The Quest for Legitimacy. Foreign Policy as a Legitimation Strategy in Authoritarian Regimes

Marianne Kneuer, The Quest for Legitimacy. Foreign Policy as a Legitimation Strategy in Authoritarian Regimes, pp. 205-236. This paper focuses the so far under researched aspect of output legitimacy beyond economic performance. It aims at illuminating the role of foreign policy for seeking legitimacy and thus securing stability and maintaining power of authoritarian rulers. The study tackles the question if and how foreign policy can be used by autocratic rulers to generate acceptance in the public as well as loyalty and coherence in the relevant supporter groups of the autocratic regime. In a first step it is presented a conceptual approach for analyzing output-legitimation. In a second step a comparative analysis identifies different strategies of legitimation and mechanisms of achieving support and acceptance.