Political Legitimacy and Democracy

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. Political legitimacy can be described as people's recognition and acceptance of the validity of the rules of their entire political system and the decisions of their rulers. Accordingly, two things can be expected from political systems that have a considerable level 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. Regarding the relationship between political legitimacy and democracy, the first thing that needs to be acknowledged is that most of the essential features of democratic systems (e.g., the recognition of all citizens as political equals and the right of the citizens to self-rule mainly through the election of their rulers) make this relationship very complex and extremely significant. Furthermore, given the current worldwide legitimacy of democracy as a form of political regime and the spread of representative governments around the world in the last few years—on the one hand—and the seeming contradiction between this and an apparent crisis of democratic legitimacy both in established and new democracies—on the other—, it is critical to consider some of the most important issues and trends regarding the relationship between democracy and legitimacy. Democratic legitimacy has very frequently been defined as citizen orientations toward the main principles of the political regime or the entire political system (i.e., democracy and not a particular administration, needs to be perceived as the best form of government or at least as the least evil). The main problem with this definition is that it does not recognize that other objects of political legitimacy can be equally significant for the functioning and prospects of a democratic regime. For example, it is clear that a persistent negative perception of the performance of democratic authorities and institutions can erode the legitimacy of democracy as a form of government. Fortunately, in the last few years it …