Legitimacy: Importance & Sources

Submitted by:-
Mranal Sharma

Faculty in charge

Dr. Mayengbam Nandkishwor Singh

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, ASSAM

GUWAHATI
 Table of content

1. INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………
1.1 Literature Review………………………………………………………
1.2 Scope and Objectives…………………………………………………..
1.3 Methodology…………………………………………………………….

2.Idea of Legitimacy…………………………………………………………..

3.Sources of Legitimacy………………………………………………………..
3.1 legitimacy by result………………………………………………………
3.2 legitimacy by habit ………………………………………………….….
3.3 legitimacy by historical, religious, or ethnic identity…………………...
3.4 legitimacy by procedure……………………………………………..

4.Challenges & Importance of legitimacy……………………………………..

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….

Bibliography………………………………………………………………

Chapter-1
 INTRODUCTION
Political legitimacy is a virtue of political institutions and of the decisions—about
laws, policies, and candidates for political office—made within them. The term
legitimacy is derived from Latin word “Legtimus” which means lawful. However in
modern times, the term has different meaning. According to S.M. Lipset, “legitimacy
involves the capacity of the system to engender maintain the belief that existing
political institutions are most appropriated for society”.1

Legitimacy is usually defined simply as ‘rightfulness’. Legitimacy is the quality that

transforms naked power into rightful authority; it confers upon an order or command
an authoritative or binding character, ensuring that it is obeyed out of duty rather than
fear.

Historically, legitimacy was associated with the state and institutions and decisions
within the state. The contemporary literature tends to judge this as too narrow,
however. This raises the question how the concept of legitimacy may apply—beyond
the nation state and decisions made within it—to the international and global context.
If legitimacy is interpreted descriptively, it refers to people’s beliefs about political
authority and, sometimes, political obligations. In his sociology, Max Weber put
forward a very influential account of legitimacy that excludes any recourse to
normative criteria. According to Weber, a political regime is legitimate means that its
participants have certain beliefs or faith in regard to it.

1.1 Literature Review

1. R.C. AGRAWAL: Political theory Principles of Political Science:-

This book gives a review on what the idea of legitimacy is by sighting as to how
legitimacy works.
1
S. Chand Dr. Vidhya Dhar Mahajan, Political Theory 5th edition 2014 page 192-193
2. S. Chand Dr. Vidhya Dhar Mahajan, Political Theory 5th edition

This book contains comprehensive study of the subject. It gives us precise

information about the idea of legitimacy and the origin of the terminology of
the word legitimacy and gives us an insight on the different viewpoints of
various thinkers on the concept of legitimacy.

3. W. Phillips Shively, Power& choice : An introduction to political science, 3rd

edition
This book gives us in detail the nexus between the power and legitimacy of that
power and gives us an idea of the
1.2 SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES

SCOPE:

This research paper aims the objective to limelight the importance and sources
legitimacy

OBJECTIVES:

1. To an idea of the meaning of legitimacy

2. Project reads in detail the sources of political legitimacy

3. Project aims to bring to notice the importance and challenges to political

legitimacy.

1.4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In this project, researcher has adopted Doctrinal research. Doctrinal research is

essentially a library-based study, which means that the materials needed by a
researcher may be available in libraries, archives and other data-bases. Various
types of books were used to get the adequate data essential for this project.
Researcher also used computer laboratory to get important data related to this topic.
Researcher also found several useful websites which were very useful to better
understand this topic.
 Chapter 2:
Idea of legitimacy

Legitimacy is defined as the quality of an act or arrangement which is regarded as

lawful by those affected by it. In other words, they regard it reasonable and beneficial
for themselves as well as for the society at large2.

The idea of legitimacy has been interpreted by many scholars differently for example-

Dahl writes, “according to one use of term, a government said to be legitimate if the
people to whom its orders are directed believe that the structure, structure, procedure,
acts, decisions, policies, officials or leaders of the government possess the quality of
righteousness, propriety or moral goodness and should be accepted because of this
quality irrespective of the specified content of the particular act in question.”

Legitimacy of an act or arrangement implies that the members of society treat that
arrangement as beneficial to society as well as to themselves.so they willingly tend to
abide by them. Legitimacy is based on respect and willing compliance.

