Crisis Of Legitimacy Research Articles

Local government and democratic innovations: reflections on the case of citizen assemblies on climate change

IMPACT Since the 1980s, deliberative democracy has dominated thinking around democratic innovation as an approach to address the ongoing legitimacy crisis of public insitutions. One of the methods of implementing deliberative democracy, citizen assemblies (CAs), are increasingly being applied to mainstream decision-making. The scale in the UK has been notable—representing a seminal juncture in the adoption of CA as a method of public engagement. This article focuses on how these processes, so far, have connected to the wider public sphere and the decision-making processes of commissioning organizations to explore whether this represents a sustainable method for democratic renewal or a passing fad.

The Costs of Legitimacy for Political Institutions

AbstractCan political institutions be too legitimate for their own good? The standard view of legitimacy treats it purely as a resource—political institutions that enjoy legitimacy can draw on voluntary cooperation among their subjects to reach their aims, which is believed to make them more effective than institutions that lack legitimacy and must instead use coercion or bribery to reach aims. We challenge this conventional wisdom by advancing a more general theory that is sensitive also to the costs of legitimacy. High levels of legitimacy, we suggest, can make political actors complacent about the status quo and cause them to pay insufficient attention to problems related to implementation. In contrast, low levels of legitimacy—or legitimacy crises—can serve as a wake-up call and motivate actors to work harder to reach their original or wider goals. We illustrate this theory through a case study of the African Union, assessing when and how legitimacy serves as a cost or as a resource for political institutions, with implications for decision-making, implementation, and effectiveness.

Obstinate memory: Working-class politics and neoliberal forgetting in the United Kingdom and Chile

In the 40 years since Chile and the United Kingdom became the crucibles of neoliberalization, working-class agency has been transformed, its institutions systematically dismantled and its politics, after the continuity neoliberalism of both the UK Blair government and the Chilean Concertación, in a crisis of legitimacy. In the process, memories of struggle have been captured within narratives of ‘capitalist realism’ (Fisher) – the present, past and future collapsed into Walter Benjamin’s ‘empty homogeneous time’. This article explores ways in which two traumatic moments of working-class struggle have been narrativized by the media in the service of this ‘presentism’: the 1973 coup in Chile and the 1984–1985 Miners’ Strike in the United Kingdom. We argue that the use of ‘living history’ or bottom-up approaches to memory provides an urgently needed recovery of disruptive narratives of class identity and offers a way of reclaiming alternative futures from the grip of reductive economic nationalism.

Reimagining Europe and its (dis)integration

Abstract In this article we introduce our special issue of the Journal of Language & Politics on the (de)legitimisation of Europe. We start by outlining the rationale and research that led us to the special issue. In Section 2 we set out the contextual framing of the contributions, i.e., the crisis of legitimacy that European institutions and indeed the entire European project, have faced for the last decade and a half; crises that have been brought about by different events and actors and have resulted in centrifugal and centripetal processes. Next, we outline our theoretical approach to legitimation, which combines politico-sociological perspectives with discursive and communicative ones. This is followed by Section 4, which introduces and weaves together the contributions to the special issue. Finally, in Section 5 we briefly discuss the findings with regard to the aims and goals of the issue and also suggest potential next research steps.

Legitimacy, Independence and Impartiality: How do Serbian and Croatian Legal Professionals Assess Their Judiciaries?

Drawing on a 2018 survey on a convenience sample of 716 Serbian and 393 Croatian legal professionals, we assess their attitudes towards Serbian and Croatian judiciaries against their key dimensions: independence, efficiency, quality, and fairness and impartiality. Legal professionals in both countries have little confidence in their judiciary, which we take as a proxy for legitimacy. Hence, both judiciaries are faced with an internal crisis of legitimacy. Respondents also scored judiciaries low on each of the key dimensions, while regression analysis confirmed that these attitudes are strong predictors of legitimacy. The results indicate that apparent differences in historical trajectories have not undermined common post-transitional political struggles over the role of judiciaries.

