The Legitimacy of the State in Fragile Situations

The report expands upon conventional understandings of the state and its relation to society, and presents a more thoroughgoing empirical understanding of legitimacy than is typically employed in studies of fragile states. This perspective illuminates how legitimacy is formed through legitimization processes and how different types of actors, including external actors, can appropriate and use various sources of legitimacy to both undermine and bolster the legitimacy of state in fragile situations. We present a view of state fragility that is defined by lack of capacity (organizational, and financial) and lack of constructive relations with society. Low levels of legitimacy are thus considered a central cause of, and outcome of, such lack of capacity. We suggest that legitimacy gives an ‘added- value to power’ and thus acts as an enhancer of state capacity. It turns people into citizens, state laws and regulations into ‘natural’ and self-imposed rules. We also discuss the special challenges that would-be state builders face in seeking to tap into and appropriate differing, and partly contradictory, sources of legitimacy.