18
Thus whereas many constructivist approaches draw a sharp line between bargaining over
legitimacy and negotiations over power and interest, the approach here views the legitimation process as
an integral part of strategic behavior. As theorists from Riker to Schelling to Jervis have argued, the way
in which actors represent claims are not neutral. Because legitimation strategies affect coalitions, issues,
and outcomes, actors use the rhetoric of legitimacy strategically, in order to gain advantage at the
bargaining table.
Yet while actors use legitimation strategies to serve their interests, such justifications are not
pulled from thin air. As discussed above, legitimacy is dependent upon context: whether or not an actor’s
claim will be seen as legitimate depends upon her set of social and cultural ties with surrounding
coalitions and institutions. It follows that if an actor has multiple ties with different coalitions, it is more
likely that she has a choice of legitimation strategies: different ties create multiple, even contradictory
legitimation strategies that an actor may deploy. For example, in the mid 19
th
century, Napoleon III was
popularly “elected” to the position of France in 1852, and thus was positioned between two exclusive sets
of actors and institutions: one which emphasized divine right and dynastic legitimacy, the other which
emphasized popular rule and nationalism as legitimation strategies. Because of his structural position
between these coalitions, Napoleon could deploy different strategies without undermining his own
legitimacy.
46
Similarly, when actors have multiple resources, they may choose ambiguous legitimation
strategies that “can be interpreted coherently from multiple perspectives simultaneously,”
47
and thus
resonate with radically different coalitions.
Most legitimation strategies, after all, are inherently
ambiguous: to any particular symbol, word, or event may be attributed different and often contradictory
meanings. For example, Irish nationalists, such as Daniel O’Connell in the 1820s and Charles Stewart
absolutist states.
45
Ian Lustick similarly shows how discursive and social relations constrained the positions that English and
French politicians could legitimately adopt towards decolonization in Ireland and Algeria: an almost “hegemonic” discourse
which joined core to periphery restrained elites from withdrawing from these colonies.
45
See Hall 1999, 7; Lustick 1993a.
46
On the contradictory bases of Napoleon III’s rule, see Echard 1983; Hallberg 1955; Baguley 2000, 118-150; Pottinger 1966;
Thompson 1955. On its effects on the negotiations in Italy, see Bush 1967, 4.
47
Padgett and Ansell 1993, 1263.
Convention