You cannot enable the Publishing feature in SharePoint Server 2007 after you delete an out-of-box standard permission level

On a computer that is running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, you delete an out-of-box standard permission level, such as Contributor, Designer, or another permission level. After you do this, you cannot enable the Publishing feature in SharePoint Server 2007. Additionally, you cannot re-create the deleted out-of-box standard permission level.

The process to enable the Publishing feature looks for the out-of-box standard permission levels to bind to the role definitions. Because the out-of-box standard permission level is deleted, the enable process is unsuccessful.

To work around this issue, restore the SharePoint Server 2007 backup to an earlier version in which the out-of-box standard permission levels exist.