THE RIGHT TO RULE

Azerbaijan takes top spot amongst Europe's post-communist countries in terms of the legitimacy of power, according to an analysis by Bruce Gilley, a political science lecturer at Portland State University. He has published the analysis in his book The Right to Rule: How States Win and Lose Legitimacy.

Azerbaijan is first in terms of legitimacy of power in the Post-Communist Europe regional group, ahead of 21 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and all the countries in the European part of the CIS (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia), Interfax reports. 

The author analysed the situation in 72 countries in all in his book, breaking them down into six groups - the West, Post-Communist Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and Africa. 

According to the author's analysis, Azerbaijan is ninth out of 72 countries in terms of legitimacy of power, behind only Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Canada, Austria, Finland, Sweden and the USA.

Interestingly, the "home of the orange revolution", Ukraine, takes 59th spot, "rose revolution" Georgia 68th, Turkey 62nd and Armenia 70th while Russia brings up the rear in 72nd place.

We asked political commentator Fuad Axundov to comment on the book's conclusions, given the considerable attention it devotes to Azerbaijan.

First of all it should be said that Bruce Gilley is an authoritative American scholar who is well-known in US and European academic circles for his publications, articles and monographs on social and political development and the democratic modernization of contemporary China, Fuad Axundov said.

His new book, The Right to Rule, has had many positive reviews already in academic circles and has been described by his political science colleagues as "a highly promising contribution to the development of political science and the science of state governance". In the book Bruce Gilley focuses on the problems of state legitimacy or, in other words, the legitimacy of state authority.

Having studied and compiled data on socioeconomic and political development in 72 leading countries, he set out in his book a unique approach to analysing the phenomenon of state legitimacy and its constituent parts.

The author ranks the 72 countries studied by a "coefficient of legitimacy of power" based on an analysis of the three leading components which he thinks make up the concept of "state legitimacy" - the legality of the actions of the authorities, the level of their public support (trust in the head of state, society's assessment of the authorities' practical actions and their reforms, satisfaction with the level of democracy etc.) - and also civic accord and stability in society, Fuad Axundov said.

Fuad Axundov thinks that Azerbaijan has such a high position because the American academic did not give the three aforementioned components equal weight in his analysis, but gave rather greater weight to such indicators as the level of support for the authorities' actions, including trust in the head of state, as he thinks this is the most important in political analysis. 

Given the traditionally high popular rating of the president of Azerbaijan and the steady support of the country's citizens for his socioeconomic reforms, which is regularly confirmed by sociological research and opinion polls conducted in Azerbaijan, it is to be expected that on the "state legitimacy" indicator Azerbaijan would be ahead even of wealthier European countries, Axundov said.

The author's own opinion on the reasons for Azerbaijan's high position is also important, Fuad Axundov thinks. Bruce Gilley puts Azerbaijan's high rating down to the fact that after the collapse of the USSR and Heydar Aliyev's arrival in office the country's authorities managed to quickly mobilize mineral resources in order to ensure public support for their actions, bearing in mind that the resources and revenue from their sale on world markets were targeted on accelerating the country's socioeconomic development and ensuring sociopolitical stability. 

Summing up his commentary, Fuad Axundov said that the American academic's approach to the problem of legitimacy was of course innovative. Its advantage is that it does not get stuck on isolated factors such as democracy and human rights when analysing the effectiveness of a country's model of national development. Bruce Gilley uses a broader, more complex approach to assessing the character of state authority and the internal politics of ruling elites, taking into account the sum total of many economic, social and political factors. As a result, this approach gives a more objective and fairer picture.