The chapters in Part I deal with the two basic models for understanding the relationship between individuals and the law: coercion and consensus. The consensus model is based on people`s willingness to obey laws because they deem it appropriate and appropriate. The conviction that the law and legal authorities are legitimate and must be followed voluntarily develops during the process of socialization of children and adolescents. A coercive model of authority relies on the use of force and credible threats of detection and punishment of rule violations to promote compliance. As children grow, they go through three areas of authority: family, school, and juvenile justice. In any field, children and young people may develop the belief that the law is legitimate and feel compelled to submit to the law, or they may view the law as coercion and submit for fear of punishment. It is legal for people in the community to associate with miners from other places, and I think it is legitimate to some extent to expect third parties to be interested in investing in these wealthy areas, knowing that sooner or later they will have to negotiate with the communities that have lived there for centuries. Legitimacy is generally defined in political science and sociology as the belief that a rule, institution, or ruler has the right to rule. It is a judgment by an individual about the legitimacy of a hierarchy between the dominion or ruler and his subject and about the obligations of the subordinate to the dominion or ruler. When shared by many individuals, legitimacy produces pronounced collective effects in society, including the more effective, consensual and perhaps more just collective social order. Tom Tyler says that when agencies are not considered legitimate, social regulation is more difficult and costly” (Tyler 2001, 416). This explains the interest shown by leaders in legitimizing their domination.
Legitimation is the process by which actors attempt to create the legitimacy of a government or leader. Where legitimacy as a faith is a subjective and individualistic quality, legitimation is a process of a social and political nature. Actors and institutions are constantly working to legitimize their power, and challengers are working to delegitimize it. Legitimization is often achieved by justifying the existence of leaders or their rules in the sense of important normative principles of society. However, legitimization can also be attempted through payments and incentives to subordinates. Material incentives and normative appeals are different legitimization strategies whose success depends on how the public responds to them. It is not possible to make a general statement about the effectiveness of one or the other as a generic legitimization strategy, nor can it be said that legitimacy can only arise by following one or the other. In contrast, legitimacy itself is a fundamentally subjective and normative concept: it exists only in an individual`s beliefs about the legitimacy of domination. It differs from legality in that not all legal acts are necessarily legitimate and not all legitimate acts are necessarily lawful. One might hope for a close agreement between the two, but it is conceptually necessary to keep the two separate. There is always the possibility that leaders will pass laws that proponents deem illegitimate, and this possibility ensures that the two concepts cannot be reduced to one. Moreover, defining what is legal as what is legitimate means that the government would have the power to control the categories of legitimate and illegitimate.
This would make legitimacy inherently conservative, as it could only support existing power relations. In practice, we see many cases where citizens believe that their governments are illegitimate, leading to a serious crisis of governance. It is easy to identify attempts to create legitimacy, but difficult to judge whether these efforts are successful. The difficulties arise partly because there are no good behavioural indicators that make a decisive distinction between the legitimate rule and the illegitimate rule, and partly because of the incentives that exist to portray one`s power as legitimate. The first problem is easy to see when we analyze compliance. Russell Hardin describes the problem: “The fundamental modal relationship of citizens with their governments is mainly acquiescence,” but this does not tell us whether they give in for legitimacy or other motivation (Hardin 2007). As Weber noted, “the purely external act of obeying the order is not sufficient to signal” that it is considered legitimate (Weber 1978, 946). Compliance with the rules is not proof that the rules are considered legitimate, and non-compliance is not proof of legitimacy. There are many reasons why actors can stick to sources of authority, legitimacy being only one of them.
It is an inner state of faith whose existence is not directly observable. The second problem is that actors are incentivized to present their rule as legitimate, and opponents of that rule are incentivized to portray it as illegitimate. These incentives are inherent in the political value of legitimacy and color all efforts to empirically measure degrees of legitimacy. Claims of legitimacy circulate around all political power, and counterclaims of illegitimacy are at the heart of efforts to undermine that power. The strategies used to legitimize and delegitimize power vary considerably depending on the circumstances. Often, these strategies are an attempt to use society`s existing norms and values to justify one`s own position. For example, one could argue that the U.S. tax code is legitimate because it is administered fairly, has been approved by Congress, or its revenues are used for social good.
If the public is interested in fairness, legality or good outcomes, these claims can be useful tools in a legitimization strategy. Legitimacy and self-determination These strategies are reflected in the practical policies of separatist insurgents against established nation-states. These movements often seek to legitimize their demands for self-determination, and in this behavior we can see legitimization strategies in action. The separatists turn to the international community with various arguments to justify recognizing their sovereignty from outside. The values used in these justifications reflect both the nature of separatist movements and the norms of the international community. This involves both normative and strategic interests. For example, it is common for groups to claim that their incorporation into the existing state was illegitimate and that, therefore, their demands for independence are positive. Others, like some Bosnian Serbs, argue that their unity as a culture and nation legitimizes their claim to self-determination. Somaliland has suggested that its history of political independence, however brief and deliberately abandoned, should contribute to its recognition today. Many groups use procedural arguments that follow Tyler`s logic above, often based on elections and referendums. Referendums are generally considered very legitimate, and for this reason their terms are very controversial: for example, which populations of Western Sahara should be included and what margin should apply to Quebec? Nagorny Karabakh is using the fact that its Government was democratically elected to legitimize its claims to statehood. Others report that they abide by international norms and laws to legitimize their claims, as when Macedonian separatists in Yugoslavia suggested that the fact that they had not participated in the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s reflected their commitment to international peace, thus supporting their claim to statehood.
In each of these cases, the separatists acted as if they were strengthening their cause by legitimizing it by invoking important international procedures, values or rules. Whether the international community ultimately agrees with their demands is beyond their control. Legitimacy ultimately depends on the beliefs of the public. But the penetration of legitimization claims is an indication that many groups recognize the political power of claims of legitimacy and claims of legitimation. The subjective approach to legitimacy is based on the work of Max Weber, who focuses on the macro-social consequences of citizens` belief in the legitimacy of their leaders. Weber identified three bases for legitimate government in society (rational-legal, charismatic and traditional), arguing that the presence of legitimate authority structures society in such a way that even those who do not share the belief in their legitimacy have incentives to behave as if they were doing so. This is what he called the “validity” of the social system. A competing approach to the study of legitimacy assumes that legitimacy depends on a correspondence between a rule and an external moral norm.
