Part I : Theoretical perspectives -- Max Weber's concept of legitimacy: an evaluation -- Rational and irrational legitimacy -- Legitimacy, domination, and ego displacement -- Part II : Problems and processes of legitimacy in the modern world -- The costs of delegitimation in posrwar America -- Legitimation, bureaucracy, and Watergate -- The problem of legitimation in Soviet society -- Conflicts between legal and bureaucratic authority -- Legitimacy and the sociology of modernization -- The language of politics in underdeveloped countries -- Legitimation of regimes in world perspective