Abstract

In his guest contribution to the PVS 4/2011 Michael Zürn analyses the development of empirical legitimacy in the western democracies, in authoritarian states and in the context of the proliferation of political authority and law beyond the state. He claims that democracy is losing ground as justificatory principle of legitimate authority. His argument is based on a conception of legitimacy which can be elucidated by reference to a “judgment model” for the empirical study of legitimacy. This model is differentiated here from a model which conceptualizes the empirical study of legitimacy as measurement. It is argued that Zürn’s empirical analysis does not meet the requirements of his own, complex understanding of empirical legitimacy and that therefore his main thesis – that the significance of democracy as a source of political legitimacy is declining – needs to be questioned.