Perceptions of Governance (Il)Legitimacy Mediate Climate Change Adaptation in the Lake Victoria Basin, Uganda

ABSTRACT Governance is a well‐known dimension of adaptive capacity across various frameworks, however specific links between perceptions of governance (il)legitimacy and adaptive capacity remain relatively unexplored. In this study, we investigate connections between climate change adaptation and perceptions of governance (il)legitimacy using focus group and interview data collected in 2016 in fishing communities of the Lake Victoria Basin, Uganda. We found that perceptions of illegitimate fisheries governance across the four dimensions of legitimacy—state accountability to the local level, legitimacy of local level crafted rules by higher level government, legitimacy of the institution as a whole, and legitimacy of the rules by users—undermined adaptive capacity to climate change and other shocks in these resource‐dependent communities. We draw links between perceptions of illegitimate governance and adaptive actions that have negative food security and livelihood impacts, and we illustrate how improved legitimacy could bolster adaptive capacity for local fisheries actors. We argue that (1) improving one dimension of legitimacy improves all other dimensions, (2) improving governance via legitimacy improves all other domains of adaptive capacity, that is, learning and knowledge, access to assets, diversity and flexibility, and natural capital, and (3) the ‘legitimacy crisis’ in fisheries management extends to an adaptation crisis.