Wellman’s (1996) Samaritan account of political legitimacy is also an attempt to

overcome the problem that showing that political institutions and the decisions made
within them have beneficial consequences is not sufficient for political legitimacy. In
his account, a state’s legitimacy depends on it being justified to use coercion to
enforce its laws. His suggestion is that the justification of the state can be grounded in
the Samaritan duty to help others in need. The thought is that “what ultimately
legitimizes a state’s imposition upon your liberty is not merely the services it
provides you, but the benefits it provides other.

“Political power is legitimate only when it is exercised in accordance with a

constitution (written or unwritten) the essentials of which all citizens, as reasonable
and rational, can endorse in the light of their common human reason”

Rawls idea of public reason, which is at the core of the liberal principle of legitimacy,
rests on the method of “political”—as opposed to “metaphysical”—justification that
Rawls has developed in response to critics of his theory of justice as fairness (Rawls

2
O.P. Gauba, an introduction to political theory, 6th edition 2013,page 310
1985). This means that public reason should be “freestanding” in the same way as his
theory of justice is. Public reason should involve only political values and be
independent of—potentially controversial—comprehensive moral or religious
doctrines of the good.
 Chapter 3:
Sources of legitimacy

How does a government achieve a reasonable degree of legitimacy?

There are many ways in which the people’s allegiance may be bound to a government
so that it is generally considered legitimate:

3.1 Legitimacy by Results

The first way in which a government can gain and retain legitimacy from its subjects
is by providing them with the things they want: security against physical assault,
security of their country’s borders against invasion, pride in their nation, economic
security and so on. If the government can provide these things, its legitimacy will be
greatly strengthened. If it cannot, its legitimacy is likely to be called into question.

If the people feel that their sense of security are intact whether it is personal security
or economic security people support and acknowledge the legitimacy of the
government.3

3.2 Legitimacy by habit

Once the government has been around for a while, people become accustomed
generally to obeying its laws. People expect to operate under some government or
other, and so whatever government is in place and has been obeyed in the past is
likely to be regarded as legitimate-unless a particular crisis arises or some force
(another state, perhaps) intervenes from outside. In other words once a particular
government has been in place for a while, so that the people have developed the habit
of obeying it, it on longer has to perpetually justify its existence. Rather, the burden of
proof lies with whoever would propose an alternative government. The existence
government remains legitimate unless and until a compelling alternative comes along.
We should not underestimate the importance of simple habit in maintaining
governments in power4

3
W. Phillips Shively, Power & choice: An introduction to political science, 3 rd edition, page 114
4
W .Phillips Shively, Power& choice: An introduction to political science, 3 rd edition, page 115
3.3 Legitimacy by historical, religious, or ethnic identity

Many governments strengthen their legitimacy by the ties that exist between
themselves and their subjects because of the government leaders’ past
accomplishments (their historic role) or because of the religious and/or ethnic
similarity between the government leaders and the people.

This is important in the case of a newly formed state, in which government has not
been in place for long enough for the people to get accustomed to treating it as
legitimate and in which the many economic and social problems that plagues most
new states make it difficult for the government to achieve legitimacy by results.

For example in the context of India the Gandhi family enjoyed unchallenged
supremacy in the politics before of their accomplishment in the struggle of freedom.
Similarly the government of South Africa used whites’ fears of blacks to strengthen
its legitimacy among the white population. Religious or ethnic ties may also be used
by a government to enhance its legitimacy.

3.4 Legitimacy by Procedure

The fourth and final way in which a state can strengthen its legitimacy of its
government is by following certain procedures in setting itself up-procedures in which
many people have confidence, so that they will start off with a fund of trust for any
government that has been established along these lines.

