Showing papers on "Legitimacy published in 2007"

Corporate Legitimacy as Deliberation: A Communicative Framework

Abstract: Modern society is challenged by a loss of efficiency in national governance systems and a growing pluralism of beliefs, values, and lifestyles. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) discourse builds upon a conception of organizational legitimacy that does not appropriately reflect these changes. The problems arise from the a-political role of the corporation in the concepts of cognitive and pragmatic legitimacy which are based on compliance to national law and on relatively homogeneous and stable societal expectations on the one hand and widely accepted rhetoric assuming that all members of society benefit from capitalist production on the other. We therefore propose a fundamental shift to moral legitimacy, from an output and power oriented approach to an input related and discursive concept of legitimacy. This shift creates a new basis of legitimacy and involves organizations in processes of active justification vis-a-vis society rather than simply responding to the demands of powerful groups. We consider this a step towards the politicization of the corporation and attempt to re-embed the debate on corporate legitimacy into its broader context of political theory, while reflecting the recent turn from a liberal to a deliberative concept of democracy.

Can non-state global governance be legitimate? An analytical framework

Abstract: In the absence of effective national and intergovernmental regulation to ameliorate global environmental and social problems, “private” alternatives have proliferated, including self-regulation, corporate social responsibility, and public–private partnerships. Of the alternatives, “non-state market driven” (NSMD) governance systems deserve greater attention because they offer the strongest regulation and potential to socially embed global markets. NSMD systems encourage compliance by recognizing and tracking, along the market’s supply chain, responsibly produced goods and services. They aim to establish “political legitimacy” whereby firms, social actors, and stakeholders are united into a community that accepts “shared rule as appropriate and justified.” Drawing inductively on evidence from a range of NSMD systems, and deductively on theories of institutions and learning, we develop an analytical framework and a preliminary set of causal propositions to explicate whether and how political legitimacy might be achieved. The framework corrects the existing literature’s inattention to the conditioning effects of global social structure, and its tendency to treat actor evaluations of NSMD systems as static and strategic. It identifies a three-phase process through which NSMD systems might gain political legitimacy. It posits that a “logic of consequences” alone cannot explain actor evaluations: the explanation requires greater reference to a “logic of appropriateness” as systems progress through the phases. The framework aims to guide future empirical work to assess the potential of NSMD systems to socially embed global markets.

The legitimacy of strategic alliances: an institutional perspective

Abstract: Drawing on an institutional perspective, this paper suggests that strategic alliances serve an important legitimating function for firms and that this role, mediated by alliance governance structure and partner selection preferences, has a significant influence on firm and alliance performance. A theoretical framework is proposed that identifies five types of legitimacy associated with strategic alliances and the specific conditions under which legitimation may be an important outcome of strategic alliances. Propositions are developed to explain when firms are most likely to enter into alliances for legitimacy purposes and how the legitimating role of strategic alliances contributes to firm and alliance performance. The paper concludes with a summary and implications of a legitimacy-based view of alliances. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Global Rules and Private Actors - Towards a New Role of the Transnational Corporation in Global Governance

Abstract: We discuss the role that transnational corporations (TNCs) should play in developing global governance, creating a framework of rules and regulations for the global economy. The central issue is whether TNCs should provide global rules and guarantee individual citizenship rights, or instead focus on maximizing profits. First, we describe the problems arising from the globalization process that affect the relationship between public rules and private firms. Next we consider the position of economic and management theories in relation to the social responsibility of the firm. We argue that instrumental stakeholder theory and business and society research can only partially solve the global governance issue, and that more recent concepts of corporate citizenship and republican business ethics deliver theoretically and practically helpful, fresh insights. However, even these need further development, especially with regard to the legitimacy of corporate political activity.

