Beyond militarization: the politics of legitimation

Militarization has long been a central tool for legitimizing the use of force against external adversaries. Yet militarization and the legitimacy of force are not identical concepts. While militarization refers to ideological processes that normalize and valorize violence, legitimacy concerns the perception that a state’s resort to force is appropriate, proper, or desirable within socially constructed systems of norms and values. Drawing on general theories of legitimacy, this article advances a typology of six forms of legitimation that operate alongside or independently of militarization: implicit legitimation through legal and procedural validation; indirect legitimation via psychological preconditions such as dehumanization; legitimation by objectification, which naturalizes violence as taken for granted; passive legitimation through constrained deliberation; dynamic legitimation involving real-time adaptive strategies; and consequent legitimation emerging unintentionally from humanitarian or anti-militarist practices. This framework enables a more nuanced analysis of how democratic states navigate legitimacy challenges during military operations, showing how force may be legitimized even when militarization is weak or contested. It extends beyond militarized discourse to include pragmatic, temporal, and paradoxical forms of legitimation. The theoretical propositions are illustrated through the cases of the United States, Britain, and Israel—democracies that regularly deploy legitimation mechanisms due to sustained domestic challenges stemming from prolonged military engagements and sensitivities regarding both casualties and noncombatant immunity.