Legitimacy by performance in democratic systems?
Preparing for empirical analysis
Jon Pierre
University of Gothenburg and University of Nordland
Asbjørn Røiseland
University of Nordland
Annelin Gustavsen
Nordland Research Institute
Paper prepared for Nordisk Kommuneforskerkonferanse 2011,
24-25 November 2011, Gothenburg, Sweden
Introduction
The paper outlines a framework for an empirical analysis of performance-based legitimacy. In order
to prepare the rather fuzzy concept of performance-based legitimacy for empirical analysis we will
begin by conducting a conceptual analysis of legitimacy and rehearse the literature in this field. By
disentangling the concept of democratic legitimacy we can develop a framework for an
understanding of how governments are legitimized not only through procedural democracy and
participation, but also through performance, that is, service delivery. Following that, we discuss and
elaborate on some basic concepts and variables which we deem likely to have an effect upon
performance-based legitimacy.
The basic point of departure of the paper is not that governments just recently have come to see that
their legitimacy in part is related to policy outputs or outcomes and that social scientists are
increasingly directing their attention to this new phenomenon. It is safe to assume that governments
at different institutional levels always, to smaller or greater extents, have been considered legitimate
primarily because of what they deliver (see, for instance, Gilley 2006). Instead, we depart from the
more recent, but now rapidly growing interest in output-based legitimacy as a result of changes in
public management and democratic representation. The significance of the input- and output
interfaces between the state and the citizenry appears to be gradually changing from an emphasis on
representation towards an emphasis on delivery and output, and it is this development which has
brought issues related to output-based legitimacy and its relationship to input-based legitimacy to
the recent attention of political scientists.
In the Eastonian intellectual tradition, legitimacy was primarily related to the input side of the
political system (see Crozier, 2010). Even if the model itself emphasizes output and outcomes, the
core processes providing legitimacy belong to the input side, ensured by feedback mechanisms from
output to input. Empirical research on institutional trust and legitimacy has therefore almost
exclusively been embedded in electoral studies research programs which, by default or design, are
focused on democratic representation. There was good reason for that; service delivery has
historically not offered any choice on behalf of the client. More broadly, the constitutional
architecture of the advanced democracies departs from a strong notion that democratic government,
and the legitimacy of that government, can only be ensured through a representative process. By
electing politicians, empowering them to make ‘authoritative decisions’ (Easton 1965), and holding
them to account at future elections government will become both responsive to popular preferences
and equipped with some degree of institutional integrity.
A number of fairly recent developments within the political system, in society, and in state-society
interactions have propelled a reconsideration of the viability and validity of the theory sustaining
these constitutional arrangements. The policies of the political parties are believed to be converging;
conventional forms of political participation are decreasing (Dalton and Wattenberg 2000); the
responsiveness of political parties to voters’ preferences has been called into question (Katz and Mair
1995); accountability through conventional channels is becoming more complex and, at the same
time, increasingly misleading (see Peters and Pierre 2011 and the literature cited there); and,
perhaps most importantly, while citizens qua voters participate only on election day, citizens qua
clients or customers have daily encounters with the state through the public administration and
public service delivery and are increasingly empowered to voice their preferences directly with those
who deliver those services (Brewer 2007; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004).
Against this backdrop, it is not a very bold assumption to suggest that the sources of political
legitimacy of the state are changing as well. The legitimacy of the contemporary state is derived not
just from the fact that it is controlled by elected officials but also that citizens receive tangible
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services and benefits from the state. The more intriguing set of research questions revolve around
the relative significance of conventional, procedure-based legitimacy on the one hand and the
arguably growing importance of output, result- and performance-based legitimacy on the other.
We know that political systems at all institutional levels generate legitimacy from their capacity to
provide democratic governance and from the services they deliver (Scharpf 1999; Gilley 2009;
Rothstein 2009). Traditionally, the essential sources of support and legitimacy—indeed, the systemic
features that make government democratic—are closely related to the input, representative, side of
the political system. Thus, the defining characteristics of democratic governance include typical
input-related features such as freedom of speech and elective and accountable representative
offices. These democratic features of government, in turn, reproduce popular support and legitimacy
for the political system (Gilley 2006; 2009). While there has also been some understanding that
legitimacy can be linked to distributive features of government as well, we know much less about
how important those aspects of the political system are in terms of generating legitimacy.
