Democratic Legitimacy: The Limits of Instrumentalist Accounts

Abstract

Political legitimacy is an important concept for democracies. Since the fundamental characteristic of any democracy is that through their collective decision-making, citizens are effectively the source of the political authority of the polity, it makes sense to ask when it can be said that a democratic polity is morally justified in exercising coercive political power over citizens. Understood in this way, legitimacy is linked to authority, the right to issue commands and enforce them through the use of coercive power. Questions about legitimacy apply at many different levels within any given democratic polity. If a question about legitimacy is asked of a particular government, the answer would, presumably, contain information about how the government or persons in question came to be or be in a position of power. Such a question can also be asked of the order or structure of a specific polity, of particular institutions within the structure, of specific laws or policies, and of an entire democratic polity. To raise a question of legitimacy with regard to an entire democratic polity is really nothing less than to ask why citizens should follow the laws of their society or affirm its order and actions as justifiable. Posing the question in this way reflects the nature of democracy as a political system which is rooted in the collective action of individuals aimed at establishing the terms according to which each person will be allowed to live freely. Democratic legitimacy therefore requires that the structure and actions of a democratic polity reflect this collective aim. Understood in this way, a question of legitimacy is open to a number of competing responses. This is reflected in the variety of conceptions of democratic legitimacy in contemporary democratic theory, which vary not just in how the question of legitimacy should be