Majority representation and legitimacy: Survey‐experimental evidence from the European Union

AbstractWhat can policy makers do in day‐to‐day decision making to strengthen citizens' belief that the political system is legitimate? Much literature has highlighted that the realization of citizens' personal preferences in policy making is an important driver of legitimacy beliefs. We argue that citizens, in addition, also care about whether a policy represents the preferences of the majority of citizens, even if their personal preference diverges from the majority's. Using the case of the European Union (EU) as a system that has recurringly experienced crises of public legitimacy, we conduct a vignette survey experiment in which respondents assess the legitimacy of fictitious EU decisions that vary in how they were taken and whose preferences they represent. Results from original surveys conducted in the five largest EU countries show that the congruence of EU decisions not only with personal opinion but also with different forms of majority opinion significantly strengthens legitimacy beliefs. We also show that the most likely mechanism behind this finding is the application of a ‘consensus heuristic’, by which respondents use majority opinion as a cue to identify legitimate decisions. In contrast, procedural features such as the consultation of interest groups or the inclusiveness of decision making in the institutions have little effect on legitimacy beliefs. These findings suggest that policy makers can address legitimacy deficits by strengthening majority representation, which will have both egotropic and sociotropic effects.

The Nexus of QAnon and COVID-19: Legitimation Crisis and Epistemic Crisis

In this article, we analyze the role of conspiracy theories, especially the spread of QAnon during the COVID-19 pandemics, in the legitimation crisis and epistemic crisis in contemporary democracies. We discuss Habermas’ theory of legitimation crisis and the potential for reactionary movements in times of such crisis, as well as Hofstadter’s description of the paranoid style in political culture. We explain the notion of ‘epistemic crisis’ as theorized by Larry Laudan and discussed recently in relation to social media. We discuss anti-intellectualism in Hofstadter’s terms, and explain its connection with populism. Finally, we explain how all of this comes to bear on the contemporary proliferation of conspiracy theory, using QAnon and the COVID crisis as our point of reference, and examples from the United States and Brazil to illustrate our points. QAnon fueled COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and COVID-19 conspiracy theories rocketed QAnon to a place of major influence.

A crisis of legitimacy?: The importance of procedural justice in frontline private security provision

ABSTRACT The private security industry has expanded rapidly in recent decades. Yet the sector has been plagued by suggestions that its personnel lack the professionalism, skills, effectiveness and legitimacy to perform many of the tasks they are employed to do. This raises questions of how the sector has or should attempt to enhance their perceived legitimacy. The current study tests whether citizens’ perceptions about procedural justice might be associated with legitimacy judgements in the private security sector. Specifically, it explores whether citizens focus more on procedural justice concerns or effectiveness concerns when forming judgements about the legitimacy of frontline private security practitioners. Using survey data from 347 Australian citizens, the findings show that procedural justice concerns are most strongly associated with citizens’ legitimacy evaluations; concerns about effectiveness seem to be less important. Further inspection of the data reveals that the ‘neutrality’ and ‘trustworthiness’ sub-components of procedural justice are what matters to Australian citizens. The implications of these findings for scholarship and practice in the private security sector are discussed.

Democracy compromised. An interpretation of the Greek economic and political crisis in the period 2009–2015

Abstract: The key objective of this study is to clarify the gap between democracy and representation in modern state as well as its results, as to how policy is formed and implemented. In this context, the core questions to be considered are the following: How is democracy defined in the modern era? What is the relationship between policy (democracy) and civil society-citizens? How can we explain/interpret the question of the political function of democracy by society? The mutation of the notion of democracy in the modern era, leads to the weakening of its content and the dislocation of its variable qualifiers condensing in the distinction between ‘direct’ and ‘representative’ democracy. As a result to the pre-representative relation between society and executive branch, a democratic deficit exists and thus a ‘legitimacy crisis’ arises in the executive branch, causing the inability to meet the basic requirements of each society.

Collective Bargaining Autonomy in a Crisis of Legitimacy? An Analysis of Historical Debates

Collective Bargaining Autonomy in a Crisis of Legitimacy? An Analysis of Historical Debates

Crises of Legitimacy? Warfare, National Identity, and Counterinsurgency Tactics in the Public Imagination

For our special issue of the New American Studies Journal “American Crises” I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Barbara Elias, Associate Professor at the department of Government and Legal Studies at Bowdoin College, Maine, who specializes in international relations, U.S. foreign policy, national security, and political Islam.

Reform of Administrative Examination and Approval Bureau: Practical Difficulties and Solutions

The “administrative examination and approval bureau” model is the latest practical achievement of deepening the reform of the administrative examination and approval system. It is a beneficial attempt to relatively concentrate the examination and approval power on the same institution. However, the first mock exam is a crisis of legitimacy, a confusion of powers and responsibilities, a lack of accountability and a blocking of information exchange. To promote the reform of the mode of “administrative examination and approval bureau”, we should realize the organic combination of “crossing the river by feeling the stone” and “top-level design”; make the means of administrative examination and approval system reform serve the purpose of optimizing public services; resolve the contradiction between horizontal centralized administrative license and vertical administrative management system; establish a supervision mechanism combining internal supervision and external supervision.