Today, however, a growing number of scholars question several aspects of the conventional way of
thinking about the relationships between procedures, performance, democracy, and legitimacy.
These scholars argue that public administration and public service delivery, i.e. state-society
interactions at the output side of the political system, are becoming as important as a source for
democratic legitimacy as input-related factors, if not even more so. This development from
procedures to performance is driven by a variety of factors which can be internal or external to the
state. We will elaborate on this issue in more detail later in the paper.
Performance-based legitimacy – a last resort?
Today we observe that the model of representative democracy is challenged by changes in the
organizational structure, management models and modus operandi of the public sector. Devolution,
outsourcing, fully or limited controlled companies delivering public services and collaborative forms
of governance like networks and partnerships displace political control and weaken the linkage
between popular preferences and policy output. The linkage between the demos and system output
has become more indirect. Elected politicians do no longer necessarily constitute the political centre,
as the logic of representative democracy stipulates (Crozier 2010:505). Several observers suggest
that such indirect governance, encouraged by the New Public Management reforms implemented
over the last decades, even poses a potential ethical threat to the democratic system as such (Dobel
2005; Frederickson 2005:178; Andersson and Bergman 2008).
Many of these changes have been well documented. In Scandinavia, the so-called ‘power and
democracy studies’ argue that these changes pose threats to the conventional forms of democracy
(Strandberg 2006). These studies, which were organized as mega social science research projects
initiated and funded by the national governments, aimed to evaluate democracy and power in a wide
scale. All the Scandinavian governments (Denmark, Sweden and Norway) initiated such studies in the
late 1990s, and they all raised concerns about the present state of democracy. Comparing the three
studies, they share a conclusion that profound changes have taken place in the three Scandinavian
democracies (Goul Andersen 2006; Amnå 2006; Selle and Østerud 2006; Rothstein 2009). However,
the three studies also differ in the evaluations of the decline of the conventional model of
democracy. The Danish research team, for example, argues that the observed changes should not be
evaluated by standards too strongly linked to the institutional structure of the past (Togeby 2005).
Meanwhile, Norwegians appear to be stronger committed to the conventional model of
representative democracy and consequently also draw more pessimistic conclusions. Taking an ideal
type as a starting point, the research team claims that ‘the parliamentary chain of government is
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weakened in every link; parties and elections are less mobilizing; minority governments imply that
the connection between election results and policy formation is broken; and elected assemblies have
been suffering a notable loss of domain’ (Selle and Østerud 2006:25). Furthermore the research team
claims that ‘the democratic infrastructure’ is declining, due to changes in civic organizations and the
linkage between civil society and public sector (Tranvik and Selle 2003:185).
These studies substantiate the challenges that the traditional model of input-driven democracy face,
partly caused by reform driven by politicians themselves, and partly caused by new modes of
governance and public management brought about as a response to increasing social complexity and
in part by changes in society itself. But does this imply that democracy itself is weakening or only that
the conventional input-based democratic legitimacy is declining? Can an increase in performancebased legitimacy compensate for the apparent decrease in input-based legitimacy? And are inputand performance-based legitimacy intertwined, conceptually and empirically?
Sources of legitimacy
‘Legitimacy’, writes Bruce Gilley (2006:502), ‘is an endorsement of the state by citizens at a moral or
normative level.’ It is conceptually distinct from political support which can be related either to the
state or to the government of the day. On a practical level, though, the two may interrelate in the
sense that legitimacy may be a fruit of long lasting political support, or political support in crucial
moments, for example when a written constitution is formed. The very core of legitimacy is that
citizens are willing to accept decisions and actions by the state even if they do not correspond with
individual preferences or objectives (Gilley 2006).
Even if the phenomenon can be fairly delimited and defined, the literature and perspectives on
legitimacy are manifold and complex. In a later work, Gilley distinguishes between five different
schools, based on how they understand the processes providing legitimacy (2009). First, there is the
point of view that the sources of legitimacy are non-universal, and vary across both time and space.
