Legitimacy Challenges Research Articles

Just Advisory and Maximally Representative: A Conjoint Experiment on Non-Participants' Legitimacy Perceptions of Deliberative Forums

Citizen involvement in deliberative forums is frequently discussed with an eye to boosting the legitimacy of decision-making. However, this idea has been radically challenged by Cristina Lafont (2015, 2017, 2019), who argues that deliberative forums may decrease rather than increase legitimacy. Yet Lafont’s legitimacy challenge has been primarily discussed at a theoretical level without taking the perceptions of citizens into account. Referring to an explorative student conjoint experiment this article examines how non-participants assess deliberative forums. It focuses on different authorization mechanisms and a set of institutional design features and combines them with non-participants’ substantive considerations and their awareness of such forums. Empirical findings of the student sample confirm Lafont’s critique, as they suggest that respondents want the authority of deliberative forums to be clearly circumscribed and minimal but also maximally representative and inclusive. Moreover, legitimacy perceptions are closely tied to substantive considerations and awareness of such novel and unfamiliar institutions.

Disabled but not deserving? The perceived deservingness of disability welfare benefit claimants

While disability benefits make up the largest group of claimants in high-income countries, we know surprisingly little about which disabled people are seen as ‘deserving’ benefits, nor whether different people in different countries judge deservingness-related characteristics similarly. This is surprising given they are increasingly the focus of retrenchment, which often affirms the deservingness of ‘truly deserving’ disabled people while focusing cuts and demands on those ‘less deserving’. This article addresses this gap using two vignette-based factorial survey experiments: (i) the nine-country ‘Stigma in Global Context – Mental Health Study’ (SGC-MHS); (ii) a new YouGov survey in Norway/the UK, together with UK replication. I find a hierarchy of symptoms/impairments, from wheelchair use (perceived as most deserving), to schizophrenia and back pain, fibromyalgia, depression and finally asthma (least deserving). Direct manipulations of deservingness-related characteristics also influence judgements, including membership of ethnic/racial ingroups and particularly blameworthiness and medical legitimation. In contrast, the effects of work ability, age and work history are relatively weak, particularly when compared to the effects on unemployed claimants. Finally, for non-disabled unemployed claimants, I confirm previous findings that right-wingers respond more strongly to deservingness-related characteristics, but Norwegians and Britons respond similarly. For disabled claimants, however, the existing picture is challenged, with, for example, Britons responding more strongly to these characteristics than Norwegians. I conclude by drawing together the implications for policy, particularly the politics of disability benefits, the role of medical legitimation and the legitimacy challenges of the increasing role of mental health in disability benefit recipiency.

From ideological to political sectarianism: Nahdlatul Ulama, Muhammadiyah, and the state in Indonesia

ABSTRACT This contribution applies the sectarianisation thesis of Hashemi and Postel to analyse renewed political sectarianism between Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, the two largest Indonesian Islamic organisations. It finds that while distinct ideologies and rituals do distinguish these organisations one from another, recent conflicts between the two organisations can be attributed to political-based sectarianism rather than an ideological-based one. The contribution also shows how sectarianism can be effectively politicised in Indonesia – a formally democratic nation – due to weak state capacity and other societal problems. Such problems led to a legitimacy challenge against the Joko Widodo (‘Jokowi’) regime from senior Muhammadiyah leaders and other Islamist-leaning groups through the 2016/17 Defending Islam movement. In response, the regime aligns itself with the NU, which utilises sectarian rhetoric to discredit these groups. However, in the process NU renews the long-standing sectarianism between itself and Muhammadiyah.

Comparing SARS and COVID-19: Challenges of Governance Capacity and Legitimacy

Governance capacity and legitimacy as two important dimensions in crisis management are crucial for preparing for, making sense of, handling, and learning from crises like epidemics/pandemics. We compare governance capacity and legitimacy of the government in China in response to the SARS and COVID-19 pandemics. Our comparison of the handling processes of two pandemics suggests both positive changes and persistent inertia. Both governance capacity and legitimacy has been improved over time, and there is a tendency that they reinforce each other. Such comparisons help to facilitate learning from the past to be better prepared for the future.

