ABSTRACT
Legitimizing influence comes from respect for authority; that is, the authority of the people as expressed through elections. Respect for this authority stems from the belief that policy made by the democratically elected representatives of the people should reflect the popular will, especially when it is clearly expressed at the polls. We see this principle at work in the following example, taken from the 1964 presidential election:
The Democratic Leadership [in Congress] seemed persuaded that the election was a signal about popular support for legislation such as Medicare, since polls showed that Medicare was a significant factor in Johnson’s victory. Wilbur Mills, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, “conceded that before the election members of Congress may not have been in step with the peoples’ thinking on Medicare; but after Johnson campaigned on the issue and won by an unprecedented margin, they ‘realized that people were for it for the first time.’” (quoted in Conley 2001, 90)
Legitimizing influence of a certain kind is exercised when newly elected presidents view their elections as evidence of public endorsement of their policies, and when legislators enact those policies in part because they accept the president’s argument that the policies do reflect the will of the people.
