"Why is-it claimed that the weakness of most 'Third World' countries is due to lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation?" 

By Mr Jean-Paul LAWRENCE TAMPU-EYA, BA LL.B. LL.M. PhD (Law Res.)

This essay is structured as follows: after a brief introduction stating that lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation are the result of past colonial history, this essay argues, firstly, that lack of political legitimacy is one of the main weaknesses in Third World countries. Here, the relationship between the state and society is looked at. It is shown that colonialism, people’s lack of trust for their government, political manipulation by the state’s elite and world greater powers etc. are all principal causes of lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation. Secondly, this work looks at the reasons that keep Third World leaders in power even though there is this weakness of lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation. Looking at most Third World regimes, it is remarked generally that there are personalist, patrimonial, neo-patrimonial, clientelist, bureaucratic authoritarian and populist regimes. Since there seems to be a failure to achieve both legitimacy and political institutionalisation, Third World leaders find these regimes, which are different in kinds as they sometimes overlap and others are hybrid, as their main way to stay longer in power. Lastly, it concludes that 'Third World' countries' weakness is mainly lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation. This is due to the absence of the relationship that should exist between state and society; and, as a result, most leaders take power illegally and use the above regimes as a way of staying in power.

There is nothing as a typical Third World country but B.C. Smith[1] defines it as:

"A group of countries which have colonial histories and which are in the process of developing economically and socially from a status characterised by low incomes, dependence on agriculture, weakness in trading relations, social deprivation for large segments of society, and restricted political and civil liberties".[2]

The lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation in Third World countries seems to come from the time of state formation due to colonial past histories because the relationship between the state and society is practically non-existent. In the Third World, unlike Western Europe, colonial rulers imposed the state into nation in order to form nation-state. They imposed their political, economic, civil, social and cultural systems to the Third World without taking into account the indigenous’ civilisations and cultures. Hence, slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, political manipulations and other Western impositions in the Third World countries have all contributed to this problem of lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation. Walter Rodney[3] blames slavery, colonialism and western manipulations through education systems as the source of puppet regimes, lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation in the third world. Jeff Haynes[4] agrees with Engels and Marks that the colonial states were imposed on the Third World. He explains that:

"…Nearly all Third World states are artificial constructions. Whereas in Western Europe and North America the nation nearly always created the state, in the Third World the reverse is more usually true: state formation precedes nation building"[5].

As in all colonies, colonialists imposed their rules regardless of the people's cultures, languages and differences when they had their cake and ate it at the Berlin Conference, in 1885, while, for example, dividing Africa amongst themselves as it pleased them. That is why Tutsis people are found in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania and the R.D. Congo; as a result, this is one of the principal sources of conflicts within African's Great Lakes' regions. Consequently, the essential nexus or relationship, which is supposed to exist between the state and society and vice versa, does not exist and this absence makes the creation of political institutions and the issue of legitimacy very difficult to sustain. This shows that the solidity of the relationship between state and society depends on this nexus and if society and state do not meet somewhere, people would not recognise the authority of the state with its political institutions. Jeff Haynes puts that:

"…Many ordinary people in the Third World do not see their state as a reasonably coherent champion of society interests at home and abroad, a set of institutions whose personnel work for the common good. Instead, the state is often regarded as the vehicle for the self-interest of an often tiny elite…"[6]

Max Weber[7] asserts that a state is "…a compulsory association claiming control over territories and the people within them. Administrative, legal, extractive and coercive organisations are the core of any state". Normally, state imposes its authority through legitimacy and strong political institutions. It appears that, apart from the external factors such as the UN and other international institutions that any contemporary state deals with, state’s main function is internally oriented because it has to maintain political and economical orders, which involves that state's legitimacy is an important way of achieving it. However, Jeff Haynes argues that, outside the West, nation and state do not more or less coincide since most developing countries have within their borders a variety of culturally separate people who seem to find it difficult to regard the state as their sole and primary source of legitimacy. As a result, there is a lack of legitimacy because political interactions, between, firstly, different religious and ethnic groups and, secondly, between the state and various groups, are characterised by violence, tensions and conflicts. For these reasons, civil societies are weak and therefore this facilitates the domination of elite in the Third World.