Media Consumption and Public Engagement: Beyond the Presumption of Attention

Abstract: Governments in many countries fear voting turnout and political engagement is in terminal decline, threatening the long-term legitimacy of the democratic process. Meanwhile definitions of politics and the public world are changing, while media formats are proliferating and media audiences fragmenting in the age of digital media. How are these important trends related? And what do our everyday habits of consuming media contribute to our possibilities of being effective citizens? Nick Couldry, Sonia Livingstone and Tim Markham address these questions in their pathbreaking new book based on research into the 'Future of Public Connection'. The book reports their findings and explains highly original methodology, involving people across England producing diaries for three months tracking their perspective on the public world. The book includes interviews, a nationwide survey and an authoritative review of the current literature on democratic theory, political sociology and media audiences. The result is a major assessment of the difference that media, and our ways of living with media, make to the condition of democracy.

The Equity and Legitimacy of Markets for Ecosystem Services

Abstract: Markets for ecosystem services are being promoted across the developing world, amidst claims that the provision of economic incentives is vital to bring about resource conservation. This article argues that equity and legitimacy are also critical dimensions in the design and implementation of such markets, if social development goals beyond economic gains are to be achieved. The article examines this issue by focusing on two communities involved in a project for carbon sequestration services of forests in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. The perceived legitimacy of the activities and the distribution of economic outcomes and project-related information are found to be mediated by organizational allegiances and the history of social relations regarding access to property and forest resources. Political affiliation determines the project's legitimacy, while the poorest farmers and women have been excluded from project design and implementation. The authors argue that pitfalls such as these contribute to reinforcing existing power structures, inequities and vulnerabilities, and suggest that this is a product of the nature of emerging markets. Markets for ecosystem services are, in effect, limited in promoting more legitimate forms of decision making and a more equitable distribution of their outcomes.

The politics of anti-Westernism in Asia : visions of world order in pan-Islamic and pan-Asian thought

Abstract: In this rich intellectual history, Cemil Aydin challenges the notion that anti-Westernism in the Muslim world is a political and religious reaction to the liberal and democratic values of the West. Nor is anti-Westernism a natural response to Western imperialism. Instead, by focusing on the agency and achievements of non-Western intellectuals, Aydin demonstrates that modern anti-Western discourse grew out of the legitimacy crisis of a single, Eurocentric global polity in the age of high imperialism. Aydin compares Ottoman Pan-Islamic and Japanese Pan-Asian visions of world order from the middle of the nineteenth century to the end of World War II. He looks at when the idea of a universal "West" first took root in the minds of Asian intellectuals and reformers and how it became essential in criticizing the West for violating its own "standards of civilization." Aydin also illustrates why these anti-Western visions contributed to the decolonization process and considers their influence on the international relations of both the Ottoman and Japanese Empires during WWI and WWII. The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia offers a rare, global perspective on how religious tradition and the experience of European colonialism interacted with Muslim and non-Muslim discontent with globalization, the international order, and modernization. Aydin's approach reveals the epistemological limitations of Orientalist knowledge categories, especially the idea of Eastern and Western civilizations, and the way in which these limitations have shaped not only the contradictions and political complicities of anti-Western discourses but also contemporary interpretations of anti-Western trends. In moving beyond essentialist readings of this history, Aydin provides a fresh understanding of the history of contemporary anti-Americanism as well as the ongoing struggle to establish a legitimate and inclusive international society.

Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations for International Law

Abstract: Acknowledgements Synopsis 1 Introduction: The Idea of a Moral Theory of International Law PART I: JUSTICE 2 The Commitment to Justice 3 Human Rights 4 Distributive Justice and International Law PART II: LEGITIMACY 5 Political Legitimacy 6 Recognitional Legitimacy 7 The Legitimacy of the International Legal System PART III: SELF-DETERMINATION 8 Self-Determination and Secession 9 Intra-state Autonomy PART IV: REFORM 10 Principled Proposals for Reform 11 The Morality of International Legal Reform Bibliography Index

Legitimacy and multi-level institutional environments: implications for foreign subsidiary ownership structure

Abstract: In this study, we examine from an institutional perspective the legitimacy rationale behind the choice of subsidiary ownership structure among multinational corporations (MNCs). We suggest that, when under a strong pressure to conform at the host country and local industry levels of their institutional environment, MNCs are likely to take a lower ownership stake in exchange for external legitimacy in the host country or local industry that their foreign subsidiaries are entering. We also suggest that MNCs are likely to take a higher ownership stake in response to strong internal pressure to sustain their internal legitimacy at the corporate level of their institutional environment. We also propose that MNCs are more likely to exchange ownership for legitimacy in local industries than in host countries, and in local markets with a high level of political instability than in those with a low level of political instability. These propositions are generally supported by our analysis of 4451 subsidiaries established by 898 Japanese MNCs that operated in 39 countries across 52 industries (two-digit SIC) between 1988 and 1999.

