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Indicators of Legitimacy

Potential for a Performance-based explanation of Democratic Success in

Legitimization

Randall Webster

Systematic Analysis: Quantitative Research Paper

December 5th, 2016

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Introduction

Its often taken for granted in modern political discourse that

democratic states seem to be inherently more legitimate that non-

democratic ones. What is often looked over is an theoretical basis for why

this is the case; more specifically, one that fits with the broader move

towards legitimacy as an expression of state performance. This research is

aimed at two objectives: 1. Create a comparative analysis of different

schools of legitimacy in an attempt to judge the validity of favoring

democratic legitimacy 2. Propose and test an alternative model of

democratic legitimacy that better fits within the context of performance

legitimacy.

More specifically, my thesis is that the tendency of democratic states

to be more legitimate is due to their ability to attach the delegitimizing

effects of underperformance to the current regime, meaning that the

functional role of revolution is instead expressed by regular elections. In this

way, Democracy acts as a way of managing the relationship between state

and citizen in a world where expectations and promises are often unable to

be met.

Originally, I intended to test this by using the variable durability, but

review of the data revealed that they were confusing state and regime,

meaning that the data showed the United States lasting nearly 200 years
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without a single regime change. Because of this, I re-operationalized the

variable representing performance-based democratic legitimacy to a score

that largely only rates democracy for its ability to change regimes in a fair

and reliable way.

Literature Review

Legitimacy is an interesting concept in that it seems to be universally understood as

important, but is rarely defined as an independent concept. Vaguely though, it is an expression of

an entitys right to rule, and the populations level of consent to that rule. From the Zhou

Mandate of Heaven, the Mesoamerican Polities ability to secure water, to the European form of

Monarchical Legitimacy which depended on the Popes blessing, Legitimacy can be seen in

many forms.

Following in the Enlightenment tradition of examining legitimacy as secular concept, 19th

century German sociologist Max Weber was the first to create a typology, one that left a

stubbornly lasting mark on political theory. Weber described three types of legitimacy, traditional

in which people respect power because it justifies itself in historical social norms, Charismatic in

which a leaders abilities, thoughts, or character justify both his leadership and the regime around

him, and finally Rational-Legal in which legitimacy is based in the populations trust that the

organization will abide by an agreeable set of laws.

Since Weber, conversations surrounding legitimacy have taken a more eclectic turn, each

offering insight but not a clear picture. There are a few distinct ideas about the

sources of legitimacy already in play. First, is the Particularist School, which

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focuses on the indeterminate sources of legitimacy either temporally or

spatially. Secondly, there is the Democratic School which is focused on the

respect of Enlightenment values such as Natural Rights. Under this school,

Natural Rights are universal and necessary for leading a fulfilling life.

Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of a free and fair democracy. No

rougher for ware, this is still the predominant school when looking at sources

of political legitimacy.

The final three schools are performance based understandings of

legitimacy. First, is the Developmental School, which focuses on the material

welfare that a state can ensure for its citizens. They point to the fact that

both low economic growth and high inequality are often present in states

that experience instability. Most notably, this position is put forward by Karl

Marx in his theory of dialectical history, which states that the greed of the

capital owning class would eventually lead to a legitimacy crisis, resulting in

revolution in the name of the workers. Next is the Finally, the Bureaucratic

School points to the effectiveness of a state at maintaining order, reliability,

and public good, all without dependence on non-state actors or non-legal

means.
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Finally, there is the Sociological School, which focuses on the social and

cultural conditions which encourage individuals to consent to state power.

Furthermore, ideas of cultural, national, or religious unity help to lessen

stresses on the states

function. It is also

compatible with the

apparent struggle of

democracy in certain

places, but success in

Indicator Variable Description

Rights Democratic FHrate Freedom Rating.

Performance Polity Rating of Democracy by votes and
Democratic electoral turnover.
Developmental HDI Human Development Index (HDI)
value, 2010 (UN)
Bureaucratic Free_Cor Government effectiveness scale
rupt (Kaufmann 2002)
Sociological Frac-Ethn Ethnic factionlization (combined
linguistic and racial)
Legitimacy (Dependent Confiden Measured confidence in institutions.
Variable) ce
others. In some places, democracy helps to reaffirm social ties to other

citizens, while in others, it only lays bare the lack of commonality amongst

them. The major weakness of this school is the lack of agency afforded to

state actors. They are there to receive, not create or define.