The above argument shows that political legitimacy, which is defined as a shared conviction by the people of their ruler's unshaken right to rule, is very important in achieving state's authority since its lack represents a major weakness[8]. State's authority is directly undermined in the case where there is no political legitimacy because "…a government may be recognised as legitimate by its own citizens…" and without it, government has no authority to pass and change laws and this would be a major weakness for the state. Paul Cammack[9] highlights four main sources of the crises of legitimacy in developing countries, which are:

"…conflicting or inadequate bases for claiming authority; excessive and uninstitutionalized competition for power; the basing of claims to authority on unacceptable readings of history or faulty predictions of future developments; and inappropriate socialisation and feeling about the authority among the people which were not functional for the effort of leaders. The twin processes of differentiation and pressure for equality called traditional claims for authority into question, particularly in new states where 'the old forms of authority have lost their basis for effectively structuring life".[10]

As a consequence of lack of legitimacy Third Word state passes laws that are not obeyed by citizens because they see that the state does not represent the people’s interests but elite's personal interests. Diamond[11] argues that a major problem for most third world countries is that they are locked into a vicious circle of low legitimacy, which result in an ineffective government performance.

Sometimes lack of legitimacy comes from political manipulations that most Third World countries are suffering in hands of Western powers. During the Cold War, for example, most Third World leaders, i.e. Mobutu (Zaire), Shah (Iran), Habyarimana (Rwanda) etc. took power and stood longer in office not because they were freely elected by their people in the ballot box but because it was in the West's best and strategic interests. Lucky Dube[12] emphasises that Third World states lack legitimacy because most of their leaders are 'puppet' as they are in power not for the sake of their people but to serve Western powers who had put them in power. Walter Rodney adds that the West mostly chooses Third World leaders who are in their political and economic interests. As Colette Braeckmann[13] illustrates, after placing and supporting Joseph Mobutu and his General Council in one-year power trial to serve their interests, the West killed Patrice Lumumba in 1961. Lumumba, the first ever-elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was killed because he was seen to be hostile to Western interests during the Cold War[14]. In his second coup d’etat in 1965, the West backed Mobutu again in his brutal regime for 32 years until he was overthrown by Laurent-Desire Kabila's forces on 17^th May 1997. Thomas L. Brewer[15] explains clearly that, either acting alone or sometimes giving logistical support to other Western powers to protect their interests, the US intervenes militarily or in covert actions with its intelligence agencies in support of puppet governments in the third world regardless of the people's will. For instance, the US provided air transport for Indian supplies and troops during a 1962 border war with China and, for many years, it, as well, conducted patrols in Farmosa Strait between Taiwan and China. Finally, whenever there was an uprising or revolts against President Mubutu’s brutal regime in Zaire, the French and Belgian troops used to get US logistical support in order to protect Mobutu's pro-West's regime from collapsing.

Colonial powers' way of ruling their colonies basing their power on conquest and brutality can also be blamed for today's lack of legitimacy in the Third World[16] since although most Third World countries have rejected colonialism, their leaders seem to claim their power by virtue of being colonial power's successors. As a result, a series of military governments take power again and again with a brutal use of force as it was recently the case in Sierra Leone and Congo-Brazzaville. Ghana, Nigeria and Burundi, where military coup d'etat with force took place lots of times since independence is another example. Susan Calvert expresses her opinion that 'Western colonisation' is being replaced by an 'internal colonisation', which means that large parts of many third world countries are being colonised by their own ruling elite[17]. For instance, Hausas appear to be reluctant to share power with the people of other tribes in Nigeria and this looks like the Hausas are colonising other Nigerians. B. C. Smith[18] asserts that some third world political leaders such as Ayatollah of Iran had put religion as the basis of legitimacy. This is since religion fills an ideological vacuum and it remains a source of popular mobilisation, resistance and even insurrection. Corruption and bribe payments by foreign companies and their agents and through the support of corrupted regimes provide another weakness that causes lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation.[19] 