Participation: the ascendancy of a buzzword in the neo-liberal era

Abstract: Participation was originally conceived as part of a counter-hegemonic approach to radical social transformation and, as such, represented a challenge to the status quo Paradoxically, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, ‘participation’ gained legitimacy within the institutional development world to the extent of achieving buzzword status The precise manipulations required to convert a radical proposal into something that could serve the neo-liberal world order led to participation's political decapitation Reduced to a series of methodological packages and techniques, participation would slowly lose its philosophical and ideological meaning In order to make the approach and methodology serve counter-hegemonic processes of grassroots resistance and transformation, these meanings desperately need to be recovered This calls for participation to be re-articulated within broader processes of social and political struggle in order to facilitate the recovery of social transformation in the world of twenty-first c

After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the United Nations Security Council

Abstract: Preface vii Chapter One: Introduction 1 LEGITIMACY IN THEORY Chapter Two: A Theory of Legitimacy 29 Chapter Three: Legitimacy, Rationality, and Power 66 LEGITIMACY IN PRACTICE Chapter Four: San Francisco, 1945 83 Chapter Five: Blue Helmets and White Trucks 111 Chapter Six: Libya and the Sanctions 137 CONCLUSIONS Chapter Seven: Legitimacy and Sovereignty 173 Epilogue 194 References 197 Index 213

The news coverage of the 2004 European Parliamentary Election Campaign in 25 countries

Abstract: This article analyzes the news coverage of the 2004 European Parliamentary (EP) elections in all 25 member states of the European Union (EU). It provides a unique pan-European overview of the campaign coverage based on an analysis of three national newspapers and two television newscasts in the two weeks leading up to the elections. On average, the elections were more visible in the new 10 member states than in the 15 old EU member states. The political personalities and institutional actors featured in news stories about the elections were generally national political actors and not EU actors. When it was evaluative, the news in the old EU-15 was generally negative towards the EU, while in the new countries a mixed pattern was found. The findings of the study are discussed in the light of the literature on the EU’s legitimacy and communication deficit.

International Crises of Legitimacy

Abstract: What is an international crisis of legitimacy? And how does one resolve such crises? This article addresses these conceptual issues, laying the theoretical foundations for the special issue as a whole. An actor or institution experiences a crisis of legitimacy, it is argued, when the level of social recognition that its identity, interests, practices, norms, or procedures are rightful declines to the point where it must either adapt (by reconstituting or recalibrating the social bases of its legitimacy, or by investing more heavily in material practices of coercion or bribery) or face disempowerment. International crises of legitimacy can be resolved only through recalibration, which necessarily involves the communicative reconciliation of the actor's or institution's social identity, interests, practices, norms, or procedures, with the normative expectations of other actors within its realm of political action.

Political Constitutionalism: A Republican Defence of the Constitutionality of Democracy

Abstract: © Richard Bellamy and Cambridge University Press, 2007. Judicial review by constitutional courts is often presented as a necessary supplement to democracy. This book questions its effectiveness and legitimacy. Drawing on the republican tradition, Richard Bellamy argues that the democratic mechanisms of open elections between competing parties and decision-making by majority rule offer superior and sufficient methods for upholding rights and the rule of law. The absence of popular accountability renders judicial review a form of arbitrary rule which lacks the incentive structure democracy provides to ensure rulers treat the ruled with equal concern and respect. Rights based judicial review undermines the constitutionality of democracy. Its counter-majoritarian bias promotes privileged against unprivileged minorities, while its legalism and focus on individual cases distort public debate. Rather than constraining democracy with written constitutions and greater judicial oversight, attention should be paid to improving democratic processes through such measures as reformed electoral systems and enhanced parliamentary scrutiny.