Positioned in this particularistic school, any attempts to generalize about the sources of legitimacy
would be fruitless. The remaining four schools share a belief to some extent that sources of
legitimacy are universal, but they argue that these sources vary extensively. In the sociological
school, the main emphasis is on social and cultural conditions that give rise to positive sentiments
about the state. These conditions can be related to deeper values such as religion, social trust, social
capital, a national feeling of ‘happiness’ etc, but also more action-oriented characteristics like the
level of political engagement and political interest are among the aforementioned sources. Moving
on to a developmental school, one can see legitimacy as following from the organization, production
and distribution of material well-being in a society. In that perspective, short and medium-term
fluctuations in economic growth can have an effect on state legitimacy. The school labelled
democratic represents a dominating strand of thoughts. For these theorists, the most important
source of legitimacy is the extent to which states uphold an extensive and equal system of human
rights, including civil, political, physical and social rights. Finally, a bureaucratic school can be
identified, arguing that legitimacy is derived from the strength, effectiveness and due procedures of
state institutions.
Rather than siding with any of these schools of thought, Rothstein outlines ‘four distinct views’ about
the sources of political legitimacy (2009:313). According to Rothstein, people accept the political
authority of their leaders based in either tradition, their personal appeal and charisma, the
government’s production of goods and services or in a belief in the fairness of the procedural
mechanisms for selecting leaders and making decisions.
Most of these ‘schools’ or ‘views’ on the sources of legitimacy can be related either to procedures or
performance, or both. The developmental and bureaucracy schools resemble performance-based
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legitimacy, as does the third source mentioned by Rothstein. The remaining three mentioned by
Rothstein relate to procedural legitimacy, together with the democratic and sociological school.
The literature in this field demonstrates various conceptions concerning how to interpret observed
societal changes and how to understand the relative importance and exact relationship between
procedural and performance-based legitimacy. Thus, Michael Hechter (2009:281) argues that the key
determinant of the legitimacy of a state is the perceived fairness of the decision-making process
rather than its provision of resources, opportunities, and outcomes. Others, like Guy Peters (2009,
2011), tend to see a more profound shift from input to output-democracy, arguing that there has
been a shift from input-oriented forms of democracy (procedural) towards a form of democracy
which is more tied to the outputs of policy-making (performance).
Legitimacy is integral to societal consent with the exercise of political power. In the spirit of liberal
democratic theory, traditional models of democratic governance tie political power to elective office
and to democratic accountability, i.e. to the input side of the political system. Furthermore, in this
institutional arrangement the public bureaucracy and much of sub-national government have the
implementation of policy as their chief role. These roles which have been accorded to elected
officials and political and administrative institutions are thus constitutional and normative; they
define jurisdictions and institutional capabilities. While there is a profound normative stability in
these arrangements, the empirical and analytical adequacy of this model is however a matter of
empirical inquiry (Crozier 2010).
Broadly speaking, the legitimacy of the state can be thought of as related either to its procedures or
its performance. Procedural legitimacy is derived from the legality of the public administration and
due process. Citizens, in this perspective, have confidence in the public bureaucracy because it
sustains equal treatment and the public interest. Legitimacy related to performance, one other hand,
is the result of the quality of services delivered; recipients support public services as long as they are
satisfied with its services. But we do not know very much about the relationship between these two
types of legitimacy. It would appear as if there is a negative correlation between them; bureaucracies
prioritizing due process will not be very inclined to tailor services to individual preferences, hence the
prospect of performance-based legitimacy would appear to be low. By the same token,
bureaucracies emphasizing quality and cost-efficiency in service delivery are likely to adopt
managerial models of administration towards that goal, and extensive managerial autonomy does
not go very well with an organizational model which prioritizes due process (see Moore 1995).
However, there is some evidence of a positive correlation between the two; studies conducted in the
EU institutional context suggest that the strongest predictor of output-based legitimacy is, in fact, a
high level of input legitimacy (Lindgren and Persson 2010).
The proliferation of collaborative governance arrangements such as public-private partnerships and
networks has gradually transformed the modus operandi of government at the same time as its
traditional normative role in democratic governance has remained largely intact (Pierre 2009).
Similarly, New Public Management reform with its emphasis on organizational efficiency and
managerial autonomy has challenged the traditional model of political control and accountability
(see Peters and Pierre, 2011). There have also been significant reforms undertaken to empower
public service clients vis-à-vis public service institutions, e.g. in the form of quasi markets and
customer choice models of service delivery (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004). All of these developments
are conducive to increasing performance-related legitimacy.
