ABSTRACT
Legitimacy is the final analytical dimension we consider before moving, in Chapter 7, to a discussion of the matrix as a catalogue of political structures to suit sub-state national groups in different cases and contexts. Legitimacy refers to the public acceptability of the institutional details in cases across the matrix categories. The rhetoric of self-determination implies that legitimacy is one of its central components: the desire for change is premised on a sub-state national group’s decreasing acceptance of the state as the exclusive or primary decision-maker. Often the introduction of a new structure that is accepted by the group is portrayed as an example of replacing external authority with internal legitimation (Taylor and Paget 1988) and the institutionalisation of a political order means that the structure has become widely accepted by the people (Long 1990: 754). In other cases the sub-state national group attributes the failure of a new plan or structure to its rejection by the public because it is a government plan (Metge 1976). In some cases there is also a feeling that there is such a gap between the wishes of the government and the sub-state national group that no acceptable settlement is possible: Lloyd George argued that part of the problem for Northern Ireland is that no proposal acceptable to parties in Britain is acceptable to parties in Ireland and vice versa (House of Commons (UK) 1920: 1,322). While legitimacy is a core, and assumed, part of self-determination the extent to which structures are accepted and therefore accorded legitimacy differs. What follows is a consideration of various aspects of legitimacy and the extent to which they are found across the cells of the matrix.
