Legitimate Discourse Research Articles

Do Catalans have ‘the right to decide’? Secession, legitimacy and democracy in twenty-first century Europe

Secession is normally viewed as legitimate only as a last resort for oppressed peoples, but contemporary independence movements in Europe are working hard to shift perceptions of the legitimacy of secession as a democratic phenomenon. In this context, the recent growth of the independence movement in Catalonia has given rise to a direct confrontation between two opposing conceptions of the legitimacy of secession in democratic nation-states. On one hand, pro-referendum Catalans claim that a vote on the matter would be entirely consistent with the basic principles of democracy. On the other, the Spanish government rests its denial of a referendum on the legal authority of the Spanish Constitution, which states that Spain must remain united. This article traces the two competing discourses of democratic and legal legitimacy (what we might call the ‘right to decide’ vs. the ‘duty to abide’) through an examination of the rhetoric of key political actors. It concludes that the Catalan government's attempt to prove that Catalonia could constitute a politically legitimate independent state, and should therefore be allowed to ask its residents whether they wish it to do so, is particularly significant as a challenge to generally accepted ‘remedial right’ theories of secession.

Negotiating space, voice and recognition: An analysis of the ‘District Song’ of the Tonga people of Binga, Zimbabwe

ABSTRACTThe article discusses the operationalization of geography and history as both method and content in what the Tonga people of Zimbabwe refer to as the District Song. These furnish the axes operandi in the Tonga people’s abiding search for a dignity-affirming memory and other discourses of legitimation. In the face of potential delegitimation of presence and identity and also possible erasure of their history of civilisation, the District Song, composed in 1982, pulsatingly historicises Tonga presence and civilization through a tenacious and unequivocal claim of place. Using lyrical content, the song gives voice to the Tonga, thereby allowing them to tell their own story from the centrality of their perspective. Against this background, the article marshals the contention that the District Song locates Tonga identity in a geographical and spatial matrix in which the fast flowing Zambezi River is manipulated as both a marker of identity and unalloyed history of civilization. As such, the riverine nomenclatures, BasiDonga (People of the River) and Kasambabezi (Only those who know the River can bathe in it [because of crocodiles]) subjected to capricious mutilations and contortions resulting in nomennudum and nomendubium labels such as Tonga and Zambezi, respectively, symbolize the existential cataplexies of contemporary Tonga life. The article further demonstrates that Tonga identity and civilisation, which had subsisted on the Zambezi River, became dislocated through people’s displacement as a result of the flooding caused by the Kariba Dam built in the 1950s. The architectural figuration of the District Song inclines towards an epic, subtly reconstructing the pre-displacement, displacement and post-displacement eras.

The Racial Contract, educational equity, and emancipatory ideological critique

Charles Mills' major text, The Racial Contract, is a radical liberal intervention in contractarian political philosophy. It argues that in the US today, the social contract ideologically (mis-)represents itself as a colorblind agreement that exemplifies our “post-racist” conditions. Mills holds that once we pierce the misrepresentations that characterize this legitimation discourse, we can see that the majority of whites tend to subscribe, either literally or implicitly, to a supplemental “racial contract.” Under its terms, most whites collude in hoarding sociopolitical resources and educational opportunities for themselves, while disavowing their concerted efforts and subscribing to a wide range of self-serving myths pertaining to the cultural inferiority of the so-called black “underclass.” In this sense, Mills predicts that a critical analysis of the basic structure will reveal systematic and deeply engrained forms of de facto racism throughout major institutions. Drawing on a wide variety of literatures, including normative political theory, critical race theory, the sociology of education, and Constitutional analysis, I demonstrate that Mill's argument offers a particularly fruitful approach to an analysis of school segregation and, in particular, to understanding the structure of the US Supreme Court's decision in the landmark case, Parents Involved (2007). I nevertheless challenge Mills to give us a more precise and comprehensive definition of the moral duties of whites who inhabit these conditions; in particular, I call attention to the decisions made by white parents and teachers who tend to promote segregative outcomes.

Illegality for the general good? Vigilantism and social responsibility in contemporary Indonesia

This article analyses the impact of ormas – mass organizations – as non-state violent actors in the politics and economy of Indonesian regional society. The central element is the question whether threats of violence as well as the actual performance of violence by non-state actors serve the ‘general good’ that the state, and therefore these non-state actors appropriating its authority, stand to protect or rather the particular interests of those in charge of the organizations. The article considers the tainted history of ormas as militias affiliated to the New Order regime and involved in crime in seeking to come to terms with the present claim of regional ormas to being lawful and patriotic defenders of regional interests against predatory national elites. Using heuristic analyses of ormas activities, the article considers discourses of ormas legitimacy in the light of the appropriation of sovereign violent practices as manifestations of democracy.