More importantly in the present context, NPM reforms in many countries and service sectors have
provided clients of public services an opportunity to choose among competing service producers,
thus opening up a channel for the articulation of popular preferences at the output side of the
political system. If we assume that this greater influence of clients on the services they receive leads
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to more tailored services and therefore also to greater satisfaction with those services, then there is
also strong reason to suspect that this will increase performance-based legitimacy.
That having been said, there are several important aspects of the relationship between service
delivery and legitimacy of political institutions that must be taken into account. First, while NPM
reform may enhance satisfaction with service delivery, it also raises the pertinent question of whose
legitimacy—the private contractor or the public bureaucracy—will benefit from market-based public
service delivery. Guy Peters (2008:379) suggests that ‘as government loses control over functions
considered to be public, it may lose the ability to effectively direct the society; it may lose the
steering ability that constitutes the root of what we call government’ (Peters, 2008:379). To put this
slightly differently, if NPM reform leads to greater customer satisfaction with services that, to smaller
or greater extents, are no longer delivered by the public sector, how will this affect the legitimacy of
political or administrative institutions?
Secondly, and partly related to the previous comment, NPM reform and the customer-based model
of service delivery have strengthened one type of accountability at the same time as they have
weakened another; the more conventional form of accountability. As Brewer (2007:555) points out,
‘the consumerist model is based on a narrow perspective of what constitutes public accountability.
By placing too much attention on customer satisfaction, important values of fairness and due
process, which are fundamental to good governance and the citizenship status of individuals in their
societies, may be undermined’. Thus, while customer satisfaction might be a valid measure of
performance-related legitimacy, it says very little indeed about procedural legitimacy.
Moreover, the literature of political science abounds with studies on value change and the
development of citizens’ attitudes towards hierarchical institutions, and scholars point to a number
of reasons why current generations are less deferent to political authorities and display lower trust in
politicians than preceding cohorts. Dalton (1999) argues that processes of political and social change
have been coupled with greater public expectations towards government, and as authorities have
not been able to respond to these demands, an increasingly mobilised public has begun to demand a
more open and participatory form of democracy. Inglehart’s (1999; 1997; 1977) well-known thesis on
the ‘post-materialist’ value revolution similarly argues that social, economic and political security
have enabled people to have high standards when evaluating politics and policies, which has brought
about higher level of distrust towards conventional forms of governance and its representatives.
However, neither scholars argue that democratic values have eroded and that democracy as a form
of government does not enjoy public support anymore; on the contrary, the argument follows that
the ‘cognitive mobilisation’ of people has led to an increased focus on democratic values and the
political system. The fact that people challenge elites is not synonymous with a ‘value crisis’ which
undermines the very foundations of Western regimes (Dalton 1999). This discussion cannot be
omitted in our study of people’s attitudes towards local government as well, as we may well
hypothesize that people’s attitudes towards democracy and the political systems as such may not be
predicted by their (lack of) trust in politicians.
In the midst of all these changes and developments we emphasize the critical role of political
legitimacy in democratic governance. Public management reform is rarely assessed in terms of its
impact on that legitimacy (but see Suleiman 2003). While NPM reform may strengthen performancebased legitimacy we need to know the degree to which it has an impact on the procedural legitimacy
of the state. The bottom-line issue seems to be that while customer satisfaction and trust in service
providers is not necessarily related to the public or private sector, procedural legitimacy remains
critical to the public sector and cannot be transferred to for-profit organizations (Pesch 2008; Peters
2008).
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Hence, the theoretical reasoning of this paper applies to all formal levels of government. In the
following section, we aim to discuss and define some core variables in a planned study of
performance-based legitimacy at local level. One of the appeals of addressing these issues at local
government level is that our research then can draw on both large and small N studies providing
variation in the dependent and independent variables while controlling for important variables
related to national context (John 2008).