National Case Law as a Generator of International Refugee Law: Rectifying an Imbalance within the UNHCR Guidelines on International Protection

The evolution of international refugee law is marked by the fact that it lacks an international refugee court to provide authoritative statements on the interpretation of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees. Instead, it relies on soft law guidelines produced by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), case law emitted at the national level by refugee tribunals, administrative agencies and other courts; as well as decisions from international courts from other regimes, such as human rights or international criminal law. This paper will seek to discuss discrepancies in citation of national case law in the evolution of refugee law within the UNHCR Guidelines on International Protection. Part 2 will assess the UNHCR's limited references to national case law in its Guidelines. It is suggested that there is a dominance of common law/English-language national decisions which renders the UNHCR output subject to legitimacy challenges as it seeks to provide objective guidance on interpretation of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees. It will also discuss the nature of reference to case law from international human rights and criminal tribunals within the UNHCR Guidelines. Part 3 will present an alternative view on the importance of transnational judicial dialogues within refugee law. Part 4 will assess whether the Background Papers demonstrate parallel citation biases. Part 5 will offer a conclusion calling for greater pluralism in the reference to national case law by the UNHCR in its soft law guidelines and policy documents in order to improve the legitimacy of international refugee law.

How do social entrepreneurs develop technological innovation?

PurposeThe present study attempts to analyze how social entrepreneurs (SEs) develop technological innovation in the face of diverse institutional logics, which are embedded in the National Systems of Innovation (NSI).Design/methodology/approachBased on the content analysis of Ashoka Fellows, the study compares SEs in developed and developing countries, which represent strong versus weak NSIs.FindingsSEs selectively couple the elements of diverse institutional logics to ensure the resource inflow and legitimacy of their operations. However, SEs particularly at weak NSIs are also decoupling their profit and non-for-profit branches to address conflict among diverse logics. Moreover, the study finds that 12 out of 20 entrepreneurs who identify themselves as technologically innovative did not develop any new technological innovation.Practical implicationsThe study shows that being technologically innovative depends on the acquisition of resources and the management of legitimacy challenges, SEs can diversify their innovations by creating more incremental, architectural and modular innovations to address competing demands among logics.Social implicationsThe study reveals that SEs in weak NSIs interact with multiple institutional logics more frequently than their counterparts in strong NSIs. Although this context leads them to diversify their technological innovation, there is a need for improving the NSIs of SEs in developing countries to facilitate the continuity of resource inflow and ensure the legitimacy of their operations.Originality/valueIntegrating two complementary theoretical lenses, the study contributes to the literature by exploring the impact of the interaction between logics nested within a supra system and SEs’ ability to develop technological innovation.

How does a new venture build a new product's legitimacy Evidence from digital innovations in an established industry

Any significantly new product will face legitimacy challenges when it enters the market, and even more so when launched by a new venture. We draw on an in-depth case study to explore the challenge of achieving product legitimacy, defined as a generalised perception or assumption that the features of a product are desirable, proper or appropriate within a business ecosystem with a particular set of norms, values and beliefs. From our analysis of a new venture who applied new digital technology to successfully launch new products in an established industry and emerging economy context, we identify four strategies by which the venture built legitimacy for its new products: orienting, leveraging, designing and enacting. We also find, by adopting appropriate ecosystem strategies, the venture was able to increase the value creation for customers and further enhance the legitimacy of their new products. This suggests that economic factors, rather than social factors that are more often highlighted in studies based in institutional theory, may have the greatest impact on the legitimacy of new products.

How does a new venture build a new product's legitimacy Evidence from digital innovations in an established industry

Any significantly new product will face legitimacy challenges when it enters the market, and even more so when launched by a new venture. We draw on an in-depth case study to explore the challenge of achieving product legitimacy, defined as a generalised perception or assumption that the features of a product are desirable, proper or appropriate within a business ecosystem with a particular set of norms, values and beliefs. From our analysis of a new venture who applied new digital technology to successfully launch new products in an established industry and emerging economy context, we identify four strategies by which the venture built legitimacy for its new products: orienting, leveraging, designing and enacting. We also find, by adopting appropriate ecosystem strategies, the venture was able to increase the value creation for customers and further enhance the legitimacy of their new products. This suggests that economic factors, rather than social factors that are more often highlighted in studies based in institutional theory, may have the greatest impact on the legitimacy of new products.

FROM MULTILATERALISM TO MULTI-POLARISM: A STUDY OF TRADE SHOCK TRANSMISSION BETWEEN SELECTED AFRICAN ECONOMIES, THE BRIC AND THE REST OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

This study investigates trade shock transmission between selected African countries, the BRIC and the rest of the global economy with a view to understanding the likely disposition of African economies towards multilateralism in the years to come. The study extends the network approach of Diebold and Yilmaz [( 2009 ). Measuring financial asset return and volatility spillovers, with application to global equity markets. The Economic Journal, 119(534), 158–171, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02208.x ] by constructing generalized trade linkage measures at various degrees of aggregation using generalized forecast error variance decompositions of an underlying global vector autoregressive model. The results indicate that the trade linkage between Africa and the rest of the global economy is substantial, with the total trade linkage index having an average value of 87%. We find that China, USA, UK, Japan, EU and Canada dominate Africa’s trade and therefore have the potential to spread trade shocks to it. The results further indicate that apart from the BRIC, other regional trading blocs such as Asia, the Americas, and Europe play influential roles in Africa’s trade. Overall, the findings show that African economies are predominantly net receivers of trade shocks originating from the aforementioned dominant sources. We conclude that these patterns of cross-country trade shock spillovers, coupled with the ongoing challenges of legitimacy facing the World Trade Organisation, would likely influence Africa’s move from multilateralism to multi-polarism in the years to come.

