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The Legitimacy Trap explores the institutional and human costs of state measures to shore up dubious legitimacy. It offers a comprehensive approach to assessing legitimacy and determining on that basis whether a state is in the legitimacy trap, a self-reinforcing spiral toward greater and wider illegitimacy, with the likely endpoint of committed authoritarianism.

These propositions are tested against the case study of post-1997 Hong Kong, focusing on political contention and the resulting decline in freedoms during the 2010s. The book revisits key events to show how increasingly authoritarian state practices undermined political legitimacy, compromised legal institutions as they became embroiled in 'lawfare', and further legitimised civil society opposition. These events culminated in the 2020 national security law which signalled the end of liberalism in the territory. The book considers the operation of the legitimacy trap across a range of civil, political and legal spheres which offer lessons for other jurisdictions which may be susceptible to democratic backsliding.

This book will appeal to readers interested in the intersection of politics, law and society, in human rights under democracy and authoritarianism, and in Hong Kong and China affairs.