Rule of Law is a continuously contested concept, the utility of which is demonstrably confined to states embracing Enlightenment ideals. It has, in modern practice, become as much a term of judgment as an analytical inquiry, determining which governance regimes are "good." Its utility is limited (if in fact it is useful at all) to the study of non-western non-democratic regimes. In this paper I argue that rule of law talk should be replaced by the significantly broader and more objective (and empirically testable) concept of political legitimacy. I make my case through a critical examination of the rule of law literature on China, which I follow with a critical analysis of the literature on political legitimacy. I conclude that, in contrast to the value-laden, complex, and ultimately indeterminate concept of rule of law, political legitimacy, which ultimately pursues the same general goal, can be determined by answering a single objective question: Would a rational person consent to live in a given society? Analysis is thus decoupled from judgment, opening the window into broader theoretical and empirical studies of non-western nondemocratic regimes.