Governance by Other Means: Rankings as Regulatory Systems

AbstractThis article takes the challenges of global governance and legitimacy seriously and looks at new ways in which international organizations (IOs) have attempted to ‘govern’ without explicit legal or regulatory directives. Specifically, we explore the growth of global performance indicators as a form of social control that appears to have certain advantages even as states and civil society actors push back against international regulatory authority. This article discusses the ways in which Michael Zürn's diagnosis of governance dilemmas helps to explain the rise of such ranking systems. These play into favored paradigms that give information and market performance greater social acceptance than rules, laws, and directives designed by international organizations. We discuss how and why these schemes can constitute governance systems, and some of the evidence regarding their effects on actors’ behaviors. Zürn's book provides a useful context for understanding the rise and effectiveness of Governance by Other Means: systems that ‘inform’ and provoke competition among states, shaping outcomes without directly legislating performance.

Repairing legitimacy through discourses: insights from the Volkswagen’s 2015 diesel scandal

PurposeThis study aims to explore how corporate discourses enact legitimation strategies aimed at repairing pragmatic, moral and cognitive legitimacy types (Suchman, 1995) after a scandal involving sustainability, namely, the Volkswagen’s 2015 diesel scandal.Design/methodology/approachBy drawing on the discursive nature of legitimacy, this study conducts a critical discourse analysis to identify how the scandal is depicted and which semantic, grammatical and lexical features characterise discourses. It then relates discourses and their features to legitimation strategies that help repair diverse types of legitimacy.FindingsTo repair pragmatic legitimacy, discourses on a few actors and processes enact strategies of creating monitors and avoiding panic. Such discourses include grammatical features only. Discourses on the event, actors, processes and topics of apology, trust and integrity aim to repair moral legitimacy. Enriched with grammatical and lexical features, they mobilise disassociation, excuse, justify and restructure strategies. Discourses on the event, actors, processes and topics of corporate qualities, history and future strategy help repair cognitive legitimacy by enacting an avoiding panic strategy. Grammatical, lexical and semantic features characterise such discourses.Research limitations/implicationsThe study reveals the potentials of critical discourse analysis to bring out from texts practical modes of communicating, and specifically those discourses and features of discourses that serve legitimacy purposes.Originality/valueThis study offers insights into the connection among discourses, relegitimation strategies and legitimacy types by combining the discursive nature of legitimacy with critical discourse analysis. It also contributes to the growing literature on how organisations face the legitimacy challenges raised by scandals involving sustainability.

Exploring the Liability of Origin: Lessons from Smithfield Foods and Meat Processing in the US During COVID-19

The Liability of Origin (LOR) refers to disadvantages faced abroad by firms sharing common national origins. We examine the country of origin effect on Smithfield Foods (owned by a Chinese parent), one of the largest meat companies in the US, before and during the COVID-19 outbreak. We find evidence that Smithfield experienced legitimacy challenges associated with its Chinese ownership. We conclude that animosity between a multinational enterprise’s home and host countries is an important source of LOR and discuss three strategies (distancing and localization, stakeholder, and social media) that might help companies overcome these challenges.

Colonial boundaries and the question of the legitimacy of constitutional control over trans border criminality in Africa