Samuel Huntington[20] argues that absence of stronger political institutions is another major weakness of most 'Third World' countries. He asserts that fragility and frequent breakdown of democracy in the Third World are due to weak institutionalisation of political controls during the period of growth of a mass politics because of societal divisions, tensions and conflicts. Because of this, the military would feel duty bound to use force to take power through a coup d'etat in order to reimpose public order. As in most western countries, political institutionalisation comes through constitutionalism, which is the basis of the rule of the game where a code of conduct regulating the relationship between political institutions and the rulers with the ruled is imposed. John Alder[21] asserts that constitutionalism is based on the concepts of rule of law and separation of power, that is, a government limited by law, which involves that there is a sphere of freedom that is not a business of state's law. Susan Calvert[22] argues that political institutionalisation is one of the main way in which state's authority and legitimacy is implemented and, however, it can only be accomplished with a sound working Constitution since without it Third World states will still experience many military coup d'etat supported by strong corrupted bureaucracies.

As in many liberal societies, one of the main purposes of the constitution is to restrain the exercise of arbitrary political power and to enshrine basic Human Rights and freedoms. However, one of the weaknesses in Third World is a weak constitution since their constitutions don’t work because they have blindly adopted Western constitutions without taking into account the political, social, economic, and cultural differences between them[23]. The Middle East with Nasser, Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah, Saudi Arabia etc. illustrate this argument and, as a result, Susan Calvert[24] remarks that there is usually an imposition of personal rule because most Third World countries lack sound political institutionalisation. Therefore, without sound political institutionalisation, third world states experience many military take over supported by strong corrupted bureaucracies as the main agents since they are the sole contact with outside people.

While comparing third world countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Mexico, Guillermo O'Donnell[25] identified an underlying common historical sequence, which start from oligarchic political systems in which power, both political and economic, is held through personalism, clientelism and only by a small number of families. Then follows a phase of populist politics eventually degenerating into bureaucratic authoritarianism. All this is because most third world leaders achieve and hold power without legitimacy and sound political institutionalisation; i.e. most of these leaders reach power unconstitutionally or through the back door.

Since most third world states do not have a constitution that works, this lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation make their leaders' authority to derive, firstly, from personalism. Personalism is defined as a system whereby the authority is attributed to a person rather than the holder of an office, i.e. political institution such as the Presidency. Personalism can be achieved through different ways and one of it is patrimonialism, which is mostly based on personal loyalties with networks of family and personal ties and kinship. It is characterised by the top to bottom. However, nowadays, patrimonialism has developed to neo-patrimonial regime that can or cannot be led by a charismatic leader. Myth and personal ties lead neo-patrimonial regime and these are more important than institutional rules. For example, Khomeini in Iran, Nkrumah in Ghana, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Mobutu in Zaire, Suharto and Habibie in Indonesia and others illustrate the neo-patrimonial regimes. Since instead of having political institutions that work, it is characterised by a personalised leadership. The then Indonesian government of President Suharto shows that most third world government's appointments are related to personal ties and kinship such as friends and family members. The Times[26] outlined the Indonesian problem by asserting:

"…The cabinet draws on old friends and his daughter, Tutut, in an arrangement that will send all wrong signals to the international community… Mr Suharto's golfing partner, Mohammad "Bob" Hassan, mastermind of one of the most profitable monopolies becomes Minister of Trade and Industry…"

While criticising Suharto's government of undue favouritism, the Muslim leader Amien Rais argued:

"How can it be possible that a father is President and his daughter is a Cabinet minister…It is a very clear sign of nepotism…"[27]     

Nevertheless, The Times[28] reported that students demonstrations and occupation of Indonesian Parliament brought President Suharto's government under its knees because it was characterised by collusion, corruption and nepotism, which all involve lack of legitimacy and sound political institutionalisation. Moreover, Suharto's successor, who is his own best friend and former vice President, Jusuf Habibie, has already appointed a cabinet that most people accuse again of favouring nepotism and composed by the same corrupt people. Edward Marek[29] asserts that Laurent Desire Kabila's government[30] in the Democratic Republic of Congo is another example of nepotism since President Kabila's cousin, Gaetan Kukudji, occupies four main posts in the government. Mr Kakudji is at the same time "super" minister (i.e. State's Minster), Minister of Interior, Governor of the Katanga province (where almost 60 per cent of government revenues come from) and the deputy General Secretary of the AFDL, which is the sole and unique political party in the Country. In addition, people who come from the same district with the President occupy most government key posts and his son, Joseph Kabila, is the army chief in the High Congo province.

