Role of the ‘Popular Will’ in the Emergence of the ‘Democratic Norms’ and ‘Socioeconomic Performance’ as Major Sources of State Legitimacy

Abstract

Scholars and policymakers linked to global democracy project assume that ‘popular will’ and ‘democratic norms’ are complementary to each other. Based on this assumption, they claim that if impediments to popular will are removed, people will automatically adopt democratic norms. In this paper, we challenge this assumption and argue that there could be situations when public opinion might be in favor of non-democratic norms as well. We do acknowledge that significance of popular will in global political culture led to democracy as the key source of legitimacy. However, at the same time, demands to satisfy public opinion forced state leaders to provide public goods. Hence, instrumental legitimacy arising out of ‘socioeconomic performance’ provided base of support to non-democratic leaders. Consequently, it is recommended that to win over public opinion democratic norms must compete with other non-democratic sources of legitimacy, and that free public opinion will not automatically lead to democracy.