Legitimacy in the Theory of Human Constants

Introduction

For its continuance, a human system does not need only resources, power, and institutions; it is also necessary that its behaviors, decisions, and structures be considered acceptable, justified, or legitimate to some extent by the members of society. This concept is known in the social sciences by the term legitimacy.

In the Theory of Human Constants, legitimacy is not one of the four fundamental constants; rather, it is one of the important mechanisms connecting meaning, connection, and social order with survival and sustainability of the human system. Legitimacy can contribute to system stability, but its loss can also cause decreased trust, increased conflict, and intensified imbalance.

34.1 – What is Legitimacy?

Legitimacy can be understood as the degree of acceptance of a power, institution, law, decision, or social order as something justified and acceptable.

Legitimacy is not the same as power.

Power may provide the ability to impose behavior, whereas legitimacy concerns the extent to which individuals consider that power or order to be justified and acceptable.

Therefore, it is possible for a system to possess power but to have limited legitimacy.

34.2 – The Difference between Legitimacy and Satisfaction

Satisfaction and legitimacy are also not entirely the same.

It is possible for an individual to oppose a particular decision while still considering the principle of the institution or decision-making system to be legitimate.

On the other hand, it is possible for an individual to be satisfied with a decision at one moment without the system that made that decision being legitimate in their view.

Therefore, legitimacy is a deeper and relatively more stable concept than momentary satisfaction.

34.3 – Legitimacy and the Constant of Meaning

Legitimacy has a close connection with the constant of meaning.

Humans usually need to be able to interpret a social order within a framework of their own values and perceptions as something justified and meaningful in order to accept it.

A law, government, institution, or tradition can gain greater legitimacy when individuals can see its existence and functioning as compatible with their values and perceptions.

From this perspective, legitimacy largely depends on the justifiability of the order in the minds and experience of members of society.

34.4 – Legitimacy and Connection

Legitimacy is not stable without connection.

A society must be able to receive information about the functioning of institutions, laws, and decisions, and to have dialogue about them.

Transparency, accountability, and the possibility of dialogue can help in creating and maintaining legitimacy.

In contrast, cut-off communication, widespread concealment, or dissemination of contradictory information can reduce trust and as a result reduce legitimacy.

34.5 – Legitimacy and Survival

Legitimacy may indirectly affect survival.

A system that has greater legitimacy may, under normal conditions, face less resistance in implementing public decisions, gathering resources, dealing with crisis, and organizing cooperation.

But if legitimacy declines, implementation of policies may cost more and more resources may be spent on control and coercion.

Therefore, legitimacy can affect the actual capacity of a system to ensure survival.

34.6 – Legitimacy and Order

Legitimacy is one of the important factors in establishing social order.

If individuals follow rules merely out of fear of punishment, order may become heavily dependent on the capacity for coercion.

But when rules are considered to some extent legitimate, individuals may follow them even without direct surveillance.

In this case, social order is maintained at lower cost.

34.7 – Legitimacy and Law

A law has greater legitimacy when individuals consider it to be just, predictable, and to some extent compatible with accepted values.

Of course, the legitimacy of law depends not only on its content. The manner of enactment of law, its implementation, equality before law, and the functioning of responsible institutions are also important.

For this reason, law and legitimacy have a multidimensional relationship.

34.8 – Political Legitimacy

Political legitimacy concerns the acceptance and justification of the right of a government or political institution to exercise power.

Sources of political legitimacy may be different, including:

• law and constitution;
• political participation;
• elections;
• tradition;
• performance and effectiveness;
• shared values;
• public consent;
• collective identity.

These sources may have different importance in different societies.

34.9 – Legitimacy and Effectiveness

Effectiveness and legitimacy are not the same, but they can affect each other.

A system may be effective in some areas and as a result gain greater legitimacy.

Conversely, severe and long-term ineffectiveness may increase the distance between the existing system and societal expectations.

However, effectiveness alone does not guarantee legitimacy; for justice, participation, values, and the manner of exercise of power are also important.

34.10 – Legitimacy and Trust

Trust and legitimacy have a close relationship.

If individuals feel that institutions are predictable, accountable, and fair, trust in them increases, and this trust can strengthen legitimacy.

In contrast, corruption, discrimination, inconsistency of decisions, and unaccountability can reduce trust.

Reduction of trust may also lead to reduction of legitimacy.

34.11 – Legitimacy and Identity

Legitimacy can be related to collective identity.

Individuals may consider an institution legitimate because they view it as part of their historical or collective identity.

But if an institution or social order comes into conflict with important identities of groups in society, its legitimacy may decline.

This issue becomes more important in multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual societies.

34.12 – Legitimacy and Power

Power and legitimacy are two different but related concepts.

Power can exist without legitimacy, but long-term maintenance of a system through coercion alone may create high costs.

Legitimacy can reduce the need for constant coercion and as a result lower part of the cost of maintaining order.

From this perspective, legitimacy can be understood as one of the non-material sources of the sustainability of power.

34.13 – Legitimacy and Institutions

Institutions become more stable when members of society not only know their rules but also consider their existence and functioning to some extent justified.

Educational, judicial, political, economic, and social institutions can each have different levels of legitimacy.

Therefore, legitimacy is not a unified characteristic and necessarily identical for all of society.

It is possible for trust in and legitimacy of one institution to be high while that of another is low.