This research design becomes all the more important as it could be argued that there are
institutional factors that make performance-based legitimacy more important at local than at nationstate level, such as for instance the proximity to service providers. It could also be argued that the
regulatory role of the nation-state (or the European Union) is less conducive to fostering
performance-based legitimacy in the same way as public service delivery at the local and urban level
can do. Moreover, the symbolic value of local government is less prominent than the one of national
governments; its powers are less extensive, the link between the electoral process and government
is less apparent, and the public interest in local government procedures is lower than for the national
government. Hence, the legitimacy of procedural mechanisms of local government may well be
perceived as less important than the actual services it delivers, as services are more visible than
procedures. Moreover, we do not know to which degree performance-based legitimacy is tied to
specific institutional levels, i.e. to what extent service recipients are knowledgeable about which
specific institutions should be credited for specific services, or if performance-based legitimacy
functions as a contributor to support for the state and the public sector in general. With a crossnational research design targeting local governments in two or more countries we can, to some
degree at least, address these issues.
Preparing the empirical analysis: the variables
Following the above line of thought, it is relevant to ask how different groups of actors, for example
in local government, understand legitimacy and how they judge the legitimacy in terms of procedural
and performance-based legitimacy. Furthermore it is reasonable to ask how legitimacy is understood
and judged within different institutional contexts like traditional agency management and new
governance arrangements. In this section we identify a set of dependent and independent variables
that form a part of the analytical framework for an empirical study on performance-based legitimacy
at the local level. We begin this presentation by elaborating on our dependent variable, legitimacy.
The present analysis does not claim to address all aspects of the highly complex phenomenon of
legitimacy; nor does it attempt to include all those societal factors that might help explain the level
of legitimacy for any political system. Instead, we are outlining a framework for analysis based on
what we believe to be the most significant dependent and independent variables which form the
contexts of our discussion on legitimacy.
The Dependent variable: Legitimacy
While a review of the literature on political legitimacy culminates in a vast number of approaches to
measure procedural legitimacy, the measurement of performance-based legitimacy has been subject
to the attention of academics to a lesser extent. However, we may argue that there are conceptual
difficulties with several suggested approaches to measure input-based legitimacy as well, which have
to be taken into account when designing a research framework. This section will elaborate on some
approaches to operationalize legitimacy.
To begin with, one can imagine two levels of legitimacy. Following Levi, Sacks and Tyler (2009),
legitimacy can be both value-based and behavioural. Value-based legitimacy expresses a sense of
obligation and willingness to obey government decisions regardless of their ideological orientation.
This type of legitimacy translates into actual compliance with governmental regulations and laws, i.e.
behavioural legitimacy. But not necessarily all actions grouped under behavioural legitimacy can be
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traced back to values, as instinctive behaviour or fear may be as important as values to explain actual
behaviour. Similarly, values do not guarantee certain behaviours as different barriers or obstacles
may prevent people to doing the ‘right’ actions. For example, citizens may vote because they support
the political system, or they may support the political system, but decide not to vote since they may
not believe that the current political parties and representatives rule in a way which coincides with
their preferences. Another possibility is that citizens may not support the political system, but vote
since they believe that this is their only possibility to influence the system, alternatively, they may
choose to vote for anti-establishment parties in an expression of discontent with the system or
incumbent (local) government. Furthermore, values of liberal democracy are by nature tricky
concepts to employ in citizen surveys, given the normative nature of the question. General
definitions of values of liberal democracy may be ill-advised as it is very difficult to argue in a
scientific manner that specific values can be 1) claimed to be universal and 2) necessary prerequisites
for legitimacy, based on normative assumptions of which values represent democratic legitimacy. For
the issue of universalism of values, one can refer to Easton’s (1965) requirement that values need to
be shared by the population as a whole, and that these values need to be expressions of what is the
‘common good’ while individuals yield their own wishes and demands in favour of what they define
as what is the best for the population as a whole. For the second point, we may encounter difficulties
if we choose popular perceptions of what are values of democracy, such as freedom of speech and
free elections, since such values may not actually represent people’s perceptions of legitimacy – their
ideas of what constitute legitimate (local) government may be based on different values. These
factors make values difficult to operationalize into meaningful measures of legitimacy.
All in all it can be argued that there is a complex relationship between values and behaviour, as well
as a complex relationship between attitudes and behaviour towards the system as such and/or the
incumbent government. The latter two may often be confused with each other, and citizens’ values
and actions may be associated with either the system or the incumbent government, or a fusion of
both (See Easton 1965 for a discussion on the difference between diffuse and specific support). The
same argument can be framed for political participation as acts of consent for the system: the very
reason for participation may be exactly the opposite. Hence, we are compelled to distinguish
between value-based legitimacy and behavioural legitimacy, as well as whether these are associated
with the system or the current government. The key methodological challenges lie exactly within the
measurability of such complex matters.
