Endogenous Political Legitimacy: The English Reformation and the Institutional Foundations of Limited Government∗

This paper opens the ‘black box’of political legitimacy and asks what role, if any, it played in the transformation of pre-modern England’s political system to one based on representation and the rule of law. Accordingly, the paper first presents a theory of endogenous legitimacy and why it influences the distribution of political power and thus policies, institutions, and outcomes. Applying this framework to England’s political history highlights the importance of the Reformation, following which the Catholic Church lost its legitimizing role. The Crown’s increasing reliance on Parliament and the laws it produced for legitimation changed the balance of political power in favor of Parliament. Legitimacy was thus central to the 17th-century Civil War and the Glorious Revolution, as the Stuart monarchs attempted to undermine the legitimizing role —and hence power —of Parliament. The analysis lends support to the view that institutions and culture are inter-related. ∗We are grateful for comments received from the participants at workshops at Cal Tech, University of Chicago, UC Irvine, University of Washington, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, All-UC Economic History Meetings, and the Economic History Association Meetings. Dan Bogart, Paul David, Joel Mokyr, and Barry Weingast provided extremely useful comments. All errors are ours.