Popular Legitimacy in African Multi-Ethnic States

The historical development of the modern state is marked by, among other important changes, the transformation of political legitimacy from the authority of princes to the mandate of the people, from dynastic to popular legitimacy. Since states are the creatures not only of their domestic environment but also of international society, we must distinguish between internal and international legitimacy. Martin Wight defines the latter as ‘the collective judgement of international society [i.e. other states] about rightful membership of the family of nations’. According to him, the convention of international legitimation that has predominated since 1945 is based on the combined and paradoxical principles of majority rule, which rejects the legitimacy of colonialism, and territorial integrity, which nevertheless accepts territorial divisions established under colonialism. We define internal legitimacy as the recognition of a state and its government as rightful by its population, which during the modern era has increasingly meant a popular recognition democratically expressed.