When making performance-based legitimacy ready for empirical analysis in terms of questions for a
questionnaire or an interview guide, one needs to pay special attention to several possible
methodological problems. First, even if legitimacy conceptually is distinct from political support,
exploring this field empirically probably would reveal that there is a gradual transition and to some
extent interrelation and overlap between the two. Clearly relating an empirical observation (i.e. an
answer to a posed question, etc) to one or the other will be difficult, and will require extensive
considerations throughout the empirical research process.
Maybe the most obvious point of departure for measuring legitimacy is to ask citizens to what
degree they feel they trust government and elected officials, and attempt to measure trust and
support for a selection of aspects of the system in itself. Examples of questions relating to inputbased legitimacy can be transparency and efficiency of local politics, accountability of elected
officials, and whether local parties are able to tap into ordinary people’s desires and needs. Other
useful measures of input-based legitimacy can be to measure degrees of political alienation, and
whether people believe that their opinions matter in local politics and whether they feel that
politicians are responsive to people’s opinions. When elaborating on such matters, Inglehart’s (1999;
1997; 1977) theory of post-materialist value change, as elaborated on in previous paragraphs, can
provide a useful framework for analysis. Inglehart argues that ‘post-materalist’ citizens can be
expected to experience a lower degree of political alienation than ‘materialist’ citizens, which
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provides a point of departure for our analysis: will this also bring about higher confidence in the
legitimacy of local government for ‘post-materialists?’ Another useful aspect to consider is
Holmberg’s (1999) ‘home-team’ hypothesis, which suggests that political trust will be highest among
voters whose (preferred) party is in power and lowest among those whose party is in opposition. It
has to be pointed out that this dummy-measure can be argued to constitute a measure of specific
rather than diffuse support, which must be taken into account when analyzing the results.
Support can then be specified in subsequent survey items to measure perceptions of performancebased legitimacy as well; do people trust that local government will provide adequate services, how
do they perceive the quality of the administration, and the accountability of bureaucrats? This
analysis could for example depart from the idealized model of impartiality in implementing policy as
suggested by Rothstein (2009).
Independent variables
In the following we intend to discuss a set of variables that we assume, based in the theoretical
discussion above, to have an influence on performance-based legitimacy.
New client-state exchanges. Some aspects of the claimed transformation of the public sector have
been able to create alternative mechanisms for democracy (Peters 2009:8). In some national
contexts and service sectors clients qua customers are offered extensive choice thus enabling them
to tailor the services according to their needs and preferences. Based on the intentions behind these
structures (Box et al. 2001; Lowndes et al. 2001; Vetter and Kersting 2003), one can assume that
close proximity to service providers, for instance stakeholder representation or users’ boards, has a
positive influence on performance-based legitimacy.
Organisational structure. As we discussed earlier, the degree of autonomy that service providers
have in relationship to the local authority is an essential element in describing the organisational
form. As illustrated in figure 1, different organizational forms could be represented along a
continuum where low degree of service provider autonomy implies direct political governance, and
vice versa; high degree of autonomy implies a more indirect kind of political governance.
Figure 1: Institutional forms and degree of service provider autonomy
More specifically, we can distinguish between services delivered by the authority proper on the one
hand, and services that are delivered by for-profit organizations, municipal companies or networks
on the other. Thus, since it is widely believed that governance forms like partnerships and networks
tend to propel the drift towards performance-based legitimacy (Peters 2010), we assume that these
institutional variables yield different levels of legitimacy.
Supervision and control. If democracy has shifted towards the output-side, accountability becomes all
the more important for democracy (Peters 2009:3). Accountability reflects a commitment or
willingness to accept the responsibility for one’s behaviour (Steets 2010:15). This accountability can
be based in norms, spontaneous and something taken for granted by politicians and bureaucrats
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(Dobel 2005, Olsen 2005). But in the aftermath of New Public Management, to an increasingly
extent, systems of supervision and control have become institutionalized. The general development
described as the ‘audit society’ (Power 1997) is recognized at the local governmental level in many
countries (Helgøy and Serigstad 2004; Karlsson 2009). This development connects to increased
devolution, management discretion and competition introduced as New Public Management reform
has been implemented worldwide as safeguards against corruption and unethical behaviour (Dobel
2005; Frederickson 2005). National government regulations vary between countries, however, and
there are significant variations among municipalities in terms of how much supervision and control is
taking place and how systematic and communicated these efforts are (for Norway see KRD 2009).