The Constitution of Organizational Legitimacy: A Narrative Perspective:

Abstract: This article recognizes a major dichotomy in the study of legitimacy construction at the organizational level. Scholars have either focused on agent-centred explanations of organizational legitimation, which favour its evaluative dimension, or on structural explanations, which highlight the isomorphic pressures imposed on individual organizations in order to become and remain intelligible to stakeholders. By applying a discursive methodology, we propose a new approach for the study of organizational legitimacy construction that incorporates both its evaluative and cognitive dimensions. Drawing on a structurational model of narrative recursivity, inspired by Greimas (1987), we argue that the construction of organizational legitimacy is dependent on both the persuasiveness of organizational storytelling and on the realization of a taken-for-granted narrative structure. We explicate the processes by which legitimacy is narratively constructed through empirical data associated with the founding of an HIV/AIDS...

Locked out: felon disenfranchisement and American democracy

Abstract: Locked Out provides a substantial empirical basis for reasoned debate on the legitimacy of felon disfranchisement in an ostensibly democratic society. Accomplishing this requires surveying an impressive expanse of history and range of conceptual and empirical questions. Jeff Manza, Chris Uggen and their colleagues meet this challenge by skillfully tying together diverse strands of previous and ongoing research, presenting a sophisticated yet highly accessible study of the origins, dynamics and impact of felon disfranchisement in the context of American democracy. The authors place U.S. policies of disfranchisement in comparative international perspective, revealing its especially restrictive felon voting rights law and policy, particularly as ex-felon disfranchisement (the continued denial of voting rights to those who have completed sentences) is concerned. They compellingly demonstrate that U.S. felon disfranchisement policy originates in efforts to exclude black Americans from democratic participation. Disfranchisement is a criminal justice policy rooted it seems in what American race scholars describe as this nation’s design as a “White Democracy,” originating as a state-level counter-measure to the race-related democratic liberalism forced by federal civil rights protections in the post-emancipation period. As an artifact of historical intentions to limit democratic participation on the basis of race, disfranchisement is not a distortion of American Democracy, but a reflection of a normative, racially oppressive orientation. Disfranchisement policies are defended today on outwardly race-neutral grounds, typically in discourse about preserving the integrity of electoral politics, or their legitimacy as “just desserts” for those in violation of the law. Turning their attention to these contemporary debates, Manza and Uggen show empirically that former felons do not significantly threaten to corrupt or taint political systems, and that the denial of voting rights does not clearly serve some established purpose of punishment. They also show that voting rights restoration is not easily available to former felons, as some legislative advocates contend, and that disfranchisement policies in place today are not generally the Crime Law Soc Change (2007) 47:125–127 DOI 10.1007/s10611-007-9065-5

The Question of Interest Group Influence

Abstract: Interest groups are a major channel through which citizens can express their opinions to decision-makers.' Their participation in policymaking may improve decision-making processes by supporting policies that are in line with citizen preferences and blocking policies that solely reflect the interests of the governing elite. At the same time, however, intense interest group pressures may make it difficult for policy-makers to implement the most efficient policies since such policies often impose costs on parts of the public. Competition among interest groups over the distribution of economic gains may also slow down the rate of economic growth (Olson I982). Finally, if some groups constantly win, interest group politics may undermine the legitimacy of electorally accountable decision making in a democracy. A normative assessment of the role of interest groups in democracies thus crucially depends upon how much power interest groups have, and how power is distributed among different groups. Moreover, an understanding of the role of interest groups in the policymaking process is essential for explanations of policy outcomes. Finally, analysts trying to advise government on policies also have to be aware of the power of interest groups, as this factor determines the political feasibility of different suggestions. In short, research into variations in influence across groups and political systems is important for a series of reasons. Recognising this fact, political scientists have long engaged in theoretical debates on this issue (Dahl I96I; Mills I956; Almond I988). Over the last few decades, however, political scientists' attention to the question has rather waned, at the same time as the number of interest groups in developed countries has increased (Baumgartner and Leech 200I: I192). In particular, only very few studies have addressed the question of interest group power and influence for the case of Europe, both at the national and at the European Union (EU) levels (for some exceptions, see Bernhagen and Brauninger 2OO5; Henning 2004; Michalowitz 2004; Schneider and Baltz 2004; see also the review of this

