Abstract
This thematic issue brings together research from political science and legal history about legitimacy discourses covering different forms of public–private co-regulation and private self-regulation, domestic and transnational, past and present. These forms of governance highlight the important role of non-state actors in exercising public authority. There has been a growing debate about the legitimacy of non-state actors setting and enforcing norms and providing public goods and services. However, the focus of this thematic issue is not on developing abstract criteria of legitimacy. Rather, the authors analyze legitimacy discourses around different cases of privatized or partly privatized forms of governance from the early 20<sup>th</sup> century until today. Legitimacy is subject to empirical and not normative analysis. Legitimacy discourses are analyzed in order to shed light on the legitimacy conceptions that actors hold, what they consider as legitimate institutions, and based on what criteria. The particular focus of this thematic issue is to examine whether the significance of democratic legitimacy is decreasing as the importance of regulation exercised by private actors is increasing.
Highlights
Issue This editorial is part of the issue “Legitimization of Private and Public Regulation: Past and Present”, edited by Klaus Dieter Wolf (Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, Germany), Peter Collin (Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, Germany) and Melanie Coni-Zimmer (Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, Germany)
The growing role played by non-state actors in governing domestic affairs has been acknowledged since the 1980s
Forms of governance that can be located along this continuum include the delegation by the state to private actors where the role of the state remains rather strong, different forms of public–private co-regulation where authority is shared between the states and non-state actors, and private self-regulation where non-state actors take center stage
Summary
Keywords hybrid regulatory regimes; legal history; legitimacy discourses; patterns of legitimation; public and private regulation; transnational governance 1. Non-State Actors and Different Forms of Governance
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