{
  "id": "legitimacy.endorsed",
  "term": "legitimacy",
  "sense": "endorsed",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 17,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "window",
  "definition": "The condition in which those whose walls a power sets read its setting as their own, so the walls hold without force.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "power.over",
      "set.fix",
      "wall.range-end",
      "read.information",
      "condition.state",
      "hold.physical",
      "force.push",
      "belonging.member"
    ],
    "interaction": "Power that must push every wall into place spends force without end; when those it bounds read its setting as their own, the walls hold themselves. Legitimacy is that reading, and it can be withdrawn faster than any force can replace it.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "walls that hold without force",
      "power held in the models of those it bounds",
      "withdrawable all at once"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "Max Weber distinguished three grounds on which people accept rule as legitimate: tradition, charisma, and legal-rational authority.",
      "domain": "sociology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "power.over",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "power is the reach; legitimacy is whether those bounded read its use as their own"
    },
    {
      "id": "consent.given",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "consent is one act of letting; legitimacy is the standing reading that keeps letting"
    },
    {
      "id": "lame-duck.ending",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "a lame duck keeps legitimacy while losing duration"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [
    "founding-fathers.origin",
    "we-the-people.setter"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "illegitimacy",
    "illegitimate",
    "legitimacy",
    "legitimate",
    "legitimately"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-legitimacy.endorsed"
}