Where Does the Right to Rule Come From? Eight Answers

Mercantilism: legitimate authority follows from reason of state, a sovereign's basic duty to secure the nation's power against rivals, not from consent or property right.

Liberalism: legitimate authority follows from the consent of the governed, exercised through representative institutions and constrained by law.

Corporatism: legitimate authority follows organic social function, each recognised group holding authority within its own domain because it performs a necessary function for the whole.

The developmental state: legitimate authority is performance based, sustained national growth justifying close coordination between bureaucrats and private firms.

Pancasila: legitimate authority follows from consensus, musyawarah and mufakat among representatives, rather than a raw majority vote.

Peronism: legitimate authority is plebiscitary and personal, a leader's direct emotional bond with organized labour standing in for institutional politics.

Ujamaa: legitimate authority follows from familyhood, the communal ethic Nyerere held was native to precolonial African society.

Velayat-e faqih: legitimate authority rests with an unelected qualified jurist standing in for the Hidden Imam, explicitly above the consent of elected institutions beneath him.