ABSTRACT

The difference in the legitimacy of democracy and capitalism is, respectively, 41.3 percent and 37.2 percent, while that regarding efficiency is 33.3 percent and 31.1 percent. Legitimacy is an idea of central importance in political thought and science, although the concept has proven difficult to use in comparative research. The other side of the equation is legitimacy of the social and economic system, which again should be kept separate from trust in the agents of the system or its concrete performance. The “normal” democracies fall mainly into one of two types: both the democratic political institutions and the social and economic order enjoy considerable legitimacy or the democratic institutions enjoy such a legitimacy but the legitimacy of the social-economic system is questioned. The data from the European Values Study of 1981 allow to explore some of the legitimacy problems comparatively. The data suggest that the challenge to the economic system varies considerably from country to country.