THE IDENTITY CRISIS OF AN OUTSIDER: EXCEPTION AND RULE IN GÜNTER GRASS´ DANZIG TRILOGY

Günter Grass (1926–2015), in his Danzig Trilogy (The Tin Drum – Cat and Mouse – Dog Years), depicted exceptional existences, who are not like most of the Germans before, during and after World War II, resulting in their isolation and the absence of guidance and support from the adults around them. The small-statured Oskar Matzerath critically observes and challenges the world from a frog’s perspective and uses his tin drum as a means of provoking the people around him. Joachim Mahlke, tortured by an inferiority complex, is not able to stand the pressure of social isolation. The half-Jew Eduard Amsel establishes his own underground world, in order to flee the dangers of the aggressive real world. They all experience a deep identity crisis and struggle to strike the right path in their lives, with a greater or lesser degree of success. The subjects of the analysis in this paper are these main figures, their common features and differences, their identity crises and their struggle to deal with these crises. The concept of an identity crisis is discussed here from two aspects: as identity deficit and identity conflict. An identity deficit (crisis of motivation) is the lack of a guiding commitment and struggle to establish personal goals and values. When going through an identity conflict (legitimation crisis), a person has several commitments, and in some situations at least one of them has to be betrayed. The examples of Oskar and Eduard show that art is and remains the only successful means to overcome the discord between the agreement with oneself and with society, and to overcome the identity crisis, which is the result of loss and/or inadequate choice of guiding commitments and values. However, Grass was of the opinion that it is the duty of artists to use their creative potential and talent with a responsibility towards society, to bring enlightenment with their criticism, and therefore help the people to become aware of the reality as it is.

The digital spirit of green capitalism. How the European Union tries to save ecological modernisation

Why, by whom and how is digitalisation and sustainability twinning presently being driven? The paper asks how political, economic and civil society actors are working to legitimise a digital-green modernisation of the economy. It argues that the nexus amounts to revitalising both digital and green modernisation, which are both facing crises of legitimacy. On the one side green modernisation has been criticised for its market-based strategies that create new inequalities and ecological problems while failing to adequately address pre-existing ecological problems. Global digital capitalism, on the other side faces criticism not only for increasing surveillance, but also for the negative impacts that digital technologies have on natural and social environments (consider the rising energy use by data centres and extractivism in the Global South). Documents, speeches, conferences and policy papers of the European Union as well as an Action Plan for Sustainability in the Digital Age worked out by civil society groups, non-profit organisations and business associations serve as an empirical basis. By using the conceptional background of the sociology of justification and situational analysis mapping strategies the paper shows that digitalisation, both on a moral and common good level, on an economic level and on the level of individual self-realisation, endows green modernisation with new action-guiding structures of meaning and thus turn it into a worthwhile, meaningful and “exciting” capitalist endeavor.

ПОЛИТИЧЕСКАЯ ТЕОЛОГИЯ: ГЕНЕЗИС КОНЦЕПТА

Modern socio-political sciences associate «political theology» with the secularization of the social world. The sacralization and theologization of politics allow us to talk about the formation of a secular type of political religiosity, replacing the traditional religion in society. Political theology is understood as a way of thinking about the foundations of power in modern societies, whose symbolic structures, responsible for the foundation of social order and maintaining its coherence, are being destroyed and experiencing a crisis of legitimacy. The article attempts to trace the genesis of the concept of political theology, starting from Greco- Roman antiquity, by explicating key positions that influenced its internal semantic dynamics and conceptual development. As a result, the author concludes that all the key socio-political categories and oppositions underlying the structural and symbolic order of secular society are somehow connected with the theological and political issues. It is argued that all attempts to separate the political from the theological, and the theological from the political, or to subordinate one to the other are doomed to failure in advance, but it is this struggle between the political and the theological, that presupposes the «unity of opposites», that determines the functioning of the theological-political «machine» of Western society.