Democracy is the best example of Legitimacy by procedure. Typically democratic

government are chosen by competitive elections in which all citizen vote to decide
who is going to govern. Since the winning government has the support of majority of
people it gains a stronger base of legitimacy. It is the government “of the people”

The procedure of democratic election are what give such a government a good part of
its legitimacy. A person may not like a particular leader but it is hard to argue with
their right to govern as long as they have been elected by the proper procedure.
 Chapter 4:
Challenges and importance of legitimacy

Legitimacy is a crucial aspect of all power relations. Without legitimacy, power is

exerted through coercion; with legitimacy, power can be exerted through voluntary or
quasi-voluntary compliance. Legitimacy lies at the core of state-citizen relationships
and thus of the whole state-building agenda. The logic used in the state-building
agenda is that an authority which lacks legitimacy will be challenged, resulting in
increased instability. 

To decide whether a regime own legitimacy, it does not depend on the claim of legal
basis by ruler himself, but depends on whether the majority of population really
recognize the regime. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that why legitimacy
would always relate to democracy. The idea of legitimacy shows that the basis and
foundation of the government come from public's support is the only source of
government power.

Legitimacy is important for all regimes. Legitimacy sustains political stability as it

establishes the reasonableness of a regime, or says, provide reason for the regime to
exist. That is why Weber point out that regime must arouse legitimacy belief of the
people if they tend to maintain their rule.

Legitimacy is “a reservoir of loyalty on which leaders can draw, giving them the
discretionary authority they require to govern effectively.” 

It is important because the stability and functioning of any kind of political regime—
including democratic or representative ones—relies on the combination of the
capacity of rulers and government officials to use coercion and the development of
political legitimacy.

First, these political systems will be more resilient to survive periods of crisis, and,
second, rulers and authorities will enjoy a fundamental condition needed to formulate
and implement policies in an effective manner (i.e., they will be able to make
decisions and commit resources without needing to obtain approval from the ruled
and without resorting to coercion for every decision). The issue of political legitimacy
can therefore be considered to be of utmost importance in politics and political
analysis.

 Extensive empirical research found that there are at least five important dimensions
of political legitimacy that are relevant for the stability and effectiveness of
democratic regimes:

(1) Support for the political community

(2) Support for the core regime principles, norms, and procedures

(3) Assessment of the regime performance

(4) Support for the regime institutions

(5) Support for the authorities.5

 Democratic governments need to convince their citizens, with some frequency, that
they are receiving something in return for their compliance. This is easier to achieve
in established democracies where governments are capable of formulating and
enforcing public policies and where the continued experience with democracy has
enabled the development of a considerable reservoir of democratic legitimacy among
citizens.

Weber identifies legitimacy as an important explanatory category for social science,

because faith in a particular social order produces social regularities that are more
stable than those that result from the pursuit of self-interest or from habitual rule-
following6. In contrast to Weber’s descriptive concept, the normative concept of
political legitimacy refers to some benchmark of acceptability or justification of
political power or authority and—possibly—obligation.

5
Political Legitimacy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legitimacy/
6
Ibid
 Conclusion

Legitimacy is a belief, held by individuals, about the rightfulness of a rule or ruler. It

has collective effects when it is widely shared in a society. In domestic political life,
these effects may include a stable social order that appears consensual. This is what
we mean when we speak of a ‘legitimate regime’ and ‘legitimate authority,’ and it is
what we strive for in post-conflict societies. In international political life, the effects
of collectively held legitimated rules include social order but also perhaps the end of
international anarchy. Since the concept of ‘anarchy’ among states depends on the
absence of legitimate rule, the degree to which international structures of authority are
believed to be legitimate is also the degree to which the international system cannot
be considered anarchic.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

1. W.Phillips Shively, Power& choice :An introduction to political science, 3rd

edition
2. O.P. Gauba, an introduction to political theory, 6th edition 2013
3. S. Chand Dr.Vidhya Dhar Mahajan, Political Theory 5th edition 2014

ARTICLES
1. Political legitimacy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legitimacy/
2. Political legitimacy and democracy:
https://www.luc.edu/media/lucedu/dccirp/pdfs/articlesforresourc/Articl
e_-_Aragon_Trelles,_Jorge_2.pdf
3. Political legitimacy:
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4020-
9160-5_201
4. Politics and political legitimacy : http://www.sparknotes.com/us-
government-and-politics/political-science/politics-and-political-
science/section5.rhtml
5. Legitimacy : https://pesd.princeton.edu/?q=node/255