The Determinants of State Legitimacy: Results for 72 Countries

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.

The Autocratic Trust Bias: Politically Sensitive Survey Items and Self-Censorship

“…The rationale for using a highly aggregated index of the level of democracy is to be able to test if existing studies that draw conclusions from comparative survey data from countries at a vastly di↵erent levels of democracy are su↵ering from biases or not (cf. Gilley (2006a), Moehler and Lindberg (2009)). Arguably an aggregated measure may be a crude proxy for a perceived risk of repression.…”

“…Gilley (2006b), Gilley (2006a), Booth and Seligson (2009) and Moehler (2009)), where they rely on data derived through direct questions on these (in some countries, but not in others) potentially sensitive topics. Others simply omit suspicious outliers from their samples such as China and Vietnam where some 90 percent of respondents trust the national government "quite a lot" or a "great deal" (AsianBarometer, 2008).…”

International legal problem in combating 'Islamic State' terrorist group in Syria

“…101 Posedovanje moći ne zavisi od demokratskih normi i standarda vladavine i svaka vlast, uključujući i privremenu, formalno je legitimna sve dok građani veruju da s pravom poseduje moć. Iz odvojene percepcije vlade od države proizilaze dva kriterijuma legitimiteta vlasti: prvi, vrednovanje osnovnih normi, vrednosti i institucija sistema i, drugi, šta i kako političke vlasti rade sa svojom moći.…”

Frames We Can Believe In: Official Framing and Ideology in the CCP’s Quest for Legitimacy

“…According to a study by Gilley (2006), who used both attitudinal and behavioral data for the measurement of legitimacy, China maintained a high level of legitimacy from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, ranking thirteenth out of the 72 states that were considered in the study. Other quantitative studies at the aggregate level have obtained similar results (Chen 2004;Tang 2005).…”

“…In the debate on the role of persuasion for the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes, China is an interesting case for two reasons: Firstly, in contrast to most other authoritarian regimes, China's rulers have been found to enjoy overall high levels of legitimacy across the population (Chen 2004;Gilley 2006;Tang 2005;Wright 2010). Secondly, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has in recent years invested a vast amount of resources in the revamping of its extensive propaganda apparatus and the modernization of official party ideology.…”