The government is most certainly legitimate if they're able to hold a country together for centuries. Whether or not the claims of being blessed by their god is legitimate is a different matter entirely.

Just saying you don't like a form of government makes it illegitimate is a silly proposition. You get people every election in democratic countries saying the government is illegitimate. Usually they're considered crazy. Should "tyranny of the majority", as they'd say, be considered legitimate? What about tyranny of the minority, since in many countries, most people don't even vote?

You can recognize that a dictator is the legitimate ruler of a country, while also acknowledging that he's not working in favor of the people. If someone has an entire territory's military at their command and they can write and enforce laws, that's usually a sign that they have a legitimate government.

> The government is most certainly legitimate if they're able to hold a country together for centuries.

Legitimacy based on force is not legitimacy. It's just tyranny: if you never ask people how to want to govern themselves how can you meet the criteria of legitimacy, like EVER? Holding the biggest guns does not replace agreement and contractual acceptance of how things are run.

> Should "tyranny of the majority", as they'd say, be considered legitimate

It's a hell lot more legitimate since you can actually expect to change the rulers/people in power at some point through popular action. Under royalty/tyranny, you are forced to accept whoever is at the top and you have no recourse until they die.

That's kind of a huge difference.

That legitimacy is only granted via democracy is a very new concept. Even the coining ancient Greeks had trouble with it, and it definitely did not emerge quickly during the Neolithic revolution when governments were created at all.

It seems that Saudi Arabia or Bahrain’s regimes tend not to get called 'illegitimate', so 'not democratic' would not imply 'illegitimate'.

I think it’s more like this: Governments the US doesn’t like very much are 'illegitimate' because 'not liberal democracies'; regimes the US does like are 'important allies' or otherwise not talked about.

The whole 'not democratic' thing is more like a type of post-hoc justification for what, to many, looks like blatant imperialism. It would appear it is successful at least some of the time.

Legitimacy is more about representing the people and ruling with consent. It's a spectrum, not a binary. The Saudi royal family have a patronage system in place that funnels money down to the regions and the tribes in return for loyalty. The country has no democratic traditions or expectations. For all they're a horrible dynasty of murderous autocrats, it's actually not that simple to argue that they don't rule with consent.

As governments get more oppressive and arbitrary in their exercise of power, it becomes harder for them to make credible claims of legitimacy. I'm not saying the Saudi government is legitimate, but it is possible for it to do things that increase or decrease it's relative legitimacy. Increase consultation and individual freedoms? More legitimate. Crack down on peaceful protests or oppress minorities? Less legitimate.

The strongest signal here is US ally vs adversary. Everything else is fluff in comparison.

Saudi Arabia does not get called illegitimate, but Cuba does.

Pinochet was 'legitimate'.

All governments are based on some kind of belief.

(Which is not to say CCP or monarchies are good, just that that's not the pillar I'd attack them on)