The Historical Debt: The Elusive Agrarian Jurisdiction in Colombia

This study reviews the past, present, and future of agrarian jurisdiction in the context of the agrarian reforms in Colombia with a focus on violent conflicts in rural areas. The methodology used is that of a multi-method case study and legal historic analysis. The study shows how, without an agrarian jurisdiction, the Colombian legal system faces a crisis of legitimacy, lacks effectiveness, and creates new interethnic rural conflicts. The study also evaluates the country’s recent legislative proposal in the light of constitutional law, the stated goals of the 2016 Peace Agreement, the Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP). It offers recommendations on how to enforce the rule of law in agrarian issues, in order to overcome systematic violations of human, economic, social, and environmental rights of vulnerable rural populations: recommendations to be taken into consideration by the legal community and the international partners of the country’s comprehensive agrarian reform program.

South African Amnesty 2.0: Incomprehensible?

The South African democracy faces a crisis of legitimacy and identity that locks it into a state of inertia. The state is proving unable to critically advance the constitutional ends of transformative democracy. It lacks the strategic concepts and arguments to do so and has subsequently become embroiled in an existential battle for the soul of the country. As a critical contribution, this essay evokes the need for politically expedient approaches and arguments. It reflects on the past, on the methodologies employed to bring about the unitary, democratic state, and on the need to look at purposeful, albeit incomprehensible, strategies that will allow transcendence beyond the current impasse. By and large, South Africa sets an example. It is a laboratory for democracy, and for that very reason, much like Athens, it will long remain an oddity, not only in Africa (as the Afro pessimists’ simplistic litany would like to have us believe) but also in global politics. South Africa is a test case for global democracy; it is a test case for rhetoric; and it is a test case for the relevance of rhetoric studies in a postmodern democracy.

A Habermasian Response to the Legitimacy Crisis of Investment Arbitration

A Habermasian Response to the Legitimacy Crisis of Investment Arbitration

NGOs as Agents of Global Justice: Cosmopolitan Activism for Political Realists

AbstractSeveral decades of scholarship on international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have established their important role in leading cosmopolitan political projects framed around moral ideals of global justice. But contemporary legitimacy crises in international liberalism call for a reexamination of NGOs’ global justice activism, considering how they should navigate the real-world moral contestations and shifting power dynamics that can impede their pursuit of justice. Recent work by deliberative-democratic theorists has argued that NGOs can help resolve disputes about global justice norms by facilitating legitimate communicative exchanges among the diverse political voices of subjected global communities on the correct interpretation and implementation of global justice norms. In response, this essay argues for an expanded account of the political roles of NGOs in global justice activism, which reflects greater sensitivity to the multifaceted political dynamics through which power in real-world global politics is constituted and contested. It is shown that in some NGOs’ real-world operational contexts, structural power imbalances and social division or volatility can undercut the operation of the ideal deliberative processes prescribed by democratic theory—calling for further attention to work focused on mitigating power imbalances, building solidarity, and organizing power in parallel or as a precursor to deliberative-democratic processes.

Political Division after Prophet Muhammad in Yemen: the Conflict between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya

The Prophet secured political dominance throughout Arabia, before his death. Except for the Ridda events, Muslims remained united politically and religiously until the second era of Uthman’s (d. 35/656) reign. Political instability occurred during this time, as a new generation emerged about two decades following the Prophet’s death. These events that separated Muslims into political groups, ended with Uthman’s death. In the History of Islam, at this time, political atmosphere was called “fitnah”. Despite the fact that there are numerous speculations about that time in the sources, it is difficult to form a definitive judgment about the political obscurity. However, it is certain that Uthman’s murder laid the backround for division of the Muslims into political parties. In this political situation, where it is difficult to distinguish between political right and wrong,.ʿAlī (d. 40/661) became caliph. However, the first and most serious difficulty he faced was the punishment of those who murdered Uthman, who lost his life due to the lynching of the rebels. Utman's governor in Damascus, Muʿāwiya (d. 60/680), refused to pledge loyalty to ʿAlī because of this unsolved issue. The legitimacy crisis resulted in division of society into two groups. Yemen is one of the districts where the political separation is most evident. It was not possible for the Yemenis to maintain their neutrality in this political situation. As a result, the territory became one of the secondary areas of contention between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya. ʿAlī inducted his uncle’s son, Ubaydullah b. Abbas, as governor of Yemen. However, Muʿāwiya sent his commander, Busr b. Abī Artāt, to take control of the area. This study is intended for discussing the ultimate consequences of ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya conflict in Yemen.