The Role of Normative and Social Components in the Formation of Political Legitimacy

Subject Areas : Political and International Researches Quarterly

Behrang Taheri ¹ , Mohammad Tohidfam ² , Seyed Mostafa Abtahi ³

1 - PhD student in Political Science, Department of Political Science, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2 - Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
3 - Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Received: 2022-11-19 Accepted : 2023-02-21 Published : 2023-04-21

Keywords: Political legitimacy, Legitimation, Normative Basis of Legitimacy, Social Basis of Legitimacy,

Abstract :

Political legitimacy in the ancient world was mainly normative in nature. But in the modern world, this concept, while maintaining some normative elements within itself, has found a deep connection with the public will and the demands of citizens. According to this, political legitimacy has a two-faceted nature that simultaneously reflects the normative and social characteristics of a society and creates the primary and secondary legitimacy of the system, respectively. In this article, with the qualitative approach and descriptive-analytical method, we explain the legitimacy of political systems based on the two normative and social foundations of legitimacy. The hypothesis ahead is that long-term continuity of legitimacy requires maintaining the distance between the two foundations of the legitimacy building of the system through continuous legitimization; in such a way that occurrence of crisis in the secondary legitimacy of the system does not cause the crisis to spread to its primary legitimacy.