The impact that those activities have on procedural and performance-based legitimacy in local
governments will therefore be an empirical question. Likewise, it is an open question whether
institutionalized systems for supervision and control surpass more informal and norm based
principles of accountability (Lundquist 1998; Pharr and Putnam 2000).
Organizational functions. So far we have elaborated on networks and partnerships as if they
represent a homogeneous type of public-private collaboration. However, as Julie Steets (2010)
reminds us, these structures differ widely in terms of their organizational functions. This observation
has implications for both accountability principles and legitimacy. By disentangling partnerships into
different types distinguished by their organizational function, Steets shows that rule
setting/regulating and implementing partnerships require more extensive systems for accountability
than advocacy and awareness-raising partnerships, the latter operating more on the input side then
the two first mentioned (Steets 2010). The argument here is simply that what organizations,
partnerships and networks do in terms of organizational functions is an important variable in an
empirical study of performance-based legitimacy.
Local government systems. Variation in average municipal size, local government autonomy and
financial strength make important differences, and should also be taken into account. Large local
governments are able to organise their core services (eg. water and sewage systems, waste, child
care, special education, social services) within the municipal jurisdiction, whereas in systems of
smaller average municipalities collaboration with neighbouring municipalities becomes essential in
order to produce core services. Even between as similar countries as Sweden and Norway, there are
essential differences in this regard. While national government is very much present in the
Norwegian context, stressing the local government role as providers of national welfare services
(Fimreite and Tranvik 2010), the much larger average municipalities with greater autonomy in
Sweden (Bäck and Johanson 2010) is likely to result in more increased focus on the local agenda. This
may help create a closer link between the political system and the citizens in the Swedish
municipalities than is the case in Norway which, in turn, may influence the democratic legitimacy in
the direction of a stronger dependence on output legitimacy in the Norwegian than in the Swedish
municipalities. Previous studies show what municipal size matters when citizens form opinions on
whether they regard municipal authorities as legitimate (Denters 2002).
4. Summing up
This paper has been motivated by two main questions. First, it is more or less common sense that
performance in one way or another is a source of legitimacy, but has mainly been seen as a less
important and supplementary source compared to the input-based legitimacy provided by for
example elections and due bureaucratic procedures. With New Public Management and similar
reform efforts, new governance arrangements involving private or civil sector have made many of
the traditional mechanisms ensuring input legitimacy more indirect and perhaps even less relevant.
Moreover, several scholars emphasize that social and economic changes have brought about less
deferent attitudes towards authorities, which provides an interesting theoretical framework for the
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part of this study which focuses on citizens’ attitudes. These observations, well documented by the
Scandinavian power and democracy studies we referred to in previous paragraphs, leads to the
important question of whether or not performance-based legitimacy can compensate for the
contended lack of legitimacy created at the input side of the policy circle.
Our second main question relates to the relationship between procedural and performance-based
legitimacy. Maximizing input based legitimacy may mean that bureaucracies prioritize due processes.
In doing so, individual preferences and tailor services probably will not be high on the agenda. This
may mean that the two sources of legitimacy are competing sources, and that we should not expect
the two sources being equally important.
Both these questions have empirical answers. Standing in front of a research project aiming to dwell
on these questions, we have introduced a set of variables that, from our perspective, need to be
included in such a study. There variables are summed up in the figure below.
Figure 2: Some variables possibly explaining level of performance-based legitimacy
The research outlined here should providing interesting accounts of the changing nature of political
and democratic legitimacy. As mentioned earlier in the paper, performance-based legitimacy is in
itself not a new phenomenon but changes within the state and its interfaces with the surrounding
society tend to accord growing importance to output-based legitimacy and, arguably, a decreasing
significance of representation as a source of legitimacy. There has been much theorizing on these
issues. The research outlined here will provide empirical context to theory and help us better
understand the sources of output-based legitimacy and how this form of legitimacy relates to inputbased legitimacy.
5. References
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