The Role of the Imagination in Legitimizing Power

This paper argues that the imagination plays an essential role in the (de)legitimization of power in two respects. First, the claim to power is legitimated by reciprocal belief in that claim, belief being a product of the imagination. I strengthen Paul Ricoeur’s argument that “ideology” creates reciprocal belief in the claim to power by substantiating his new theory of surplus-value and by situating ideological images within his general philosophy of imagination. Second, the formation and collapse of belief in legitimacy is explainable by reference to the dialectic between the reproductive (ideological) and productive (utopic) imagination. The productive imagination delegitimizes power by creating alternative realities in which the beliefs that legitimate power are undermined. In the course of defending these twin claims, I develop a theory of political legitimacy informed by the philosophy of imagination, one sub-branch of which is social imagination theory.