Research Design
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To test the major schools of legitimacy, I chose a variable that I felt

best encapsulated the operational definition of each.1 As the Particularistic

School is not empirically quantifiable, I am leaving it out of the analysis. For

the rights-based conception of democratic legitimacy I am using the freedom

house freedom rating, an aggregate rating of democratic and human rights-

abiding values expressed in countries. In contrast to this, I am using the

Polity score for the performance conception of democracy. It is a more

systemic method of evaluating a countrys institutions by looking at things

such as turnover, electoral turnout, etc. Developmental is measured by

looking at HDI, a broad index that takes income inequality, poverty, change

in GDP/Capita, and other factors to express the material well-being of a

countrys population. Bureaucratic will be measured by Free_Corrupt, which

is a scale of corruption. Sociological is measured by Frac-Ethn, a measure of

ethnic, linguistic, and religious factionalism in a country. Finally, legitimacy is

measured by a scale of confidence people have in their institutions.

1 See Table 1
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looking at HDI, a broad index that takes income inequality, poverty, change

in GDP/Capita, and other factors to express the material well-being of a

countrys population. Bureaucratic will be measured by Free_Corrupt, which

is a scale of corruption.

Sociological is

measured by Frac-

Ethn, a measure of

ethnic, linguistic, and

religious factionalism

in a country. Finally,

legitimacy is measured

by a scale of

confidence people

have in their

institutions.
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My analysis of legitimacy is

based on a certain set of

assumptions about its

nature:

Legitimacy, as a

concept, is both

spatially and

temporally universal, but

flexible and widely

varied in form.

Legitimacy describes an active and personal relationship between

individuals and political entities.

Legitimacy is a product of the interaction between two forces that are

inherent to the relationship between individuals and political entities:

justification and consent.

A Justification can be seen as an argument for the continued existence

of a political entity, or an expectation that the entity is held to.

Justifications can arise from many places including the social, cultural,

and or ideological values of the individual, the basic needs of the

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individual, comparison with other political entities, or promises made

by the political entity.

The fulfillment of valued expectations results in a form of passive

consent in which the individual does not actively rebel against the

political entity.

My proposition is the following: due to the difficulty of justifying a

political entity for long stretches of time, a normalized form of systematic

revolution (regime change through election) is essential in maintaining

legitimacy; without it, political entities are stuck in a delicate state of

managing expectations and maintaining passive consent. When met with an

insurmountable expectations gap, a regime can be peacefully replaced by a

new one, which is then free to rule to its best ability without the weight of

the old regimes inadequicies. This is a form of Democratic Legitimacy based

not on concepts of natural rights, but on the political reality of the

relationship between individual and organization.

My operational hypothesis is therefore:

In a comparison of states, polity rating will be a more significant

predictor of Confidence scores than FHRate.

This hypothesis allows for a rather straight-forwards research design.

The operational indicators of each school of legitimacy can be looked at in a

multivariate regression which would show which is a stronger indicator.

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Data Analysis

One of the major takeaways from the n-values of the data is the number of

cases lost due to incomplete data.2 This could present a problem, but not due

to sample size. Data must be collected, and regimes that offer less freedoms

would be harder to get information from. This could lead to a certain amount

of bias due to the under-selection of non-free regimes.

Descriptive Statistics
Mean Std. Deviation N
Confidence 49.2790 16.83417 63
Fhrate04_Rev 5.4127 1.82840 63
Polity 6.41 5.272 63
HDI .73384 .152649 63
Free_Corrupt 49.89 23.978 63
Frac_Eth .34597 .231477 63

2 See Descriptive Statistics

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Correlations
Confide Fhrate04_ Free_Corr Frac_
nce Rev Polity HDI upt Eth
Pearson Confiden 1.000 -.175 -.244 -.275 .101 -.015
Correlation ce
Fhrate04 -.175 1.000 .865 .702 .771 -.249
_Rev
Polity -.244 .865 1.000 .509 .605 -.224
HDI -.275 .702 .509 1.000 .750 -.453
Free_Corr .101 .771 .605 .750 1.000 -.346
upt
Frac_Eth -.015 -.249 -.224 -.453 -.346 1.000
Sig. (1- Confiden . .085 .027 .015 .214 .453
tailed) ce
Fhrate04 .085 . .000 .000 .000 .024
_Rev
Polity .027 .000 . .000 .000 .039
HDI .015 .000 .000 . .000 .000
Free_Corr .214 .000 .000 .000 . .003
upt
Frac_Eth .453 .024 .039 .000 .003 .
N Confiden 63 63 63 63 63 63
ce
Fhrate04 63 63 63 63 63 63
_Rev
Polity 63 63 63 63 63 63
HDI 63 63 63 63 63 63
Free_Corr 63 63 63 63 63 63
upt
Frac_Eth 63 63 63 63 63 63

The correlations highlight a major problem with the used variables.3

HDI, Free_Corrupt and Polity are at .7 correlation coefficient, very close to the

cutoff for what could return good measurements. FH_Rating and Polity, on

the other hand, give a .865 correlation coefficient, indicating that the study

3 See Correlations
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could suffer from Multicollinearity. The scatterplot above highlights the trend

between them.