From Plan to Plant: Effects of Certification on Operational Start-up in the Emergent Independent Power Sector

Abstract: In this paper, we study the transition from planned venture to operational start-up in the emergent independent power sector. Planned ventures face tremendous obstacles in assembling the resources necessary to begin operations; we hypothesize and show that formal certification from authorized actors increases the likelihood of making this transition. Moreover, we find that the effects of certification are contingent on the legitimacy of the sector as a whole: Certifications have a stronger effect on start-ups when sector legitimacy is low than when it is high. This research helps us understand a rarely studied organizational transition---from entrepreneurial intention to actual operations---within nascent sectors. It directs attention to the legitimating effects of formal certification, highlights the importance of a multilevel approach to legitimacy, and contributes to the growing rapprochement between entrepreneurial studies and institutional theory.

Making States Work: State Failure and the Crisis of Governance (Introduction & Conclusion)

Abstract: In the wealth of literature on state failure, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the question of what constitutes state success and what enables a state to succeed. This book - a joint project of the International Peace Academy and the United Nations University - examines the strategies and tactics of international actors, local political elites, and civil society groups, to build or rebuild public institutions before they reach the point of failure: to make the state work. It is frequently assumed that the collapse of state structures, whether through defeat by an external power or as a result of internal chaos, leads to a vacuum of political power. This is rarely the case. The mechanisms through which political power are exercised may be less formalized or consistent, but basic questions of how best to ensure the physical and economic security of oneself and one's dependants do not simply disappear when the institutions of the state break down. Non-state actors in such situations may exercise varying degrees of political power over local populations, at times providing basic social services from education to medical care. Even where non-state actors exist as parasites on local populations, political life goes on. How to engage in such an environment is a particular problem for policymakers in intergovernmental organizations and donor governments. But it poses far greater difficulties for the embattled state institutions and the populations of such territories. Making States Work examines how these various actors have responded to crises in the legitimacy and viability of state institutions, with a particular emphasis on those situations in which the state has been salvaged or at least kept afloat.

Organized Civil Society and Democratic Legitimacy in the European Union

Abstract: Structural limitations in models of representative democracy have enhanced the space for other mechanisms of legitimacy in the European Union, including participatory models in which organized civil society interests are significant players. To some observers, such actors are likely only to aggravate already problematic input legitimacy. A range of less hostile approaches also prevail, from a neutral standpoint through to those sharing the perspective of EU policy practice where such actors are seen as a complementary mechanism of democratic input. Whilst concerns about the impact of asymmetries of power between different types of organized civil society interests arise as potential issues in any democratic setting, a particularly vigorous neo-pluralist regime, in which EU institutions actively create and develop as well as empower citizen interest groups, effectively mitigates these asymmetries in an EU context, although it can give rise to paradoxical tensions of elitism.

Transnationalizing the public sphere: On the legitimacy and efficacy of public opinion in a post-Westphalian world. Commentaries

Abstract: As a critical concept, the public sphere has always been premised on two idealizing assumptions: in principle, public opinion should be normatively legitimate and politically efficacious. Yet these assumptions are hard to associate with the discursive arenas we today call 'transnational public spheres', which neither stage communication among equal citizens nor address it to sovereign states. In this context, public sphere theory is in danger of losing its critical thrust and political point. Aiming to recover its critical potential, this article revisits the ideals of legitimacy and efficacy in three steps. First, I explicate the implicit Westphalian presuppositions of Habermas's original formulation and show that these have persisted in its major feminist, anti-racist and multicultural critiques, including my own. Second, I identify several distinct facets of transnationality that problematize the understandings of legitimacy and efficacy that informed both the original theory and its critical counter-theorizations. Finally, I suggest a strategy for reconstructing the ideal of legitimate and efficacious public opinion for a post-Westphalian world.

