The Asymmetry of Legitimacy: Analyzing the Legitimation of Violence in 30 Cases of Insurgent Revolution

This article demonstrates that there is a causal asymmetry between legitimate and illegitimate violence in civil conflict, and advocates turning analytic attention to illegitimacy. Fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis is used to assess patterns in the conditions for civilians’ perceptions that state-sanctioned violence was legitimate versus illegitimate in 30 cases of insurgent revolution that occurred between 1978 and 2008. Findings show no substantive patterns in the conditions for legitimacy, but reveal three causal pathways to illegitimacy that transcend regional and national boundaries. Comparative historical analysis of these pathways details general causal mechanisms that result in perceptions that state-sanctioned violence is illegitimate. This research shows that while the conditions for legitimacy vary by case, the conditions for illegitimacy transcend regional contexts, representing a more global phenomenon.