Gilley's The Right to Rule is an exploration into the concept of political legitimacy. While its theoretical scaffold is solid, where the book breaks new ground is in the issue of measurement of legitimacy. Its attempt to bridge the divide between political theory and empirical research makes the book engaging for a wide audience. Its implicit and explicit suggestions for future research make it a strongly recommended read for those who intend to cope with the challenges concerning the empirical measurement of the legitimacy of states.
Gilley deals extensively with the literature on the legitimacy of states, both from the domestic and the international viewpoint. The initial theory chapter is very compelling in its exhortation to operationalize legitimacy and to pull it beyond the realm of pure theory. For Gilley “a state [ … ] is more legitimate the more it holds and exercises political power with legality, justification, and consent from the standpoint of all of its citizens” (p. 11). Legality and justification refer to the rules and norms of conduct, respectively, while consent concerns the direct expression of the citizens' recognition of a state's right to rule. The key idea is that legitimacy seems to depend on performance (many states survived with minimal legitimacy, i.e. Myanmar); this assumption is tested in the subsequent quantitative analysis.
The empirical analysis is Gilley's main contribution. It is among the first full-fledged attempts to operationalize a concept which previously belonged almost exclusively to the province of the political theorist. It is an analysis of seventy-two states, together with a discussion of a case study: Uganda. A reader may be surprised by the choice for the case study, given its prominence (in terms of pages, it is roughly 20% of the book) and the fact that Gilley's previous research has focused extensively on Southeast Asia. Nonetheless, Uganda is a “least likely” case for the theory, which makes it relevant with respect to countries in Southeast Asia by showing that there is nothing irreversible about the so-called legitimacy traps.
A legitimacy trap is a vicious cycle of low legitimacy and low performance, which are mutually reinforcing: low state legitimacy hampers development, which in turn decreases legitimacy, and so on (p. 55). Gilley seems to suggest that such traps could be avoided, given that some poor countries—like China, Bangladesh, or the Philippines—have exceeded their expectations in terms of both legitimacy and performance while still relatively poor at the turn of the millennium.
According to Gilley state legitimacy in Asia is reliably predicted by performance, with the notable exception of China (whose level of legitimacy is much higher than its income level would predict). Within the Asian countries Taiwan and China have the highest legitimacy score (higher than Australia or Switzerland). Countries with a medium level of legitimacy include Indonesia and India, while the less legitimate countries include Pakistan (lowest score of the whole sample, except for Russia). It is also remarkable that the subset of the Asian countries studied has a relatively high mean legitimacy score—higher than Africa, Middle East, Latin America or Eastern Europe.
An important corollary of this point is that political leadership is crucial—although there is still relatively little data on the success stories (i.e. South Korea or India).
For the readers who are interested in more details on the data, Gilley offers a theoretical framework on which to graft future endeavors, at least in two respects.
Five of the nine indicators used to measure legitimacy are responses to five survey questions from the World Values Survey 1999–2002. Another indicator has data only for the years 2001–2002. These six indicators are survey-based and account for seventy-five percent of a state's legitimacy score (Online Appendices). It would be of interest to see whether the results would be replicated even if the focus were shifted to the revealed preferences of citizens (“behavior” rather than “attitude”).
Furthermore, the significance of the analysis could be increased with the use of data sets covering a longer period of time than two to seven years. This is all the more so since, notwithstanding the emphasis on the legitimation process (the core of the book and its central chapter), legitimacy seems to be measured more as a static variable than a dynamic one. In terms of presentation of the data in the book, one minor note is that it could be clearer what period of time is made reference to in tables and graphs.
A bold intention of the book is to focus on the “universally valued sources of legitimacy” (p. 182). Gilley stresses that “there is no escaping the force of legitimacy” (p. 194). One is sometimes left with the impression that the variable might explain too much, a sort of uber-variable (p. 210).
Gilley notes that legitimacy is a difficult variable to isolate, because it “suffuses every aspect of the political world.” And yet isolate it we must, if we want to be able to see its independent effect on politics, whether domestic or international. Gilley is an important first step in this direction.
The more theoretical chapters of the book are neatly organized and cover a large amount of material very effectively; they would be useful to any educated reader with an interest in the topic. For those already familiar with work on legitimacy, the emphasis on measurement will be certainly valuable. A useful reminder to all readers is that legitimacy is a freestanding concept in political science: the question about who has the right to rule is as cogent a question today as it has ever been. This is especially true given that “no pattern of legitimation is permanent. Negative political action can undo what positive political action has created” (p. 134). Legitimacy, much like a democratic polity or an empire, is better thought of as a process whose outcome is neither guaranteed nor achieved once and for all.
