Legitimacy

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

The Myth of the Dichotomy: Complementarity of Politics and Administration in the Past and Future of Public Administration

Abstract: At the heart of the practice of public administration is the relationship between administrators, on one hand, and political leaders and the public on the other hand. The nature of that relationship and the proper role of administrators in the political process have been the subject of considerable debate. Anxiety about administrative legitimacy has been particularly intense in the United States, where the rise of the administrative state was out of synch with a democratic society (Stillman 1997), but similar issues have arisen in other countries as well (Rutgers 1997). As the field emerged, it was important to differentiate a practice based on professional knowledge and values from political particularism, but the extent and scope of the differentiation were unclear. It was also necessary to reconcile the tensions among complying with the directions of elected officials, maintaining professional integrity, and serving the public. Observers differ as to whether American thinking about the relationship of public administration to society has experienced major shifts over time or has gradually evolved. Along the lines developed by Lynn, the case can be made that there has generally been continuity in the development of public administration in the United States rather than an abandonment of the traditions of the field. Whereas Lynn organizes his reexamination around the bureaucratic paradigm, my emphasis is the core relationship between politicians and administrators.(1) Not only did traditional thought, as Lynn observes, seek to maintain "balance between administrative capacity and popular control on behalf of public purposes defined by electoral and judicial institutions," it also sought to justify the contributions of public administrators to shaping the definition of public purposes. Put simply, early contributors to the development of public administration acknowledged a policy role for administrators that has often been ignored. Even the politics-administration dichotomy that is a part of the traditional paradigm usually incorporates the ideas of accountability and responsibility--although the paradigm can be expressed in ways that seem to preclude these qualities by portraying administration as mechanically instrumental--but the emphasis on a strict dichotomy of politics and administration will not accommodate the policy role of administrators that has come to be widely recognized. In the past--and, I would argue, in the present as well--there was simultaneous emphasis on separation and insulation of administrators from political interference, on one hand, and interaction and incorporation of administrative contributions in the design and the implementation of public policy, on the other hand. Wilson and Goodnow favored such contributions, as did Leonard White, who acknowledged but dismissed concerns about the growth of administration "controlling in the first instance the application of law to the individual case, cooperating also in the formulation of policy" (1926, 33). Although legislative control of administration is critical, he argued, "it is nevertheless important to remember that the administration cooperates indispensably with the legislature, and that without its assistance, the task of legislation would become much less informed and much less effective." These founding fathers of the field never advocated the dichotomy attributed to them--a conclusion demonstrated repeatedly (Golembiewski 1977; Rabin and Bowman 1984, 4; Rohr 1986, 31; Van Riper 1984, 209-10).(2) Still, the myth that public administration began as a narrow, confined, and insulated activity is regularly repeated partly because, as Lynn implies, it is self-satisfying to view ourselves as enlightened and to view earlier, particularly prewar scholars and practitioners, as benighted. There are a number of reasons why the dichotomy idea has persisted. It is convenient to explain the division of roles in terms of total separation because it is easier to explain than a model based on sharing roles, particularly since the separation model does not limit the actual policy contributions of administrators in practice. …

International Socialization in the New Europe: Rational Action in an Institutional Environment

Abstract: The international relations of the `new Europe' are shaped by a process of international socialization in which the Western community transmits its constitutive liberal norms to Central and Eastern Europe. This process neither fits rationalist assumptions about international politics in a technical environment nor sociological theories of action. Rather, international socialization in the new Europe is best explained as a process of rational action in a normatively institutionalized international environment. Under these conditions, rational state behaviour is constrained by value-based norms of legitimate statehood and proper conduct. Selfish political actors conform to these norms in order to reap the benefits of international legitimacy, but as instrumental actors they also calculate whether these benefits are worth the costs of conformity and how they can be reaped efficiently. An empirical analysis of the behaviour of the Western socialization agencies and the CEE countries supports this perspective ...

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

THE LOGIC OF CLIENTELISM IN ARGENTINA: An Ethnographic Account*

Abstract: Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a shantytown in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, this article studies the workings of Peronist "political clientelism" among the urban poor. It analyzes the web of relations that some slum-dwellers establish with local political brokers to obtain medicine, food, and solutions to other everyday concerns. The article also explores the main functions of the "problem-solving networks," which are resource control and information hoard- ing, and pays particular attention to an underexplored dimension of the opera- tion of clientelism: clients' own views on the network.

Neo-traditionalism and the limits of invention in british colonial africa

Abstract: Exploring a range of studies regarding the ‘invention of tradition’, the ‘making of customary law’ and the ‘creation of tribalism’ since the 1980s, this survey article argues that the case for colonial invention has often overstated colonial power and ability to manipulate African institutions to establish hegemony. Rather, tradition was a complex discourse in which people continually reinterpreted the lessons of the past in the context of the present. Colonial power was limited by chiefs' obligation to ensure community well-being to maintain the legitimacy on which colonial authorities depended. And ethnicity reflected longstanding local political, cultural and historical conditions in the changing contexts of colonial rule. None of these institutions were easily fabricated or manipulated, and colonial dependence on them often limited colonial power as much as facilitating it.