Performance Measurement at Universities: Studying Function and Effect of Student Evaluations of Teaching

<p>This paper proposes empirical approaches to testing the reliability, validity, and organizational effectiveness of student evaluations of teaching (SET) as a performance measurement instrument in knowledge management at the institutional level of universities. Departing from Weber’s concept of bureaucracy and critical responses to this concept, we discuss how contemporary SET are used as an instrument of organizational control at Danish universities. A discussion of the current state of performance measurement within the frame of new public management (NPM) and its impact on knowledge creation and legitimation forms the basis for proposing four steps of investigation. The suggested mixed-methods approach comprises the following: first, thematic analysis can serve as a tool to evaluate the legitimacy discourse as initiated by official SET affirmative documents by government, university, and students. Second, constructs for the SET questionnaire can be developed and compared to existing SET questionnaires in terms of reliability and validity. Third, data from SET can be used to corroborate the relationship between the qualitative (comments) and quantitative (scaled questionnaire) sections. Fourth, it can be investigated if SET actually contribute to teaching improvement by examining how the instrument is integrated into systematic ex-ante and ex-post organizational management. It is expected to find discrepancy between the proponents’ intent to evaluate teaching and the way the performance measurement instrument is implemented. </p>

Legitimacy Narratives in Polycentric Water Law and Governance

Global water law and governance is horizontally and vertically fragmented, very complex, involves both state and non-state parties, and is established under and / or mandated by national, supranational (eu) or international law. Accordingly, it can be qualified as polycentric governance. Any governance system — but a polycentric governance system in particular — raises questions of its legitimacy. The paper aims to look at one specific segment of this legitimacy discourse, namely how an international organization that is a ‘centrepiece’ in a polycentric governance system attempts to legitimize itself: that is, to justify its activities in order to gain social acceptance. For this purpose, the legitimacy narratives of a rather successful river basin organization — the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River — will be analysed as a case study for obtaining a better understanding of the specific nature of polycentric governance and its legitimacy narratives.

What limits of legitimate discourse? The case of elite sport as ‘thinkable’ official knowledge in the Norwegian national curriculum

In 2006, elite sport was introduced into the Norwegian national curriculum as an elective subject in the pre-tertiary school. Grades achieved in this 5-hours-a-week subject count towards school-leavers' overall attainment grades. Prior to 2006, this subject was only offered as a specially adapted, alternative pedagogy in private schools. The paper analyzes how ideas about elite performance have become mainstream, particularly in light of the seeming lack of public policy supporting such a development. By using Bernstein's conceptual tools, it analyzes the few existing policy statements about elite sport in the pre-tertiary education sector and builds on interview data with key policy players in the Norwegian Parliament in order to shed light on this seemingly market-driven development. It asks which discourses have legitimated the transformation of elite sport skills, knowledge and values from an exclusive private school niche to national curricular knowledge to meet the physically, most-able and ambitious athlete-students in the pre-tertiary schools, and in so doing, include the development of sport athletes as an educational task of the comprehensive school system. Finally, it addresses whether agencies outside education policy circles may have affected the legitimation of elite sport as elective curricular knowledge to a certain group of students.

“In Everything Illegitimate”: Bastards and the National Family

“In Everything Illegitimate”: Bastards and the National Family

Em busca de um telejornalismo legítimo: critérios de qualidade nas críticas de Artur da Távola dos anos 1970

In the 1970s, the TV reviews published by Artur da Távola rose a new discursive place for TV journalism: instead of the approach with an impoverishing entertainment, a legitimate discourse through technology. This article discusses how Távola legitimated television journalism through a discourse of quality compared to other media, showing power struggles around the representation of reality, emotional speech and compared with everyday life.

The Limits of the Debate

How do disruptive events such as terrorism, disasters, and crises change public discourses? Do they alter journalistic distinctions between legitimate utterances and unacceptable viewpoints? This article provides answers to these questions through a unique data set concerning the coverage of immigration in Norway before and after the Oslo terror of 2011. The data serve as a natural experiment where we can analyze how immigration discourse was changed with regard to its magnitude, topical emphasis, and the sources interviewed. The analysis demonstrate that Hallin’s classic three-sphere model illuminates the dynamics of current meta-debates on polarized topics, where multiple online media continually criticize mainstream media and multiple voices question legitimate discourse. The main finding is that mainstream media definitions of appropriateness and deviance were challenged after the terror, as journalists adapted to a new political context. First, the issue of immigration was covered less in the months after the attacks. Second, the most vocal critics of the current immigration policies were put on the defensive, and debates with a critical potential were largely muted. At the same time, however, the attacks to some extent also opened mainstream media debate to online, deviant anti-Islamic actors who were previously largely silenced and ignored.

