<P> The political legitimacy of a civil government derives from agreement among the autonomous constituent institutions--legislative, judicial, executive--combined for the national common good . One way civil society grants legitimacy to governments is through public elections . </P> <P> Assessing the political legitimacy of a government can be done by looking at three different aspects of which a government can derive legitimacy from . Fritz Scharpf introduced two normative criteria, which are output legitimacy, i.e. the effectiveness of policy outcomes for people and input legitimacy, the responsiveness to citizen concerns as a result of participation by the people . A third normative criterion was added by Vivien Schmidt, who analyzes legitimacy also in terms of what she calls throughput, i.e. the governance processes that happen in between input and output . </P> <P> Does legitimacy draw on actors or their actions? Abulof distinguishes between negative political legitimacy (NPL), which is about the object of legitimation (answering what is legitimate), and positive political legitimacy (PPL), which is about the source of legitimation (answering who is the' legitimator'). NPL is concerned with establishing where to draw the line between good and bad, PPL with who should be drawing it in the first place . From the NPL perspective, political legitimacy emanates from appropriate actions; from a PPL perspective, it emanates from appropriate actors . In the social contract tradition, Hobbes and Locke focused on NPL (stressing security and liberty, respectively), while Rousseau focused more on PPL ("the people" as the legitimator). Arguably, political stability depends on both forms of legitimacy . </P> <P> Weber's understanding of legitimacy rests on shared values, such as tradition and rational - legality . But policies that aim at (re -) constructing legitimacy by improving the service delivery or' output' of a state often only respond to shared needs . Therefore, substantive sources of legitimacy need to be distinguished from more instrumental ones . Instrumental legitimacy rests on "the rational assessment of the usefulness of an authority (...), describing to what extent an authority responds to shared needs . Instrumental legitimacy is very much based on the perceived effectiveness of service delivery . Conversely, substantive legitimacy is a more abstract normative judgment, which is underpinned by shared values . If a person believes that an entity has the right to exercise social control, he or she may also accept personal disadvantages ." </P>

A democratic government distinguished by having a president