34.14 – Legitimacy and Social Conflict

Decline in legitimacy can be one of the factors intensifying social conflict.

If a group feels that existing rules are not just or there is no possibility for their reform, protest may increase.

In these circumstances, the manner of response of institutions is of great importance.

Dialogue and reform can reduce part of the conflict; whereas suppression, indifference, or cut-off of communication may accumulate conflict.

34.15 – Crisis of Legitimacy

A crisis of legitimacy arises when the distance between the functioning or structure of a system and the perception of an important part of society about its justification increases.

Possible signs of such a condition can include:

• decline in public trust;
• increase in protest;
• decline in participation;
• spread of institutional mistrust;
• increase in the gap between society and institutions;
• decline in acceptance of rules;
• increase in the system's dependence on coercion.

Of course, none of these signs alone proves a crisis of legitimacy and must be examined within a historical and social framework.

34.16 – Legitimacy and Social Change

Legitimacy is not a static concept.

With changes in values, generations, economic conditions, technology, demographic structure, and historical experiences, the criteria of legitimacy can also change.

An institution that is considered legitimate in one historical period may in another period need reformation or redefinition of its legitimacy.

Therefore, legitimacy, like other social mechanisms, is subject to change.

34.17 – Legitimacy and Dynamic Balance

For a human system to maintain legitimacy, it may need to achieve balance between stability and change.

Excessive stability can cause institutions to become distant from new conditions.

Excessive change may also reduce predictability and trust.

For this reason, sustained legitimacy can be related to the concept of dynamic balance; that is, maintaining essential elements of order along with the ability to reform them in response to changes.

34.18 – Legitimacy and the Four Human Constants

Within the framework of the Theory of Human Constants, legitimacy is related to all four constants:

• survival: legitimacy can facilitate cooperation and implementation of public policies.
• connection: legitimacy depends on dialogue, information, and accountability.
• meaning: legitimacy requires interpretation of the existing order as something justified.
• order: legitimacy is one of the factors in the acceptance and stability of rules and institutions.

Therefore, legitimacy can be understood as one of the links connecting meaning and order, and at the same time one of the factors affecting survival and connection.

34.19 – Loss of Legitimacy and Transfer of Imbalance

A decline in legitimacy may initially appear in the domain of order, but its consequences can be transferred to other constants.

For example:

Decline in legitimacy → decline in trust → decline in cooperation → decline in capacity for collective action → increased pressure on resources and institutions → intensification of problems of survival and order.

Also:

Decline in legitimacy → increase in semantic gap → weakening of shared identity → decline in connection among groups → increase in conflict.

These chains show that imbalance in one domain can spread to other domains.

34.20 – Reconstruction of Legitimacy

Lost legitimacy is not necessarily irreversible.

Its reconstruction may require a set of actions, including:

• increased transparency;
• accountability;
• institutional reform;
• reduction of discrimination;
• improvement of performance;
• creation of possibility for dialogue;
• acceptance of error;
• reform of ineffective rules;
• creation of proportion between promises and actual performance.

In this sense, reconstruction of legitimacy is part of the process of reconstruction of social balance.

34.21 – Measurement of Legitimacy

To transform the concept of legitimacy into a subject of empirical research, one can examine indicators such as:

• the level of trust in institutions;
• the level of acceptance of laws;
• feeling of justice and fairness;
• the level of satisfaction with institutional performance;
• voluntary participation;
• the level of acceptance of public decisions even in conditions of disagreement;
• the level of dependence of law enforcement on coercion;
• the distance between society's values and institutional performance.

These indicators should be operationalized through scientific methods and in accordance with the conditions of each society.

34.22 – Testable Hypotheses

Based on the Theory of Human Constants, the following hypotheses can be proposed:

First hypothesis: Under similar conditions, increased institutional trust is related to increased perceived legitimacy.

Second hypothesis: An increase in the distance between accepted values of society and the performance of institutions can increase the likelihood of decline in legitimacy.

Third hypothesis: Systems that have greater capacity for institutional reform and responding to social changes will likely have greater ability to maintain legitimacy in the long run.

Fourth hypothesis: Decline in legitimacy can, through reduced trust and cooperation, intensify imbalance between order, connection, and survival.

Fifth hypothesis: Reconstruction of legitimacy after crisis, if accompanied by real reform of performance and institutions, can help reconstruct social balance.

Conclusion

In the Theory of Human Constants, legitimacy is not an independent constant, but rather an important mechanism for connecting meaning and order and transferring their effects to survival and connection.

A social system for its sustainability needs not only power, law, and resources; it must also be to some extent justified and acceptable to its members. Legitimacy can reduce the cost of maintaining order, strengthen cooperation, and increase the system's capacity to face crisis.

On the other hand, decline in legitimacy can lead to decreased trust, weakened cooperation, increased conflict, and transfer of imbalance from the domain of order to connection, meaning, and survival.

Therefore, from the perspective of the Theory of Human Constants, legitimacy is part of the capacity for social readjustment that can balance the need for stability with the necessity of change.

Key phrase: "In the Theory of Human Constants, legitimacy is the degree to which the power, rules, and institutions of a human system are considered justified and acceptable, which through connecting meaning, connection, and order can strengthen cooperation and sustainability, and its decline, if accumulated and coupled with weak readjustment mechanisms, can lead to social imbalance and crisis."