Factors that determine or promote Legitimacy

1. 
   Periodic free and fair elections: Elections is the most common and generally acceptable means of installing a democratic government and also a means of removing a bad government. Elections should be periodic, free and fair so as to enable rulers receive the mandate of the people to rule.
   
2. 
   Mass or Popular Participation: The higher the level of political participation enjoyed by the citizens of a state, the greater is the recognition, respect and acceptance enjoy by the government of the state.
   
3. 
   Good Government: When a government ensures that basic needs and aspirations of the people such as goods roads, regular electricity and water supply as well as adequate security are provided, such a government will be regarded as legitimate.  In a society where there are common values accepted by large members, the government and political system based on such values will be legitimate.
   
4. 
   Rule of Law and Constitutionalism: The existence and strict application of the principles of rule of law and constitutionalism will confer much legitimacy on any government.
   
5. 
   Good Leadership: A leader that is elected through democratic process and performs credibly in office will make people accept his regime as legitimate.
   

It is popularly defined as the supreme power of a state to make and enforce laws within its jurisdiction without any external interference or restraint as well as the equal status she possesses and shares with other states of the world irrespective of her size of territory, population, economic and military might. Sovereignty also means that the power of the state (exercised by a body of persons known as sovereign) to make laws and enforce them with all the means of coercion it cares to employ without any external interference by other states. The idea of sovereignty originated from Jean Bodin (1530-1590), a French political thinker and philosopher. Sovereignty is derived from a Latin word ‘superanus’ which means supreme. Therefore, sovereignty can be defined as that which is supreme in state.