Este artigo examina como as fronteiras coloniais arbitrárias ajudam a criar um terreno fértil para o desafio da legitimidade constitucional para lutar contra a criminalidade transfronteiriça em alguns países africanos e como as fronteiras porosas e a solidariedade tribal ou cultural contribuem para a criminalidade transfronteiriça ou transnacional. O artigo explora o papel desempenhado por sucessivas constituições dos novos países africanos, e na formulação de leis e procedimentos para lutar contra a criminalidade transfronteiriça e os desafios que enfrentam ao tentar implementar essas normas constitucionais. O documento examina ainda as dificuldades enfrentadas pelas jurisdições nacionais para processar os autores desses crimes transfronteiriços sem uma colaboração direta e absoluta dos países vizinhos. Ele dá destaque ao aumento de organizações criminosas de um país que operam em outro território nacional com ou sem a cumplicidade do estado anfitrião e a falha do Estado anfitrião em agir ou punir tais organizações criminosas transfronteiriças quando esses atos não são perpetrados dentro de seu território, especialmente quando esses atos não impactam negativamente em suas atividades diárias. O documento também examina os obstáculos inerentes à própria natureza da criminalidade transnacional e aos processos e procedimentos para persecução de tais crimes, como o princípio da dupla incriminação, quando o crime pode não ser um tipo penal em um dos estados em questão. O artigo finalmente examina os mecanismos de cooperação a serem implementados para efetivação das leis criminais nos países vizinhos e abre uma discussão sobre as implicações dos direitos humanos da aplicação de sanções constitucionais e penais a pessoas que não acreditam pertencer a esse Estado e que se considerem vítimas de um acidente colonial, sem o qual não estarão sujeitos à aplicação dessas leis específicas.

Legitimacy in Nascent Ecosystems, Cross-organizational legitimacy challenges in partnership formation, and the exertion of institutional dominance among ecosystem stakeholders

Legitimacy in Nascent Ecosystems, Cross-organizational legitimacy challenges in partnership formation, and the exertion of institutional dominance among ecosystem stakeholders

Novel industry-government governance mechanisms for the eradication of bovine viral diarrhoea in the UK and Ireland

Industry led schemes to eradicate the endemic cattle disease bovine viral diarrhoea involving government legislation represent a new type of biosecurity governance. This paper explores the governance of schemes to eradicate bovine viral diarrhoea in the UK and Ireland, using the concept of the institutional void. The institutional void describes the devolution of responsibility from central government to devolved administrations and industry. In addition, our research took place within the context of uncertainty over Brexit and how this will affect biosecurity governance within the UK, and the UK's relationship with EU countries, particularly Ireland. The paper draws on interviews with key stakeholders involved in the design and administration of the schemes across the UK and Ireland. The paper identifies three institutional logics that motivated the development of the schemes and their design to ensure successful disease eradication. The key findings from the paper were that though the schemes had a novel industry led design, novel governance mechanisms for ensuring compliance other than national government enforcement do not yet exist. The most common response to threats to the schemes' logic was to call for a scaling up of responsibility – from industry to government and from government to the EU. This may allow for the harmonisation of schemes and enforcement of compliance but may also open up fresh legitimacy challenges as control of the scheme is also scaled up from industry to government and government to the EU. While past research has shown that international biosecurity regulation can become depoliticised by the actors involved and is treated as a risk calculation exercise, this was not the case with BVD eradication schemes where the meaning of ‘BVD free’ was a politicised concept. The schemes represented a new departure in biosecurity governance and so raise the need to rethink what compliance means in an industry-government hybrid scheme – is it compliance with epidemiological advice or compliance with the law and how can these two meanings be best harmonised? • Schemes eradicating BVD in UK and Ireland are novel forms of biosecurity governance. • Schemes are industry led and involve industry-government partnerships. • Despite novel partnerships government seen as having responsibility for compliance. • Disagreements about role of government and whether BVD is public or industry good. • Harmonising schemes between countries was about scaling up responsibility to the EU.

Home-country government support, the belt and road initiative, and the foreign performance of Chinese state-owned subsidiaries

State-owned (SO) multinational enterprises (MNEs) from emerging economies face two contradictory effects on their foreign operations due to their linkage with their home-country governments. Although home governments provide SO MNEs with resources, the affiliation also exposes SO MNEs to the legitimacy challenges in the host countries. Given this theoretical debate, we propose that home government support may facilitate SO MNEs’ post-entry operations in the host markets. Furthermore, because the legitimacy pressures directed at SO MNEs may be contingent on the interstate relations between the host and home governments facilitated by China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the BRI cooperative relations may shift the effect of home government support. Using survey and archival data, we find that home government support has a positive impact on the foreign performance of SO subsidiaries. This effect is weaker in countries that are cooperating with the BRI than in those that are not. Moreover, institutional distance weakens the negative interactive effect between BRI cooperation and home government support on the performance of SO MNEs’ foreign subsidiaries. These findings extend the institutional perspective by highlighting an alternative source of legitimacy for MNEs with distinctive attributes and in various host conditions.

