Legitimacy

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

The international branch campus as transnational strategy in higher education

Abstract: The international branch campus is a phenomenon on the rise, but we still have limited knowledge of the strategic choices underlying the start of these ventures. The objective of this paper is to shed light on the motivations and decisions of universities to engage (or not) with the establishment of international branch campuses. As a point of departure, institutional theory has been selected to frame the potential motives for starting an international branch campus. Secondary literature, including professional journals and university reports and websites, has been analysed to obtain information that alludes to the motivations of universities for adopting particular strategies. It was found that university managements’ considerations can be explained by the concepts of legitimacy, status, institutional distance, risk-taking, risk-avoidance and the desire to secure new sources of revenue. We argue that universities should avoid decisions that are based largely on a single dimension, such as legitimacy, but rather consider a broad spectrum of motivations and considerations.

Planning in Ambiguous Contexts: The Dilemma of Meeting Needs for Commitment and Demands for Legitimacy

Abstract: This paper argues that ambiguity of context manifested in pressures for legitimacy and commitment affect planning processes. Ambiguity arises from multiple conflicting constituencies and the lack of direct control over resources. Using nonprofit and entrepreneurial organizations as examples of organizations facing ambiguous contexts, we examine their planning practices to develop an understanding of the relationship between commitment, legitimacy, and planning. From this analysis, we articulate a managerial dilemma: the need to use informality and vagueness to gain commitment from diverse interests, and the need to demonstrate formalization of managerial practices to acquire legitimacy from critical resource suppliers. Using elements of this dilemma, we present a new planning framework for organizations in ambiguous contexts that recognizes planning as a strategy for resource acquisition rather than a strategy for resource allocation.

Gender, Genetics, and Generation: Reformulating Biology in Lesbian Kinship

Abstract: The complicated historical relationship between ideas about homosexuality and concepts of "the family" in American culture makes the idea of gay and lesbian families-"chosen" or "created"-a provocative one in the study of American kinship. Insofar as lesbians and gay men have been ideologically excluded from the realm of kinship in American culture (Weston 1991:4-6), it is perhaps not surprising that claims to the legitimacy of gay and lesbian family configurations are often articulated and contested in terms of their perceived difference from (or similarity to) normative ideologies of "the American family." In her pivotal work, Families We Choose (1991), Kath Weston argues for the distinctiveness of a certain configuration of gay and lesbian kinship in which biological ties are decentered and choice, or love, becomes the defining feature of kin relationships. For Weston, gay and lesbian chosen families are neither derivative of, nor substititutes for, "straight," biological families; rather, they are distinctive in their own right (1991:210). Ellen Lewin takes a markedly different approach to the value of distinctiveness in her recent book, Lesbian Mothers (1993). By her own account exceeding the goal of her earlier work on maternal custody strategies-showing that lesbian mothers are "just as good" as heterosexual mothers-Lewin finds that "motherhood" in American culture constitutes a defining feature of womanhood that indeed supersedes the "difference" of lesbian identity (1993:3). In this reading, there is nothing particularly unique about the ways in which lesbian mothers negotiate relatedness and relationships. Though they are not explicitly foregrounded in such terms, I would argue that these two pivotal ethnographies together suggest that "biology," broadly conceived, is a crucial axis around which claims to the "distinctiveness" of gay and lesbian kinship revolve. Thus the relative centrality of biology in gay and lesbian families might be seen to signal a corollary assimilation into, or depar-

