Meaning of Legitimacy in Local Political Process
Meaning of Legitimacy in Local Political Process

Summary/Abstract: The principle aim of the article is to describe various concepts of legitimacy and their theoretical framework and to evaluate the possibility of their application in the local political process. The legitimacy of local political institutions can be perceived as one of the conditions of their stability and efficiency in relation to the rural development. The approaches and concepts of legitimacy of Max Weber, Luhmann, Tyler and Zimmerman and Zeitz are compared in the first part of the article. To apply these classifications to local political institutions entails some theoretical and methodological problems, e.g. to distinguish legitimacy relating to communal politician from personal trust, ill-defined indicators of legitimacy, etc. Analysing various examples of legitimizing local magistrates and councils indicates that the communal legitimacy can be highly confused and based upon various sources of legitimation. One of the possible local legitimacy assessment is the concept of the „systemic“ and „sectoral“ legitimacy. Another concept of legitimacy can be derived from case studies of the Czech local political process. This pattern of legitimacy can be mainly detected in a kind of „self-legitimizing“ narration of communal politicians. Using theoretical approaches to the issue of „political narratives“ it is possible to denominate it „narrative legitimacy“.

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