Legitimacy

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

Legitimacy and/or policy effectiveness?: network governance and GMO regulation in the European Union

Abstract: The article examines the legitimation imperatives of EU-level regulatory governing, the institutional capacity to respond to these imperatives, and the resulting implications for policy effectiveness. It argues that both output and input legitimacy are necessary for authoritative supra-state regulation in certain policy domains. To secure both democratic legitimation and effective policy-making, input legitimation mechanisms should function as integrative rather than aggregative institutions. In a case study of formulation of EU genetic engineering policies, the structural attributes of network governance and features of the policy domain are shown to affect the potential of network governance as an integrative institution.

Sociopolitical Diversity in Psychology: The Case for Pluralism

Abstract: Psychology celebrates diversity, recognizes the value and legitimacy of diverse beliefs, and strives to be inclusive. Yet, the profession lacks sociopolitical diversity. Most psychologists are politically liberal, and conservatives are vastly underrepresented in the profession. Moreover, when sociopolitical views guide the research, advocacy, or professional practice of psychologists, those views most often are liberal. The lack of political diversity in psychology has unintended negative consequences for research, policy advocacy, clinical practice, the design and implementation of social interventions, and professional education. It excludes or marginalizes conservatives and conservative views, having detrimental effects on the profession in each of these areas. This article examines the importance of political diversity and the negative consequences of its absence and provides strategies for increasing sociopolitical pluralism in psychology.

Social interactions and the demand for sport: an economic analysis

Abstract: This paper explores the decision to participate in sports activities in the United Kingdom and the subsequent frequency of participation. The paper draws links between economic and other theories of social interaction to motivate the discussion and links these theories to assessing policy initiatives in the United Kingdom. Cluster analysis is combined with a Heckman analysis to examine the empirical evidence provided by the General Household Survey in 2002. The results suggest that social and personal capital are of paramount importance in determining sports participation, and consequently, it is these features that policy should focus upon. However, the legitimacy of policy activism requires philosophical justification. (JEL B41, C2, D11, D12) 1. INTRODUCTION The promotion of mass participation in sport, as a form of physical activity, is now firmly on the public policy agenda in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.(1). The health and well-being of citizens form part of popular discourse, evidenced by repeated references to "obesity" epidemics in the media and indicated by the establishment of new policies, policy agents, or a refocusing of previous efforts to address this issue. For example, in the United Kingdom, a new central government Minister for Public Health has been established to work in partnership with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department for Transport, the Department for Education and Skills, and sports delivery bodies to raise participation. This is indicative of a more general pattern in most economies though tensions in policy priorities exist (see, e.g., Downward et al., forthcoming; Green and Houlihan, 2005; Houlihan, 1997). The purpose of this paper is to assess such policy initiatives by an explicit focus upon economic theory and subsequent empirical investigation. In the next section, a brief resume of the policy context in the United Kingdom is provided. Section III then reviews the main elements of the theoretical and empirical literature on sports participation. It is shown, using an elementary model based on Becker (1974), how investment in personal consumption capital and social capital, through social interactions, can conceptually account for lifestyle and complementary consumption in sports. Section IV then presents details of the data and variables used in the analysis. Sections V and VI then discuss the twofold quantitative approach used in the paper and present relevant results. Section VII discusses the policy implications of the paper. Conclusions then follow. II. UK SPORTS PARTICIPATION POLICY In the case of the United Kingdom, lying below central government agencies, UK Sport and four sports councils, "Sport England," "sportScotland," "The Sports Council for Wales," and "The Sports Council for Northern Ireland," deliver public policy initiatives and allocate resources. As Carter (2005) indicated, there is a blurred distribution of functions and funding between the agencies. However, broadly speaking, UK Sport focuses on elite sport and the other councils' mass participation in devolved regions. Sport England (2004a) has provided a conceptual framework to explain changes in participation in sport, which is summarized in Table 1, and identifies "drivers" and "settings" of change. The intuition behind these drivers and settings is simple. For example, as one ages or works longer hours or volunteers less to provide support for sport, then participation will fall either through individual choice or, in the latter case, because of supply constraints. Not surprisingly, moreover, such changes will be mediated through decision-making social environments such as the home, workplace, or educational environment. This raises two important and related points for this paper. The first is that, conceptually speaking, Sport England (2004b) recognized that the preferences of individuals are, at least partially, endogenous. …

Paradoxes of Constitutional Democracy

Abstract: Drawing on the work of Frank Michelman and Jurgen Habermas, I outline two interconnected paradoxes of constitutional democracy. The paradox of the founding prevents a purely democratic constitution from being founded, because the procedures needed to secure its legitimacy cannot be spontaneously self‐generated. It displays an infinite regression of procedures presupposing procedures. The paradox of dynamic indeterminacy heads off any attempt to resolve this problem through constitutional amendment. It shows that we cannot evaluate the legitimacy of a dynamically evolving constitution based on projections of its future development. To do so, we would need a stronger basis for making probabilistic judgments about the constitution's future path. After exploring the problems of using constitutional patriotism as such a basis, I outline an alternative built on the ideas of dynamic constitutionalism and reflexive citizenship. It shows how a dynamically evolving constitution can promote its own legitimacy from within, simultaneously resolving both paradoxes.

Critical reflections on the Westphalian assumptions of international law and organization: a crisis of legitimacy

Abstract: This article argues that the fields of international law and organization are experiencing a legitimacy crisis relating to fundamental reconfigurations of global power and authority. Traditional Westphalian-inspired assumptions about power and authority are incapable of providing contemporary understanding, producing a growing disjunction between the theory and the practice of the global system. The actors, structures, and processes identified and theorized as determinative by the dominant approaches to the study of international law and organization have ceased to be of singular importance. Westphalian-inspired notions of state-centricity, positivist international law, and ‘public’ definitions of authority are incapable of capturing the significance of non-state actors, informal normative structures, and private, economic power in the global political economy.