When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order

Abstract: When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order by Martin Jacques The Penguin Press, 2009 ISBN 1594201854, 978-1594201851 Hardcover, 576 pages"When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order" is the provocative the title of Martin Jacques' assessment of China's future role as the dominant global power. For more than a decade Jacques was editor of "Marxism Today" - having first transformed it from an obscure ideological organ of the Marxist Left into a broad platform for wide ranging political and social debate. Not long after the collapse of the Soviet Union "Marxism Today" was also wound up and Jacques went on to become deputy editor of The Independent, an engaging newspaper columnist and author.Having heard him speak recently about his book on China my main reservation is that he is still overly influenced by his political antecedents, and perhaps too willing to overlook the nature of the Chinese political system as he rightly dwells on China's extraordinary growth, economic capacity, and cultural richness.The title of the book is itself a giveaway.Mercifully, no nation has ever ruled the world and however much national fortunes may change no free people would accept the idea of one nation determining our destiny. It's neither desirable nor historically probable.In 1963 the great Welsh tenor, Sir Harry Secombe, recorded a song entitled "If I ruled the world". It contained the memorable lines that if he ever found himself in that position "every man would be as free as a bird" and "every voice would be a voice to be heard. " Would this be China's song for its own citizens or the rest of us?Jacques tends to dismiss concerns for human rights as the West patronizing China and he believes that because the Communist State has created economic growth (a Pew Poll indicated that over 91% of its people are satisfied with its economic performance) this confers legitimacy on the Government. He argues that there is no widespread desire for democracy or for the "enlightenment values" of the West.His central point is that, unlike Western powers, China is not a nation state but a "civilization state "; that China is far more diverse than we imagine, and more flexible. He cites the example of Hong Kong and the creation of "two systems in one country" as an example of both its diversity and its flexibility.What is incontestably true is that at a moment when our western economies are in crisis and stagnating, Chins continues to accelerate.In 1992 just 3.5% of America's imports came from China; today it is 14.5%; in Brazil it was 0.9%, today it is 14%; and in the UK, from virtually nothing in 1990, China provides 6% of our imports today. One fifth of Australia's imports come from China, while its two-way trade with its near neighbors - Taiwan, Singapore, and even Japan -soars. Over the next five years we will see the Chinese currency, the Renminbi (RNB) - "the people's currency" - increasingly challenge the mighty U.S. dollar.Globalization will no longer be shaped by the United States but by China - although Jacques takes far too little account of America's military might or China's disastrous demographic trends, or the flight of capital from China's new rich. The inhumane one child policy (previously a flagship of the country's Communist ideology) has left it with an aging population which will have to be supported by a significantly reduced young workforce (the back bone of its current economic growth).Perhaps expressed less provocatively and less provocatively than in the title of Jacques' book, it could certainly be said that the twenty-first century is China's century; just as the twentieth century was America's century and the nineteenth century was Britain's. …

The Federal Vision: Legitimacy and Levels of Governance in the United States and the European Union

Abstract: The Federal Vision is about the complex and changing relationship between levels of governance within the United States and the European Union. Based on a transatlantic dialogue between scholars concerned about modes of governance on both sides, it is a collective attempt at analysing the ramifications of the legitimacy crisis in our multi-layered democracies, and possible remedies. Starting from a focus on the current policy debatea over devolution and subsidiarity, the book engages the reader in to the broader tension of comparartive federalism. Its authors believe that in spite of the fundamental differences between them, both the EU and the US are in the process of re-defining a federal vision for the 21st century. This book represents an important new contribution to the study of Federalism and European integration, which seeks to bridge the divide between the two. It also bridges the traditional divide between technical, legal or regulatory discussions of federal governance and philosophical debates over questions of belonging and multiple identities. It is a multi-disciplinary project, bringing together historians, political scientists and theorists, legal scholars, sociologists and political economists. It includes both innovative analysis and prescriptions on how to reshape the federal contract in the US and the EU. It includes introductions to the history of federalism in the US and the EU, the current debates over devolution and subsidarity, the legal framework of federalism and theories of regulatory federalism, as well as innovative approaches to the application of network analysis, principal-agent models, institutionalist analysis, and political theories of citizenship to the federal context. The introduction and conclusion by the editors draws out cross-cutting themes and lessons from the thinking together of the EU and US experiences, and suggest how a federal vision could be freed from the hierarchical paradigm of the federal state and articulated around concepts of mutal tolerence and empowerment. Contributors to this volume - Jacques Delors Joseph Nye Robert Howse and Kalypso Nicolaidis Daniel Elazar Joseph Weiler Mark Pollack David Lazer and Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger John Kincaid Andrew Moravcsik George Bermann Daniel Halberstam Giandomenico Majone Cary Coglianese John Peterson Vivien Schmidt Fritz Scharpf Sujit Choudhry Elizabeth Meehan Marc Landy Denis Lacorne Robert Howse and Kalypso Nicolaidis