By definition, legitimacy is the value of someone or something being recognized as proper in society or by the public. Thus, a legitimate institution is regarded as the individual or organization that is widely accepted by the public in a particular community or country (Bekkers, Dijkstra, & Fenger, 2016). Where the legitimacy is present, the citizens of a country will obey the laws stipulated even if the punishment for not following such rules is slight. For instance, the citizens will pay taxes as required by the law even when there are no forms of punishment that compel the citizens to pay the taxes or punish them if they do not. Conventionally, there are three types of legitimacy in the different countries of the world namely traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal legitimacy (Bekkers, Dijkstra, & Fenger, 2016). Typically, the form of legitimacy that a country ascribes to, affects the relationship between the citizens and the government both positively and negatively.
The first form of legitimacy is the traditional legitimacy (Bekkers, Dijkstra, & Fenger, 2016). Traditional legitimacy is usually built by custom and tradition over time. The society or a given country stresses the historical development of the communities in it and institutionalizes leadership based on the historical events and leadership styles. An example of traditional legitimacy is the monarchy that leads the United Kingdom under Queen Elizabeth. The monarchy is institutionalized and customary with specific roles of the government officials and the citizens.
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The second form of legitimacy is the charismatic legitimacy (Bekkers, Dijkstra, & Fenger, 2016). Charismatic legitimacy is purely based on the force of ideas and is weakly institutionalized. Mostly, the charismatic legitimacy has revolutionary heroes as their leaders. The administrative institutions making use of the charismatic legitimacy majorly feature the persona of the leader and are known to crumble down with the absence of the revolutionary hero. An example is the revolutionary leadership of Vladimir Lenin, which led in Russia until 1924.
The third form of legitimacy is rational-legal legitimacy (Bekkers, Dijkstra, & Fenger, 2016). The rational-legal legitimacy is built on procedures and rules. Some offices are established to create and enforce the rules and procedures advocated for by the rational-legal form of legitimacy. The legitimacy is also profoundly institutionalized and resembles the democratic style of leadership in countries where the citizens are free to elect the leaders that they want in the office with defined electoral periods and terms. An example is Barack Obama who served as the president of the United States of America from 2008 to 2016 across two electoral terms.
The United Arab Emirates makes use of the traditional legitimacy, which provides for the federal constitutional monarchy as the head of the government and the overall ruler of the country (Peterson, 2017). The country also has a president and prime minister's office next in regulatory sequence. The Federation of the UAE is composed of several emirates and is open to any independent Arab countries that may wish to join the federation (Peterson, 2017). That resembles the institutionalization of states in the United States of America where the independent states merged to become today's United States of America as a country. The monarchy in the United Arab Emirates is highly institutionalized.
In conclusion, the form of legitimacy that a country has affects the relationship between the citizens and the government. The traditional legitimacy in the United Arab Emirates in the form of a federal constitutional monarchy constitutes the various rules that the Emirati are expected to follow. With the presence of the various offices under the monarchy such as the presidency and the office of the prime minister, the administration of the country becomes more manageable. Furthermore, the presence of the Emirates with different leaders contributes to the efficiency of the monarchy in the leadership. Thus, the traditional legitimacy is useful in the case of uniting the Emirati alongside the rules and procedures that the country's institutions have developed over time.
References
Bekkers, V., Dijkstra, G., & Fenger, M. (2016). Governance and the Democratic Deficit:
Assessing the Democratic Legitimacy of Governance Practices . Routledge.
Peterson, J. E. (2017). Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates and the Gulf Region: Fifty Years of
Transformation.
