Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science
Graduate School for Humanities and Social Sciences
University of the Witwatersrand / Political legitimacy manifests differently in different state institutions, and
comprehending its dynamics is a prerequisite to understanding power, authority,
capacity, consolidation, and sustainability of any political regime. Supported by
evidence from a case study of the Malawian parliament from 1994 to 2011, my
original contribution to knowledge is that political legitimacy of representative
institutions in emerging democracies has three minimum dimensions, namely: public
perception of the acceptability and fairness of formal procedures guiding a
representative institution; public emotional attachment to the institution; and public
perception of performance effectiveness of the institution. I label these dimensions as
juridical; symbolic; and instrumental legitimacy respectively. I therefore posit that,
deficiency in any or some of the three legitimacy dimensions has the potential to
compel those represented, who may be self-confessed democrats, to demand
institutional reforms that ironically may go against the very tenets of multi-party
democracy. The Malawi parliament case shows that legitimacy deficiency of
parliament seems to be facilitated by public dissatisfaction with their local socioeconomic
status, in the context of a dysfunctional local government, and coupled with
the public perception of parliament as a responsible institution given its status in the
perceived representation hierarchy that places it above the local government. This
situation is aggravated given the fact that Malawi parliament, rightly so, is neither
institutionally nor financially supported to directly address local development issues;
and that, erroneously, the parliament is neither institutionally nor financially
supported to effectively carry out its representation function despite representation
carrying the status of a meta-function. The lack of political will for public
consultations and lack of intra-party democracy in political parties represented in
parliament has also tremendously eroded the influence of political parties hence further undermining the legitimacy of the whole multi-party regime. Using principles
of external validity in case study research therefore, the Malawian case study provides analytical insights that can be extrapolated to understand political legitimacy of
representative institutions in other emerging democracies that have similar context to
that of Malawi.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/15863 |
| Date | 11 November 2014 |
| Creators | Jana, Michael Patrick Eliezer |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
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