On the basis of the foregoing discussion on legitimacy, I differ from much current opinion in seeing the problem of legitimacy neither as one of establishing a sufficient (even a logically valid) justification for the power-code, nor actually accepting it solely on the basis of a mixture of consensus and force. I see it rather as a problem of the structures and processes which make the code possible and control it as it becomes contingent. Justification and acceptance are only aspects (and in scientific terms inadequately formulated aspects) of this general problem of contingency control. Into this abstract formula old problems become integrated, while the emphasis on and search for the formulation of follow-up problems are cancelled. The question of how it is possible to maintain differentiations in the face of high code-contingency comes to the fore.

DEFINE: Reframes legitimacy away from justification/consensus toward contingency-control structures and processes.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 697