Codes of Ethics and the Pursuit of Organizational Legitimacy: Theoretical and Empirical Contributions

Abstract: The focus of this paper is to further a discussion of codes of ethics as institutionalized organizational structures that extend some form of legitimacy to organizations. The particular form of legitimacy is of critical importance to our analysis. After reviewing various theories of legitimacy, we analyze the literature on how legitimacy is derived from codes of ethics to discover which specific form of legitimacy is gained from their presence in organizations. We content analyze a sample of codes to consider the question of whether a strategic, self-interested rationale lies behind the adoption of a code of ethics. We propose that the process of employing codes of ethics in this strategic manner has become, through isomorphism, an institutionalized practice that itself confers a cognitive form of legitimacy to the organization and further distances the codes from their moral foundation.

The Rise of the Unelected: Democracy and the New Separation of Powers

Abstract: Unelected bodies, such as independent central banks, economic regulators, risk managers and auditors have become a worldwide phenomenon. Democracies are increasingly turning to them to demarcate boundaries between the market and the state, to resolve conflicts of interest and to allocate resources, even in sensitive ethical areas such as those involving privacy or biotechnology. This book examines the challenge that unelected bodies present to democracy and argues that, taken together, such bodies should be viewed as a new branch of government with their own sources of legitimacy and held to account through a new separation of powers. Vibert suggests that such bodies help promote a more informed citizenry because they provide a more trustworthy and reliable source of information for decisions. This book will be of interest to specialists and general readers with an interest in modern democracy as well as policy makers, think tanks and journalists.

The European Union and the public sphere: A communicative space in the making?

Abstract: 1. The European Union and the public sphere: a communicative space in the making? John Erik Fossum and Philip Schlesinger PART I: Communicative practices and a European public sphere Philip Schlesinger and John Erik Fossum 2. Conceptualizing European public spheres: general, segmented and strong publics Erik Oddvar Eriksen 3. The public sphere and European democracy: mechanisms of democratization in the transnational situation Klaus Eder 4. A fragile cosmopolitanism: on the unresolved ambiguities of the European public sphere Philip Schlesinger PART II: Assessing Europe's general public(s) Philip Schlesinger and John Erik Fossum 5. 'Quo vadis Europe?' Quality newspapers struggling for European unity Hans-Jorg Trenz 6. Political communication, European integration and the transformation of national public spheres: a comparison of Britain and France Paul Statham 7. The European void: the democratic deficit as a cultural deficiency Abram de Swaan 8. Political integration in Europe and the need for a common political language Lars Chr. Blichner 9. EU enlargement, identity and the public sphere Maria Heller and Agnes Renyi 10. Religion and the European public sphere Francois Foret and Philip Schlesinger 11. The public sphere in European constitution-making John Erik Fossum and Hans-Jorg Trenz PART III: Institutional conditions and the European context John Erik Fossum and Philip Schlesinger 12. European commissioners and the prospects of a European public sphere: information, representation and legitimacy Andy Smith 13. Transparency, audiences and the evolving role of the EU Council of Ministers Deirdre Curtin 14. Transnationalising the public sphere? The European Parliament, promises and anticipations Ulrike Liebert 15. Conclusion Philip Schlesinger and John Erik Fossum Bibliography

Same‐Sex Unions: The Globalization of an Idea

Abstract: What explains why a majority of western democracies have adopted same-sex union (SSU) laws in the past decade and a half? I argue that this startling trend toward policy convergence in part can be explained by the rise of a human rights oriented transnational network of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists as well as the transnationally networked policy elites these activists influence. These networks, however, do not fully determine policy outcomes as is evidenced by the fact that not all western democracies legally recognize same-sex relationships and those that do have adopted different models of SSU laws. To explain these differences, I show how the nature of national religious practices and the perceived legitimacy of international norms by national elites and publics mediate the influence of the transnational networks and the norms they promote.