Legitimacy

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

Legitimacy and the Privatization of Environmental Governance: How Non-State Market-Driven (NSMD) Governance Systems Gain Rule-Making Authority

Abstract: In recent years, transnational and domestic nongovernmental organizations have created non–state market–driven (NSMD) governance systems whose purpose is to develop and implement environmentally and socially responsible management practices. Eschewing traditional state authority, these systems and their supporters have turned to the market’s supply chain to create incentives and force companies to comply. This paper develops an analytical framework designed to understand better the emergence of NSMD governance systems and the conditions under which they may gain authority to create policy. Its theoretical roots draw on pragmatic, moral, and cognitive legitimacy granting distinctions made within organizational sociology, while its empirical focus is on the case of sustainable forestry certification, arguably the most advanced case of NSMD governance globally. The paper argues that such a framework is needed to assess whether these new private governance systems might ultimately challenge existing state–centered authority and public policy–making processes, and in so doing reshape power relations within domestic and global environmental governance.

Human rights in a globalizing world : The paradox of empty promises

Abstract: The authors examine the impact of the international human rights regime on governments' human rights practices. They propose an explanation that highlights a “paradox of empty promises.” Their core arguments are that the global institutionalization of human rights has created an international context in which (1) governments often ratify human rights treaties as a matter of window dressing, radically decoupling policy from practice and at times exacerbating negative human rights practices, but (2) the emergent global legitimacy of human rights exerts independent global civil society effects that improve states’ actual human rights practices. The authors’ statistical analyses on a comprehensive sample of government repression from 1976 to 1999 find support for their argument.

A Multidimensional Model of Organizational Legitimacy: Hospital Survival in Changing Institutional Environments

Abstract: Using data on 143 hospital organizations, this article examines the antecedents and effects of two forms of organizational legitimacy (managerial and technical) over a 46-year period Results show that both the managerial and technical forms provide notable improvements in organizational survival chances but that the strength of each effect varies over time depending on the nature of the institutional environment Variation also appears in the antecedents of legitimacy - for example, the ability of a hospital to secure approval for its managerial practices depends on the correspondence between its mission and the logic of the surrounding institutional environment The results suggest that a multidimensional model can reveal nuances of organizational legitimacy that are missed by more unitary conceptions

Democratic Deficit: Critical Citizens Revisited

Abstract: Many fear that democracies are suffering from a legitimacy crisis. This book focuses on 'democratic deficits', reflecting how far the perceived democratic performance of any state diverges from public expectations. Pippa Norris examines the symptoms by comparing system support in more than fifty societies worldwide, challenging the pervasive claim that most established democracies have experienced a steadily rising tide of political disaffection during the third-wave era. The book diagnoses the reasons behind the democratic deficit, including demand (rising public aspirations for democracy), information (negative news about government) and supply (the performance and structure of democratic regimes). Finally, Norris examines the consequences for active citizenship, for governance and, ultimately, for democratization. This book provides fresh insights into major issues at the heart of comparative politics, public opinion, political culture, political behavior, democratic governance, political psychology, political communications, public policymaking, comparative sociology, cross-national survey analysis and the dynamics of the democratization process.

Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics

Abstract: What motivates states to follow international norms, rules, and commitments? All social systems must confront what we might call the problem of social control—that is, how to get actors to comply with society's rules—but the problem is particularly acute for international relations, because the international social system does not possess an overarching center of political power to enforce rules. Yet, taken in balance with other values, a measure of order is a valued good. Some take this absence of centralized power to mean that the international system is like a Hobbesian state of nature, where only material power matters; others see it as evidence that international rules have force only when they are in the self-interest of each state. I show that these two conclusions are premature because of their shallow reading of international society and misinterpretation of the ways in which authority works in domestic society.