# Legitimacy

> the belief or practical acceptance that power has a rightful claim to rule

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Stable ID | `node:kiduna:political-change:deep-forces:legitimacy` |
| Family | Deep Political Forces |
| Domain | Power |
| Kind | force |
| Archetypal function | The Field |
| Epistemic status | synthesis; supported |

## Concrete anchor

Legitimacy belongs to the **Deep Political Forces** family. It is treated as a specific political object, role, institution, tactic, event, ideology, or mechanism before any symbolic transfer is made.

## What it does

Legitimacy lowers the cost of rule because people comply for reasons beyond immediate force.

## Who gains and who loses power

The mechanism can increase the capacity of actors able to use Legitimacy, while shifting cost, delay, risk, exclusion, or dependence toward actors with less authority, information, organization, money, or safe access. The distribution is conditional, not an essence of the node.

## Archetypal function

**The Field.** the belief or practical acceptance that power has a rightful claim to rule

## Gift

Durable coordination without constant coercion.

## Wound / Shadow

Obedience to inherited authority after its justification has failed.

## Conditions

- scale and jurisdiction are explicit
- affected people and absent stakeholders are named
- time horizon and countermoves are considered

## Strategic meaning

Use Legitimacy to identify the operative target, resource, dependency, decision forum, and likely countermove. Ask what would make the mechanism stronger, weaker, more legitimate, or less necessary.

## Divinatory meaning

The Field enters through Legitimacy. Read for the capacity seeking expression, the cost displaced from view, and the relationship that changes if the frame moves.

**Question:** What story makes this power feel rightful—and to whom?

## Game function

**leverage.** Reveal one hidden dependency connected to Legitimacy; another player names a countermove. Initiative 1.

## Relationships

- **translates into — Power:** Power translates into Legitimacy by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **enables — Authority:** Legitimacy enables Authority by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **counteracts — Revolution:** Legitimacy counteracts Revolution by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_
- **amplifies — Austerity:** Austerity amplifies Legitimacy by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_

## Countermaps and polarity prompts

- Read Legitimacy from the viewpoint of the actor who bears its cost.
- Reverse cause and symptom: what if Legitimacy is an effect of the system it appears to drive?
- Change the clock: what looks different over a day, an election cycle, a generation, and a century?
- Ask when the Gift becomes the Wound through scale, secrecy, intensity, latency, or unequal reciprocity.

## Epistemic and Sentinel note

Claim layers: synthesis, interpretive, symbolic_divinatory. Scope, jurisdiction, period, and source perspective may change the claim.
No node-specific Sentinel factors were recorded; ordinary source, audience, and context checks still apply.

## Visual direction

A text-free enamel expression of Legitimacy: one dominant mechanism, one counterforce, raised warm-metal linework, midnight field, restrained civic red, teal, ivory, and amber. No party logo, national flag, sacred symbol, or recognizable person.

## Research / provenance

- [Introduction to Political Science](https://openstax.org/details/books/introduction-political-science) — OpenStax, 2022. Comparative institutions, political behavior, and public policy foundations.
- [V-Dem Dataset and Codebook](https://www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-dem-dataset/) — V-Dem Institute, 2026. Comparative measurement of democratic institutions; indicators remain model-based measures.

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Engine Output version 1.0.0; generated 2026-08-24T00:00:00Z. Sentinel annotations are stored separately in `sentinel/handoffs.json`.
