Democratic Legitimation: What Is It, Who Wants It, and Why?

Abstract

The answers to the questions in the title of this chapter are that democratic legitimation, like a democratic polity, is many things linked by a common phrase, that different people want these different things for many different reasons and with many different expectations, and that it is both easier and more difficult than is often thought to know when their expectations have been realized.¹ So before anything else, some definitions are called for. It might seem obvious what we mean when we ask whether a government or institution is democratically legitimate, or whether a polity is democratic, but the variety of answers given to such questions, and the variety of formulations of the questions, suggest that both the answer and the enquiry need to be as specific as possible. This will make this chapter a little like Chinese cooking: relatively lengthy preparation but then, when all the chopping and sorting is done, a fairly swift transit through the intellectual wok at the end to produce some answers. But just as not every dish is to everyone’s taste, so with definitions. And in taking both legitimation and democracy, neither of which can be discussed innocently of normative positions, and each of which is central to the concerns and the contentions of political science, the possibilities are equaled or possibly even outweighed by the dangers. Even so, the necessary preparation is to be as clear as possible about the key terms legitimation, legitimacy, legitimate, democratic, and democracy.