The Mobile Matrix: The Hijaz Railway as Ritual Space and Generator of Space

Abstract Despite a revolution two months earlier, the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II (r.1876–1909) still sat on the throne upon the inauguration of the Hijaz Railway in September 1908. Dismissed as military strategy or as propaganda, the railway nevertheless signified more to many Muslims. This article examines the Hijaz Railway from an uncommon perspective, beginning with a component of the train largely neglected by scholars, the cami-vagonu or ‘mosque wagon’. A mobile space recapitulating historic loci of Ottoman Islamic ritual, it contributed to the production of an imperial discourse of legitimacy and authority. Within this wagon, the designers reproduced architectural forms and calligraphic motifs to incorporate the railway in a larger representational space. They also deployed modern maps to orient the mosque wagon and represent the railway, linking the calligraphic and the cartographic in a distinctly Ottoman visual-cultural language. These factors would inform the conception and reception of the sultan’s project in local and trans-imperial networks of patronage. The planners of the railway enhanced the functions of this network by sacralizing modern technological resources. In documenting architectural, aesthetic and ritual aspects of the mosque wagon, this study presents a more nuanced picture of the Hijaz Railway and its infrastructure in both the Hamidian and the Second Constitutional periods and explains how it was a ‘pious’ as well as a ‘pragmatic’ project.

How to solve a crisis of legitimacy?

Who participates in the discourse of legitimation taking place in the WTO Public Forum and how do the participants evaluate the World Trade Organization (WTO)? This paper offers two empirical insights into the phenomenon of Global Governance. Firstly, the discourse of legitimation is analyzed with a quantitative text analytical tool. Secondly, as the framework of the discourse is a forum founded by the WTO to start dialogue with civil-society after the crisis of legitimacy in the 1990s, it sheds light on a strategy of Re-legitimation. The empirical results show that (1) the discourse in the forum is “emptying-out” as NGOs are largely replaced by Academia and national politicians and (2) that it is limited by power inequalities between the actors.

Power, Discourse and Participation in Nature Conflicts: The Case of Turf Cutters in the Governance of Ireland's Raised Bog Designations

This paper explores how participatory processes and the politics of contestation and resistance converge to influence changes in discourses and institutional structures underpinning the implementation of the European Union Habitats Directive in Ireland. It highlights the potential of environmental partnership processes to disrupt the usual scalar hierarchy for regulation. The focus is specifically on the designation of raised bogs and the role of power relations and legitimacy discourses in participatory governance processes established by government. In particular, this paper critiques the participatory governance process and attempts to legitimize the enforcement of the Habitats Directive in the face of resistance by the Turf Cutters and Contractors Association (TCCA). Whilst the purpose of the designation is to protect unique habitats, another effect has been to prohibit the traditional right to cut turf on Special Areas of Conservation (SACs). The rationale behind the designation and the mechanisms by which this process has been mediated has been highly contested, with the TCCA claiming the scope inherent in the Directive to consider the de-classification of SACs to have been inadequately addressed by government. The paper concludes with a Foucauldian critique of regulatory authority, legitimacy discourses and agency in the application of participatory processes underpinning environmental regulation.

A world of brands: higher education and the emergence of multinational quality franchises

This article explores the concepts of brand and franchise in the development of international quality assurance. The impact of corporate language and culture on higher education is evident and has been extensively analysed. Recent attention given to branding of universities reflects the ever-growing influence of corporate language and ideas. This article presents a conceptual exploration, grounded in a case study that documented the accreditation process of a Mexican university by a United States (US) regional agency. Discourses of exclusivity and legitimacy were widespread in the case; US accreditation was construed as a symbol of international quality given that US higher education hosts world-renowned universities with reputations that, like brands, can be franchised internationally. It is argued here that such new developments warrant further study and critique.

When Tobacco Targets Direct Democracy

Tobacco control advocates began to use ballot initiatives to enact tobacco control measures in the late 1970s. In response, the tobacco industry worked for over two decades to change laws governing initiative and referendum processes to prevent passage of such measures. In 1981 the tobacco industry's political lobbying arm, the Tobacco Institute, created a front group that presented itself as a neutral initiative research clearinghouse to effect changes in state initiative and referenda laws. In 1990 the Tobacco Institute began creating an in-house team and worked with third-party groups to try to change state initiative laws. While the industry ultimately abandoned both efforts when neither achieved immediate success, over time the industry's goals have penetrated legitimate discourse on the initiative and referendum process in the United States, and many specific ideas it advocated have garnered mainstream support. Direct democracy advocates, as well as public health advocates and policy makers, need to understand the tobacco industry's goals (which other industries adopted) of limiting the direct democracy process to ensure that any changes do not inadvertently increase the power of the special interests that direct democracy was developed to counterbalance.

