Legitimacy in Conflict Processes

• In Event: Legitimate Authority in Conflict-Ridden States

Abstract

In the study of non-state actors, “legitimacy” is a commonly used but ill-defined concept conferring justification of an actor’s claims, behavior, or status. Despite the term’s increasing usage in conflict research, there remains no consensus on how to define or conceive of legitimacy. While existing approaches delineate between domestic versus international legitimacy, this distinction captures only one facet of legitimacy. This article advances a tri-partite approach for conceptualizing legitimacy of non-state actors centering on 1) type of legitimacy, 2) source of legitimacy, and 3) determinants of legitimacy. First, we consider the type of legitimacy and distinguish between “representative” legitimacy (which is when an actor becomes a recognized representative of a people) and “governance” legitimacy (which is how legitimacy is typically characterized in the literature). Second, we consider sources for legitimacy: constitutive (which can address both domestic and international communities) and non-constitutive (which is divine or hereditary). Third, we address the determinants of legitimacy, which constitutes the behaviors that help to create or maintain legitimacy. By deconstructing the concept of legitimacy and distilling its main features into observable indicators, we delve in to the mechanics of this frequently used mechanism in explaining conflict processes.

Authors

• Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, University of Maryland, College Park

• Peggy McWeeney, University of Maryland, College Park