The Determinants of State Legitimacy: Results for 72 Countries
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512106058634 |
| Date | 01 January 2006 |
| Author | Bruce Gilley |
| Published date | 01 January 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
The Determinants of State Legitimacy:
Results for 72 Countries
BRUCE GILLEY
ABSTRACT. This article examines a range of potential causal variables of
state legitimacy using a globally representative set of 72 countries
accounting for 83 percent of the world’s population. Major theories of
legitimacy determinants are advanced and tested using survey and expert
data. Three variables (which measure good governance, democratic
rights, and welfare gains) are then chosen from among all strongly
correlated variables as being the most plausible basis for a causal theory.
The theory is then further tested using 31 pairs of countries with similar
income levels and in similar regions, which shows a significant positive
correlation between performance and legitimacy. The article concludes
with suggestions for further research.
Keywords: • Governance • Legitimacy • Legitimation • Political
support • Rights • Universalism • Welfare
Introduction
The causes of state legitimacy are among the central questions of political science.
State legitimacy has arguably defined the modern tradition of political philosophy,
and it has been central to empirical studies of politics for at least half a century.
Until very recently, however, it has been difficult to obtain satisfactory measures of
either state legitimacy or of most hypothesized causes. Legitimacy has therefore
been the preserve of area knowledge or deductive reasoning, neither of which has
provided a suitably general (that is, global) account of legitimacy. Is such a general
account possible? If so, what are its contents?
Recent advances in global survey and objective data are allowing researchers to
tackle this question for the first time. In another paper, I defend the concept of
legitimacy and provide a conceptualization and operationalization of the concept
for empirical purposes (Gilley, 2006). In the current article, I explore a list of
International Political Science Review (2006), Vol 27, No. 1, 47–71
DOI: 10.1177/0192512106058634 © 2006 International Political Science Association
SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
hypothesized causes of legitimacy. I find that good governance, democratic rights,
and welfare gains provide the most reasonable and robust determinants of
legitimacy. In addition, several other social and economic factors (gender equality,
economic governance, antiauthoritarian attitudes, and social trust, for example)
are important correlates, and probably causes, of legitimacy, although likely
mediated by political and economic conditions. In reaching this conclusion, I
reject several widely cited sources of legitimacy, among them income equality,
regime-conducive attitudes, ethnic homogeneity, and nationalism. Both positive
and negative findings should be useful to scholars seeking to understand global
patterns of legitimation.
My purpose here is to provide broad descriptive data on cross-national
legitimacy and its correlates, and to use this to offer one potential causal theory
for further investigation. Cross-national statistics are insufficient for a fully
specified model of legitimacy. Yet they are a necessary starting point for such
discussions and have thus far been a weak point in the literature on the subject.
I first describe the legitimacy scores derived elsewhere (Gilley, 2006). I then
review the existing approaches to cross-national legitimacy and propose a method
for investigating the subject. This is followed by a discussion and testing of several
socioeconomic and political variables. The results are summarized and plausible
causal factors are identified. Lastly, I use paired comparisons of states to see how
well the plausible causal factors perform when income and regional variations are
eliminated. I conclude with suggestions for further research.
The Meaning and Measure of State Legitimacy
Legitimacy is a distinct form of political support that concerns evaluations of the
state from a public or “common good” perspective (Easton, 1965: 278, 312).
Despite long-standing doubts about its coherence or utility (O’Kane, 1993), the
concept has survived, even flourished, in both academic work and real-world
politics because of its normative basis, and the recurrent importance of normative
considerations in political life. I define legitimacy as follows: a state is more legitimate
the more that it is treated by its citizens as rightfully holding and exercising political power.
This definition contains within it all the substantive elements of the concept
itself. It takes all citizens in a state as being the relevant subjects of legitimacy. It
takes the state (defined as both processes and institutions as well as norms and
ideologies) and how it holds and exercises political power as the relevant object. It
takes legitimacy to be a continuous variable, that is, one which admits of degrees.
It considers the measurement of legitimacy to depend upon various dimensions of
“treatment” by citizens, attitudinal and behavioral, rather than claims by rulers or
determinations by outside observers. Last and most important, it embeds the
normative orientation of this form of political support into the definition by its use
of the term “rightful.”
The precise meaning of rightfulness is the central conceptual challenge of
legitimacy. The term is defined by the Collins Dictionary of the English Language as
meaning “in accordance with what is right, proper, or just,” where “right” means
“in accordance with accepted standards of moral or legal behavior, justice, etc.”
(Hanks, 1986: 1315 definition 1, 1314 definition 1). Beetham (1991) made a
major contribution by clarifying that political rightfulness is made up of three
distinct subtypes (legality, justification, and consent), each of which responds to a
different aspect of power that is in need of legitimation.
48 International Political Science Review 27(1)
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