English

Construction of identities can be manifested in the form of competing legitimation discourses over an intercultural issue. This study investigates the power relations between local identities and global identities over the discursive legitimation of human values in global media discourse. Yemen Times (YT) is the most circulated English-language newspaper in Yemen. YT can be voice of Yemen to the world through the use of the English language and the online version of the paper. With the notion of English and globalization, the newspaper published discourses for maxims in the context of Improve Your English series produced by a non-local journalist. A maxim is extended in the form of an argumentative paragraph that contextualizes a single value. Employing an empirical research design, the study data were built of 152 maxims. As a theoretical and analytical approach, Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is concerned with globalization, discourse, power and ideology. The study adopts these concepts to show how the processes of globalization are ideological choices that serve the interest of global agency. After identifying human values through thematic analysis, a three-dimension analysis of discourse was used to reveal the competing legitimation discourses. Clause complex was used as the unit of analysis where the focus was on the social actors of the projecting clauses. The discourse analysis reveals that local identities were suppressed or backgrounded in the texts. Global identities dominated the texts in the form of global literary discourse, global political discourse, global religious discourse, global philosophical discourse and global anonymous discourse. The exclusion of local identities shows that human values were employed in intercultural communication to serve the interest of global hegemony. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/GEMA-2014-1401-11

Legitimation Discourse and the Theory of the Five Elements in Imperial China

Legitimation Discourse and the Theory of the Five Elements in Imperial China

Bahasa

The paper sets off by discussing security concept in IR and securitization process as well as new emerging norms in the frame of “R2P”. Furthermore, this paper also tries to examine closer at legal, ethic also other dilemmas by entering the discourse of legality and legitimacy of humanitarian intervention by take a look at positivism and naturalism approaches. It is also tries to convey the discussion by elaborating the humanitarian intervention with traditional principles of just war and utilizing criteria of jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Eventually, it is inquiring the execution of the concept of R2P which is, supposedly, built upon the equivalent of state’s basic right and responsibility and proviso it is so then why discrimination and double standard still crop up in implementing humanitarian intervention.

The Discursive Legitimation of Political Regimes: A Network Perspective

Dieses Arbeitspapier behandelt Legitimitat und Legitimation als interaktive, diskursive und relationale Konzepte: Legitimitat wird in den Offentlichkeiten (demokratischer) politischer Regimes, also in einem diskursiven Austausch von politischen Eliten und Burgern uber die Akzeptabilitat politischer Herrschaft, sozial konstruiert. In Legitimitatsbehauptungen und -bewertungen wird eine Verbindung zwischen Regimes und ihren Institutionen auf der einen und normativen Kriterien auf der anderen Seite hergestellt. Diese konnen mit Hilfe der Diskursnetzwerkanalyse untersucht werden; Logik und Potential dieser neuen Anwendung der Netzwerkanalyse werden auf der Basis eines Korpus von Legitimationsstatements aus deutschen und US-amerikanischen Qualitatszeitungen illustriert. Unsere Methode erlaubt es, die Strukturen von Legitimationsdiskursen - etwa prominente Sprechertypen, privilegierte Legitimationskriterien und Diskurskoalitionen - aufzudecken und zu visualisieren; daraus lassen sich schlieslich auch Erkenntnisse uber die Verbindung zwischen Diskursen und politischen Institutionenarrangements in Deutschland und den USA ableiten.

The Role of Experts in the Elaboration of the Cape Town Convention: Between Authority and Legitimacy

AbstractGlobalisation and the development of fast transport and communications have multiplied transnational situations that States, at times, appear ill equipped to handle. Private actors, taking advantage of these new opportunities to claim their authority, are now key actors in the production of transnational law. Since their place in the production process does not have legal grounds, this paper intends to ‘transnationalise’ the legitimacy discourse by comparing its fundamental criteria to the claim to authority of a particular group of private actors—the aviation experts—during the elaboration of the Cape Town Convention. This article challenges this expertise‐based legitimation process which, despite being grounded on the ability of private actors to develop effective solutions, reveals a limited output and input legitimacy. Finally, the article suggests that the EU is well placed to carry out a legitimacy test to block the reception of undemocratic claims to authority made by influential private actors.