3. Legitimacy

The state is the modern arena of politics. It has the power to regulate its citizens’ lives, collect taxes, punish lawbreakers, and wage war against other states. This enormous power over life and death is generally accepted by the state’s population because they consider the state to have legitimacy. Throughout history, there have been many ways in which a state has claimed legitimacy. Some states have claimed legitimacy because contemporary political beliefs were based on their rulers being chosen by God (e.g., medieval Europe),
or because their rulers were gods (e.g., Ancient Egypt, Qing Empire). Some political systems claim legitimacy by appealing to tradition (e.g., the contemporary Emperors of Japan), while others claim legitimacy as they overthrew corrupt and outdated political traditions (e.g., France, the United States). Conquest and occupation of a state by another state have traditionally been legitimized by claims that the invaders are somehow culturally or racially superior, or intervention to protect people from their own corrupt state, or simply that the invaders are more powerful and can therefore do what they want (“might makes right”).