The Test for Legitimacy in an Era of Democracy.

Till today, there exists no straight-jacket formula for testing the legitimacy of governments. The idea of legitimacy is a predominantly fluid idea which changes with the change in society. This paper seeks to establish the relationship between the legal concept of legitimacy and the state of the society. The ideas to assess legitimacy that have been put forth are over simplified. This paper thus advocates an elaborate idea - initially put forth by Aspremont - which breaks legitimacy down into two - legitimacy of origin and legitimacy of exercise. Simply put, the first refers to how a government comes to power and the latter refers to the way in which utilizes the power. Thus a monochrome view of the concept of legitimacy needs to give way to a spectral view of both origin and exercise, under which both need to be accorded weight in testing for legitimacy. Thee paper also analyses the role of recognition in determining the legitimacy of a government. The main question that the paper would seek to answer is whether democracy has become the touchstone of legitimacy in the present day world? The answer to this would involve a discourse into the much talked about procedural and the less talked about substantive elements of a democracy. This would be buttressed by an analysis of some of the governments of the present as well as the past. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]