Legitimacy

About: Legitimacy is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 26153 publications have been published within this topic receiving 565921 citations.

Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and Institutional Approaches

Abstract: This article synthesizes the large but diverse literature on organizational legitimacy, highlighting similarities and disparities among the leading strategic and institutional approaches. The analysis identifies three primary forms of legitimacy: pragmatic, based on audience self-interest; moral, based on normative approval: and cognitive, based on comprehensibility and taken-for-grantedness. The article then examines strategies for gaining, maintaining, and repairing legitimacy of each type, suggesting both the promises and the pitfalls of such instrumental manipulations.

The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century

Abstract: Between 1974 and 1990 more than thirty countries in southern Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe shifted from authoritarian to democratic systems of government. This global democratic revolution is probably the most important political trend in the late twentieth century. In The Third Wave, Samuel P. Huntington analyzes the causes and nature of these democratic transitions, evaluates the prospects for stability of the new democracies, and explores the possibility of more countries becoming democratic. The recent transitions, he argues, are the third major wave of democratization in the modem world. Each of the two previous waves was followed by a reverse wave in which some countries shifted back to authoritarian government. Using concrete examples, empirical evidence, and insightful analysis, Huntington provides neither a theory nor a history of the third wave, but an explanation of why and how it occurred.Factors responsible for the democratic trend include the legitimacy dilemmas of authoritarian regimes; economic and social development; the changed role of the Catholic Church; the impact of the United States, the European Community, and the Soviet Union; and the ""snowballing"" phenomenon: change in one country stimulating change in others. Five key elite groups within and outside the nondemocratic regime played roles in shaping the various ways democratization occurred. Compromise was key to all democratizations, and elections and nonviolent tactics also were central. New democracies must deal with the ""torturer problem"" and the ""praetorian problem"" and attempt to develop democratic values and processes. Disillusionment with democracy, Huntington argues, is necessary to consolidating democracy. He concludes the book with an analysis of the political, economic, and cultural factors that will decide whether or not the third wave continues. Several ""Guidelines for Democratizers"" offer specific, practical suggestions for initiating and carrying out reform. Huntington's emphasis on practical application makes this book a valuable tool for anyone engaged in the democratization process. At this volatile time in history, Huntington's assessment of the processes of democratization is indispensable to understanding the future of democracy in the world.

Economy and society : an outline of interpretive sociology

Abstract: List of Abbreviations Volume 1 Preface to the 1978 Re-issue Preface Introduction Part One: Conceptual Exposition I. Basic Sociological Terms II. Sociological Categories of Economic Action III. The Types of Legitimate Domination IV. Status Groups and Classes Part Two: The Economy and the Arena of Normative and De Facto Powers I. The Economy and Social Norms II. The Economic Relationships of Organized Groups III. Household, Neighborhood and Kin Group IV. Household, Enterprise and Oikos V. Ethnic Groups VI. Religious Groups (The Sociology of Religion) VII. The Market: Its Impersonality and Ethic (Fragment) Volume 2 VII. Economy and Law (The Sociology of Law) IX. Political Communities X. Domination and Legitimacy XI. Bureaucracy XII. Patriarchalism and Patrimonialism XIII. Feudalism, Standestaat and Patrimonialism XIV. Charisma and Its Transformation XV. Political and Hierocratic Domination XVI. The City (Non-Legitimate Domination) Appendices Index

Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy

Abstract: The conditions associated with the existence and stability of democratic society have been a leading concern of political philosophy. In this paper the problem is attacked from a sociological and behavioral standpoint, by presenting a number of hypotheses concerning some social requisites for democracy, and by discussing some of the data available to test these hypotheses. In its concern with conditions—values, social institutions, historical events—external to the political system itself which sustain different general types of political systems, the paper moves outside the generally recognized province of political sociology. This growing field has dealt largely with the internal analysis of organizations with political goals, or with the determinants of action within various political institutions, such as parties, government agencies, or the electoral process. It has in the main left to the political philosopher the larger concern with the relations of the total political system to society as a whole.

Why people obey the law

Abstract: People obey the law if they believe it's legitimate, not because they fear punishment--this is the startling conclusion of Tom Tyler's classic study. Tyler suggests that lawmakers and law enforcers would do much better to make legal systems worthy of respect than to try to instill fear of punishment. He finds that people obey law primarily because they believe in respecting legitimate authority. In his fascinating new afterword, Tyler brings his book up to date by reporting on new research into the relative importance of legal legitimacy and deterrence, and reflects on changes in his own thinking since his book was first published.