Furthermore, Susan Calvert explains that Pakistan can be seen as the personal fiefdom of the Bhutto's family, whom country's politics has degenerated into family members' factional infighting. Much of Pakistan's social structure is essentially feudal and most Pakistani still live in rural areas where the local lands aristocracy often dispenses an arbitrary feudal justice. As the Bhutto's family and Prime Minister Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, about eighty per cent of Pakistan's politicians come from aristocratic families. Al Haq's Muslim League, which is starting to look dynastic as well as personalist, is the principal civilian opposition in Pakistan. All politicians, in this case, rely first and foremost on local people to whom they are "patrons" and this, by the way, involves clientelism. Clientelism is a relationship engaging the attentions of 'patrons', i.e. government leaders, and 'clients', i.e. the people, so that each party benefits from the mutually advantageous relationship. Clientelism is therefore another way Third World leaders use to hold their political power. For example, in Latin America politicians promise people that members of their families and friends would get jobs and privileges if they vote for them. [31]

Nowadays, it appears that personalism, patrimonial and clientelism are evolving into bureaucratic authoritarian in most Third World countries. In bureaucratic authoritarian, there are elections 'only by name' because the winner is always known before even elections take place and there is more belief in authority rather than citizens' civil liberties and freedoms. Singapore and Mexico are good examples where bureaucratic authoritarian tries to work. However, bureaucratic authoritarian appears to be a system that is vulnerable because its survival depends on greater elite's consensus. R. Sandbrook[32] explains that elite see authoritarianism as a legitimate way to manage crisis. Since order is made to be the highest good in politics, people's rights, especially women's rights are denied, and elites describe opponents of their regimes as 'system wreckers'. This is since 'the interest in order of those at the top is given logical precedence over the interest in social justice of those below'.[33] Nevertheless, bureaucratic authoritarian seems to be powerful internally with daily use of coercion while, at the same time, it is fragile since there are many crises that occur. In post-Cold War, bureaucratic authoritarian is very fragile; and, only simple protests such as the Indonesian demonstrations can end it because it lacks legitimacy. In addition, Thomas L. Brewer[34] argues, most Western powers tend to relate their Third World socio-economic aid to the implementation of democracy, rule of law and respect of Human Rights in this post-Cold War era with an increasing globalisation. Therefore, any authoritarian regime is likely to loose support of international financial institutions and the international community as a whole[35].

B.C. Smith[36] says that populism is another way which third world despots use to keep their power without legitimacy and political institutionalisation. Here, leaders put their entire efforts in mobilising the mass via mass media and other means. For instance, while using Mobutuism as the philosophy of the 21^st century, President Mobutu succeeded in brain washing Zairean people because he was very good in mobilising the mass with his MOPAP and other dirty tricks[37]. However, to some extent, populist regimes appear to be stronger than patrimonialism, clientelism and bureaucratic authoritarian systems since, here, the ruler's legitimacy comes from popular mobilisation and this makes the populist leaders to stand crisis better than others because they change masses to the people[38].