Challenges for academic organizations' legitimacy in Colombia's transition to a postconflict context

PurposeWe explore and explain how academic organizations attempt to establish legitimacy in a transition to a postconflict context, and we examine the ethical challenges that emerge from insightful approaches to formal education in such contexts.Design/methodology/approachWe use legitimacy theory to present a case study of a business school in Medellin, Colombia (herein referred to by the pseudonym BS-MED) in the empirical setting of the end of the most prolonged armed conflict in the world.FindingsWe identify the mechanisms implemented by BS-MED to comply with the Colombian government's peace process and rhetoric of business profitability and the faculty members' initiatives in response to social and academic tensions.Originality/valueThis study identifies the sources of the tensions and discrepancies between the regulatory and pragmatic versus moral and cultural-cognitive criteria of legitimacy in transitions to a postconflict context. This examination advances our understanding of the challenges that organizations face regarding changes to legitimacy over time. The extreme setting of our case positions academics as key players who lead the search for legitimacy. This study challenges the understandings of legitimacy in the literature on organizations, which rarely consider broader sociopolitical transitions to a peace context.

Legitimacy challenges to the liberal world order: Evidence from United Nations speeches, 1970\u20132018

The liberal international economic order has been facing high-profile legitimacy challenges in recent years. This article puts these challenges in historical context through a systematic analysis of rhetorical challenges towards both the order per se and specific global economic institutions. Drawing on Albert Hirschman’s classic typology of exit, voice and loyalty, we coded leaders’ speeches in the General Debate at the UN General Assembly between 1970 and 2018 as articulating intentions to abandon elements of the order, challenges or calls for reform, unequivocal support, or factual mentions of cooperation. Surprisingly, we find that explicit criticisms towards the liberal order are at an all-time low and that exit threats remain rare. An analysis of the historical evolution of criticisms to global economic institutions reveals a move away from the Cold War insider-outsider conflict towards insider contestation. For example, we find that as countries’ economies become more open, their leaders expressed more support for global economic institutions during the Cold War but less support since. Finally, we demonstrate consistency between the public policy positions leaders announce in UNGA General Debate speeches and their government positions on consequential reform debates on debt relief.

Budgeting under public scrutiny: tracing the justification work of stakeholder groups in the controversy of an Olympic candidature

PurposeBy mobilizing the empirical setting of a megaproject, this study problematizes public budgeting as participatory practice. The authors suggest that megaprojects are prone to democratic legitimacy challenges due to a long history of cost overruns, which provides stakeholders with a chance to dramatize a budgetary controversy.Design/methodology/approachThrough article and document data, the authors reconstructed a controversy that emerged around the budget of Stockholm/Åre’s candidature for the Olympic Winter Games 2026. The authors used Boltanski and Thévenot's (2006) orders of worth to systematically analyze the justification work of key stakeholder groups involved in the controversy.FindingsThis study illustrates that a budgetary controversy was actively maintained by stakeholder groups, which resulted in a lack of public support and the eventual demise of the Olympic candidature. As such, the authors provide a more nuanced understanding of public budgeting as a controversy-based process vis-à-vis a wider public with regard to the broken institution of megaprojects.Practical implicationsThis study suggests more attention to the disruptive power of public scrutiny and the dramatization of budgeting in megaprojects. In this empirical case, the authors show how stakeholders tend to take their technical concerns too far in order to challenge a budget, even though megaprojects generally provide an ill-suited setting for accurate forecasts.Originality/valueWhile studies around the financial legacies of megaprojects have somewhat matured, very few have looked at pitching them. However, the authors argue that megaprojects are increasingly faced with financial skepticism upon their approval upfront.

Uncrowned kings: rituals and ritual objects in eighteenth–nineteenth century Portuguese royal acclamation ceremonies

ABSTRACT This article examines the royal acclamation ceremonies of the Portuguese crown in order to grasp the responsiveness of the institution of the monarchy and regime to the challenges of modernity throughout the delicate watershed period of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Portuguese Catholic and absolutist monarchy of the ancien régime had a strict protocol and a set of insignia of power that acted together at the moment of the acclamation and legitimation of each new king. The purpose of this research is to assess the adaptation and reinvention of these insignia and rituals according to the revolutionary demands of social change and secularization brought about by the turbulent period of the beginning of the nineteenth century: the French military invasions (1807–11); the departure of the royal family, court and administration to Brazil (1807); the liberal constitutional revolution (1820); and the civil war pitting liberals against absolutists (1832–34). The new constitutional monarchy that came out of this revolutionary flow faced many challenges of legitimacy, including the test of its capacity to create a modern royal imaginary updated to the cultural mindset of national and secular societies, and capable of bonding rulers with their people. The authors believe that the study of the acclamation ceremonies in the Portuguese constitutional monarchy can give us an accurate perspective on the quality of the symbolic image of the crown, therefore assessing the political efficiency of rituals as one of the structural aspects for institutional legitimization.