’ and the perceived uneasiness caused by social inequalities is ‘the result of the loss of mutual identification brought about by the differences in wealth’ (Crocker, 1977, p. 263). Some authors maintain that the relation between solidarity as a set of feelings and solidarity as a set of transfers constitutes a virtuous circle that, once set in motion, accelerates its momentum: solidarity as a set of transfers requires the substratum of fraternal feelings, yet this is also reinforced by the transfers (Mueller and Keil, 2013, pp. 128–129). Solidarity does not imply that citizens should pursue the same goal, but only that they are willing to support the group regardless of whether they agree with its current aims (Kolers, 2012). This reveals a conceptual affinity between solidarity and descriptive legitimacy, conceiving this last concept as the capacity of the state to generate “Legitimitätsglaube” (Weber, 1956, p. 122) – the belief in its right to rule – as opposed to ruling through coercion alone. If legitimacy is accordingly viewed as an inclination to willingly obey political decisions one disagree with, it seems to be a top down correlate of bottom up solidarity. Legitimacy is the ability of the centre to create solidarity, while solidarity is the horizontal disposition to support the centre. Just like security and peace, sustained solidarity is a necessary condition for the effective functioning of any spatially demarcated community and for mediating the inevitable tensions between market and democracy (Polanyi, 2002). There is a need for solidarity as the ‘inner cement holding together a society’ (Bayertz, 1999, p. 9), the ‘glue that binds society and prevents it from disintegrating’ (Banting and Kymlicka, 2017, p. 5). Organized solidarity can be seen in this light as one key ‘primary good’ (Rawls, 1971, p. 54), instrumental to whatever other goods people may want to pursue, as without a solid system of cooperation pursuing any other normative goal is impossible (Williams, 2005).