Democratic legitimacy in two steps

Democratic legitimacy in two steps The paper begins with an overview of democratic conceptions of political legitimacy (e. g. Buchanan 2002; Christiano 2004; Estlund 2009), which stipulate that a functioning system of free and fair elections is necessary and sufficient for establishing a legitimate government. The paper then supplements these theories by arguing that a free and fair electoral regime is only the first step toward democratic legitimacy. Equally important is the second step: the acceptance of the given electoral system by the population. The analysis starts from the fact that a poorly conceived or ill-fitting electoral process can fail to produce legitimate government – even when voting is conducted under the best possible circumstances. Because every conceivable electoral process substantively alters or even determines the family of possible results (Arrow 1950), it must already command some legitimacy to produce a legitimate government. If that is not the case, a political system, no matter how well-constituted, just, or benevolent, will likely be experienced as oppressive. Several case studies of free and fair but “unfitting” or “not accepted” electoral regimes are then discussed, using insights from the theory of consociational democracy (Lijphart 1969). The main ambition of the paper is to re-interpret the ideal of popular sovereignty as the basis of political legitimacy. We argue that this ideal can never be fully realized solely by organizing elections. A degree of continuous, informal acceptance of the political system (including the acceptance of the specific electoral system chosen by the given country) is also indispensable. Literature Arrow, Kenneth J. 1950. ‘A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare’. Journal of Political Economy 58 (4): 328–46. https://doi.org/10.1086/256963. Buchanan, Allen. 2002. ‘Political Legitimacy and Democracy’. Ethics 112 (4): 689–719. https://doi.org/10.1086/340313. Christiano, Thomas. 2004. ‘The Authority of Democracy’. Journal of Political Philosophy 12 (3): 266–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9760.2004.00200.x. Estlund, David. 2009. Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework. Princeton University Press. Lijphart, Arend. 1969. ‘Consociational Democracy’. World Politics 21 (2): 207–25. https://doi.org/10.2307/2009820.