In this time of globalisation, although there is still lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation in the Third World, it seems however that there is a way towards democratic governments. Democracy, in this sense, is defined as a 'rule by the people' or simply 'majority rule'[39] and in today's shrinking world, it is believed that people cannot have rights without democracy and most states, including those in the Third World, call themselves democracies. Although democracy is starting to take place in the third world, it does not seem right to say that there is a real democracy, as it is in the West, because until now most leaders are not freely and fairly elected by the people. James N. Danziger[40] describes Brazil, Ghana, Botswana, South Africa, Costa Rica, Ecuador and many others as good steps towards democracy in the Third World because they appear to have democratic governments. In Brazil, for example, about twenty years ago, the President was impeached legally because of corruption and no military take over took place and the vice president became the acting president until another election took place. L. Diamond[41] highlights that Botswana is the most stable country in Africa because it has a democracy that works. It seems that the recent collapse of President Suharto's government in Indonesia sent a chill through third world regimes across Asia, from China to Burma, Africa and Latin America[42]. B.C. Smith[43] agrees with L. Diamond that in Latin America democratic cultures have helped to maintain democracy and this made it more difficult to perpetuate and consolidate autocratic and dictatorship government. This was illustrated in Chile in 1988, with Pinnochet, and Uruguay in 1980 where "both the fact of plebiscites and the ultimate popular rejections of the military at the polls reflected the continuing validity of democratic culture"[44]. South Africa, with its decision of forming “one nation with many diversities”, as President Mandela put it, is another sign of progress towards democracy in the third world. Moreover, as Francis Fukuyama[45] put it, liberal democracy is 'the final form of human government' because the end of the Cold War implies that history has ended with the triumph of western ideas of freedom, democracy, rule of law and free market economy. For this reason, many third world countries are obliged to democratise as Western aid is now being related to the process of democratisation, free markets and respect of basic Human Rights. The recent US President tour of Africa where Bill Clinton signed a pact, with several African leaders in Entebbe (Uganda), which said basically that the US will trade with states that promote democratisation, respect of Human Rights[46] and eliminate genocide, shows how third countries are obliged to democratise. In this case, it can be argued that political institutions have started working in the third world although the people are still suffering, starving and still being victims of the injustices[47].

It seems right to suggest before concluding that the establishment of a rational and secular state authority based upon law is one of the most effective responses to third world's weakness of lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation. While agreeing with Pye and Huttington, Paul Cammack[48] emphasises that:

"Before there can be a question of legitimacy and authority there must be the realities of power: and the sorrow of many developing countries is that they have no institutions capable of directing and managing all the tasks that must be accomplished if these countries are to achieve their goals of modernisation … the inappropriate ways in which people in a society have been taught about the authority…"[49]

This shows that when there are no stable institutions for ordering and channelling politics, political competition might lead to raw power struggles. Hence, democracy, dynamic leadership, respect of the people's self determination and Human Rights with good decision-making process are among the solutions to the crises caused by lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation. Nevertheless, Paul Hirst[50] indicates that this development can only come if there are economic growth and modernisation because governments are only legitimate in so far as they meet the economic, social, civil, cultural and political needs of their citizens. Consequently, the governments that fails to provide these basic needs, as in most Third World countries, are judged by their people to be illegitimate whether or not they are democracies[51]. 

In conclusion, lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation are the result of colonialism, which made the relationship between state and society mostly non-existent. Therefore, colonialism, people’s lack of trust in their government, political manipulation by the state’s elite and world greater powers etc. are the main causes of this lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation. Because there is no nexus between state and society, achievement of legitimacy and political institutionalisation become difficult. This is since there are no sound political institutions and civil societies capable of mediating, redefining and moderating between states and societies (citizens). As a result, Third World leaders find personalism, patrimonialism, neo-patrimonial, clientelism, bureaucratic authoritarian and populist regimes as their ways of protecting political power since their power is not legitimate. In seeking to solve this weakness and accommodate their countries to the modern world, a sound constitution where the rule of law[52] is enshrined appears to be very important because “ibi jus ibi remedium”.[53] A sound constitution is therefore very important to solve the Third World countries' weakness of lack of legitimacy and political institutionalisation since it is where the doctrine of the separation of powers, i.e. "the checks and balances doctrine"[54], is enshrined. It can really be an instrument of change because if everyone respects the constitution, government officials and citizens will behave according to it and the government will respect citizens’ rights and liberties as they are enacted.

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24.                 Montesquieu, “The Spirit of Laws”

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