Democratic legitimation refers to the process through which political authority and government institutions derive their right to rule from the consent and approval of the people. In a democracy, power is considered legitimate not because it is inherited, imposed by force, or granted by divine authority, but because it emerges from the will of citizens expressed through free and fair elections, representative institutions, constitutional procedures, and public participation. It is the moral and legal justification of authority based on popular sovereignty. The concept became highly significant in Modern Europe from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries when monarchies and aristocratic privileges were challenged by liberal and nationalist movements. The rise of democratic legitimation can be traced to the Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who argued that government should rest on the consent of the governed. Locke emphasized natural rights and social contract, while Rousseau stressed the general will of the people. These ideas inspired the American Revolution and especially the French Revolution of 1789, which proclaimed that sovereignty resided in the nation rather than