Can We Measure Legitimacy?
Can We Measure Legitimacy?

Summary/Abstract: Abstract. The newest phase of both the academic and practitioner discussion on state-building policy has converged on the failure of international missions to focus on domestic, as opposed to international, legitimacy. This literature does not, however, elaborate why legitimacy is important or, even more difficult, how practitioners can measure when local political au- thorities are gaining legitimacy or how the process of achieving legitimacy, which does not occur overnight with signatures on a peace agreement, can be measured. This article begins the discussion of why and how legitimacy matters with reference to Max Weber’s analysis of political organization. This is followed by an examination of the claims made in the empirical literature on state-building in the Balkans as on why legitimacy matters to peace and how it can be measured – studies which reinforce the need to shift the focus from international to domestic legitimacy. Finally the article discusses how we might measure legitimacy and, especially, how we might measure the domestic process of its creation.

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