Important questions to ask before hypothesis:

1) What is supposed to be legitimate? (Settlement, new/ post conflict political system etc.
2) Legitimate from whose point of view?

Following Lipset, Stability of a regime is based mainly on two factors: its effectiveness (defined as
output) and its legitimacy (what we defined as input-dimension of legitimacy). Both factors are
included in our definition of legitimacy.

From this perspective, we can propose a basic equation as follows:

Therefore, we propose some guiding questions/proposition for the research:

 Legitimacy is one key requisite for stability of the new / post conflict political system.
 BUT: Which factors in both dimensions (input – output) are more relevant for the
strengthening of legitimacy?
 Is it necessary and possible to make improvements in both levels during the different
stages of the transition process?
 Which elements are more important for each one of the different groups/actors involved
in the process? Do they agree on the important issues/ do they differ?
 Does one element increase the legitimacy from some group’s point of view while reducing
it from another?
 Which elements can be seen as unproblematic (increasing the legitimacy from every point
of view or at least not having the opposite effect for some groups)?
 How do these factors increase/decrease the political system’s legitimacy?

About accountability
 Do the accountability mechanisms improve/or not after the political settlement?

Note: We believe that each transition process has at least three basic stages: the peace
negotiation process; the political settlement that initiates the post conflict stage (transformation
stage); consolidated political system (after 5 years??).

The importance of the mentioned elements can differ in each of these stages.?!?