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Measuring Political Legitimacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

M. Stephen Weatherford
M. Stephen Weatherford*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
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Abstract

Political legitimacy is a key concept in both macro and micro theories. Pioneers in survey-based research on alienation and system support envisioned addressing macro questions about legitimacy with the sophisticated empiricism of individual-level methodology but failed; and a succession of innovations in item wording and questionnaire construction only led to an excessive concern with measurement issues at the individual level. I return to an enumeration of the informational requirements for assessing legitimacy in hopes of finding a conceptualization that better utilizes available survey indicators to tap relevant macro dimensions. I specify formal measurement models for both conventional and revised conceptualizations of legitimacy orientations and compare the fit of the two models systematically on data from the U.S. electorate. The revised model appears preferable on both theoretical and empirical grounds.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 86 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 149 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1992 

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