Bargaining for Legitimacy in Dual Legitimacy Constitutional Systems

• In Event: Conflict and Collaboration in Federal Systems

Abstract

This paper studies the balancing between competing constitutional frameworks in dual legitimacy systems, e.g., where religious and secular laws coexist or traditional authorities possess a measure of constitutional power. We theorize that actors in dual legitimacy systems continuously engage in residual constitutional bargaining. This process resembles that in federations over the institutional balance between members and the center, as well as among members. Systems with dual legitimacy maintain parallel structures with legislative, executive, and/or judicial prerogatives constituted by traditional (tribal) or religious mechanisms, outside of and independent from democratic elected authorities. While often guided by constitutional documents, the exact institutional balance between disjoint authorities operating over the same body of citizens is endogenously sustained in the political process and is not constant. The paper advances scholarship on political economy, the rule of law, and federalism.

Authors

• Carol A. Mershon, University of Virginia

• Olga V. Shvetsova, SUNY, Binghamton University