ABSTRACT

Research has shown that people obey the law and cooperate with legal authorities primarily if and when they believe those legal authorities are legitimate (Tyler 2006). Legitimacy can be formally defined as the right to rule and the recognition by the ruled of that right (Sternberger 1968). In that respect, legitimacy can be seen as a sort of quality label for authorities that is attributed by society as a whole. With this label authorities can justify their interventions and use of force against certain members of this society. Moreover, in theory legitimacy is, or could be, a normative discussion about certain standards that states and institutions ought to meet. In contrast to this, empirical legitimacy is believed to be easier to define and measure (Hough et al. 2010) as it does not focus on theoretical standards, but rather on the attribution of legitimacy to an authority or an institution.