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legitimacy

/lɪˈdʒɪtɪməsi//lɪˈdʒɪtɪməsi/·noun
the quality of being lawful, justified, or widely accepted as valid
Fig. 1 — I watch a bare-headed figure stand still while, from below, a forest of hands goes up.
01Definition

Legitimacy is the quality of being legitimate — accepted as rightful rather than merely seized, forged, or pretended. Of power, it rests on recognition more than on force: a government has legitimacy when the governed accept its right to rule. Of an argument or a claim, it means being justified and not arbitrary. The word names the difference between holding something and having the acknowledged right to hold it, which is why it is so often contested.

02In use
  • iPower taken by force often struggles to win the legitimacy that only recognition can confer.
  • iiVoters questioned the legitimacy of an election whose results no one could substantiate.
  • iiiScholars still debate the legitimacy of a ruler whose claim to the throne was always tenuous.
03Collocations
  • confer legitimacy
  • question the legitimacy of
  • democratic legitimacy
  • a crisis of legitimacy
  • lend legitimacy to

Family legitimate (adjective) · legitimize (verb) · illegitimacy (noun)

04Relations

=validity, lawfulness, authority, legality, rightfulness

≠illegitimacy

06TOEFL & IELTS

A key abstract noun for politics, history, and IELTS opinion essays. Strong collocations: confer / question / a crisis of legitimacy. Mind the spelling and the family (legitimate, legitimize). It often pairs with 'authority' and 'recognition' in academic argument.

07Asked
What is the difference between legitimacy and legality?
Legality is a fact about rules — an act either complies with written law or it does not. Legitimacy is a judgment about rightfulness — whether people accept that a power or claim deserves to stand. The two can split: an occupying regime may rule with perfect legality under its own decrees yet enjoy no legitimacy, while a protest can be illegal and still feel legitimate to most citizens.
What does legitimacy mean in politics?
The accepted right to rule, as opposed to the mere ability to. A government has political legitimacy when the governed regard its authority as properly held — through elections, tradition or performance — and obey willingly rather than out of fear. In the scene above the crown rises on the crowd's own hands and holds because they put it there: legitimacy is what makes obedience cheap, and force must fill whatever gap it leaves.
What does it mean to lend legitimacy to something?
To lend legitimacy is to transfer some of your own acceptance — a respected observer who attends a staged election lets it borrow a rightfulness it has not earned. The near-twin is confer legitimacy, used when institutions grant it formally. Both collocations carry the same warning: legitimacy is always given by others, never declared by oneself.
What is a crisis of legitimacy?
The moment a ruling arrangement keeps functioning but stops being accepted — courts sit, taxes are collected, and yet the governed no longer grant the system the right to do these things. Political scientists use the phrase for slow collapses, where authority drains away before power does. Watch its verbs of erosion: legitimacy is questioned, undermined, eroded, and finally lost.
How do you spell and pronounce legitimacy?
Five syllables with the stress on the second: le-JIT-i-ma-cy, /lɪˈdʒɪtɪməsi/. The ending is -acy, not -icy — the same pattern as accuracy and democracy — and 'legitimicy' is a common misspelling because the vowel in -macy is unstressed. The family around it: legitimate (adjective), legitimize (verb), and the negative illegitimacy.
Can arguments and businesses have legitimacy, or only governments?
Anything that claims a right to stand can have it. A scientific claim gains legitimacy when peers accept its evidence; a company holds legitimacy when the people it depends on — customers, regulators, staff — accept its way of operating; a question has legitimacy when it deserves an answer. The core never moves: legitimacy is standing granted by the scrutiny of others, in politics or out of it.