Plural Claims of Legitimacy. Conceptualising Legitimacy in Contexts of Hybrid Political Orders

The debate on fragile states has been criticised for being too state-centric and normative. Several authors argue in favour of looking more broadly at state-society relations, and in particular, at challenged state legitimacy. Specifically, ‘hybrid political orders’ are put forward as a concept for analysing how political power in fragile states is acquired and exercised. Within this framework, it is often criticised that legitimacy – using Weber’s typology – is primarily analysed by focussing on legal-rational legitimacy, while traditional and charismatic legitimacy are underexposed. Taking this critique further, this paper proposes to alternatively apply David Beetham’s conception of legitimacy to contexts of hybrid political orders. Beetham defines legitimacy as consisting of (i) rule compliance, (ii) justifiability of rules and sources of authority, and (iii) expressed consent. This paper analyses how Beetham’s legitimacy concept translates to contexts of hybrid political orders, and whether all three dimensions of legitimacy carry equal weight.