This problem is surely the expansiveness of the FH_Rating score, as it

is the only one that has such high correlation coefficients with most other

indicators, but I have yet to

find an operational variable

that would fit with the

value conception of

democracy aside from it.

Hopefully though, the

differences between

FHrate and polity will

prove to be large enough to

give us significant results.

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Model Summaryb
Durbin
-
Watso
Change Statistics n
Std. R
Error of Squar
R Adjuste the e F Sig. F
Mod Squar dR Estimat Chang Chang Chang
el R e Square e e e df1 df2 e
1 . .423 .373 13.3319 .423 8.371 5 57 .000 2.192
651 3
a

a. Predictors: (Constant), Frac_Eth, Polity, HDI, Free_Corrupt, Fhrate04_Rev

b. Dependent Variable: Confidence

Looking at the Model Summary, we find that the adjusted R2 of our model is

0.373 and the R2 is .423. Meaning that the linear regression explains 42.3%

ANOVAa
Sum of Mean
Model Squares df Square F Sig.
1 Regression 7438.944 5 1487.789 8.371 .000b
Residual 10131.198 57 177.740
Total 17570.142 62
a. Dependent Variable: Confidence
b. Predictors: (Constant), Frac_Eth, Polity, HDI, Free_Corrupt, Fhrate04_Rev
of the datas variance. This is good, but it could be a lot better. Worryingly,

Im not sure what large conceptual additions could be included to improve

the R2.

From the Regression Coefficients, we can see that, while Factionalism and

HDI scores are most predictive of high levels of confidence in a state, only
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HDI scores, with a p-value of .000 and a t-score of 4.888 is actually

significant between them.4 The indicator of corruption, Free_Corrupt, is next

in order of coefficient strength and also seems to be significant with a t-score

of ~5 and a p-value of 0. Finally, there are the two values that

Coefficientsa
Unstandar Standard
dized ized 95.0%
Coefficient Coefficie Confidence
s nts Interval for B Correlations
Std. Zero
Erro Sig Lower Upper - Parti Par
Model B r Beta t . Bound Bound order al t
1(Constant 95.68 11.7 8.16 . 72.22 119.1
) 3 13 9 00 8 37
0
Fhrate04_ 1.126 2.55 .122 .441 . -3.980 6.231 -.175 .058 .
Rev 0 66 044
1
Polity - .674 -.486 - . -2.903 -.203 -.244 -.29 -.23
1.553 2.30 02 2 2
4 5
HDI - 19.2 -.852 - . - - -.275 -.54 -.49
93.96 23 4.88 00 132.4 55.46 3 2
2 8 0 55 9
Free_Corr .618 .126 .880 4.91 . .366 .869 .101 .545 .
upt 3 00 494
0
Frac_Eth - 8.37 -.175 - . - 4.063 -.015 -.19 -.15
12.71 6 1.51 13 29.48 7 3
0 7 5 3
a. Dependent Variable: Confidence

4 See Coefficients
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describe democracy. Of them, only Polity is significant, but only barely so.

Furthermore, it scores higher than FH_Rating in coefficient value, meaning

that it is a better predictor of confidence score in a regime.

Conclusion

Though the study may suffer from Multicollinearity, its results are

significant enough to justify running father tests to see how badly the

likeliness of the variables effected the results. The study shows that of the

democratic measures, the one indicative of a performance conception of

democratic legitimacy was the most predicative of citizens confidence in

their government, which was the operational variable used to judge

legitimacy. My hypothesis is therefore partially confirmed, as performance

conceptions of legitimacy do seem to line up better with the data than the

rights conception.
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Despite the success of my hypothesis against both the null and major

alternative, democracy is not the biggest determinant of legitimacy

according to this study. Both Bureaucratic Legitimacy and Developmental

Legitimacy (operationalized as measures of corruption and economic

performance respectively) proved to be far greater predictors of legitimacy

than either variable representing democratic legitimacy. This, however, does

not conflict with the logic of my thesis. Both are representative of a set of

expectations that citizens hold towards their government.

Bibliography

Gilley, Bruce. The Right to Rule : How States Win and Lose Legitimacy.

New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.