Legitimacy is always a ‘social construct’.

Legitimacy is the quality that converts naked power into rightful authority — the reason the ruled obey without being coerced each time.

The constructivist case is strong. Weber locates legitimacy entirely in belief: a rule is legitimate if those subject to it believe it is. His three pure types — traditional, charismatic and rational-legal — are three sociological patterns of belief, not three moral proofs. Nothing in the concept is fixed by nature: divine right was self-evident for centuries and is now unintelligible, while free and fair elections, an innovation of the last two centuries, are now the near-universal test. What counts as legitimate is made, contested and remade — hence Gramsci's hegemony, where consent is manufactured through civil society.

But 'construct' is not the same as arbitrary. David Beetham's objection is decisive: if legitimacy were only belief, a thoroughly deceived population would confer full legitimacy. He instead requires conformity to rules, justifiability by shared beliefs, and demonstrable consent. The construction is social, but it is built from materials the society can be shown to hold — which is why legitimacy can be lost, and why regimes fear that loss.