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As modes and institutions of governance proliferate beyond the state, legitimacy has become a key concept for assessing, supporting or contesting not only the domestic but also the international political order. Often, however, it tends to be used as an umbrella term encompassing different standards of evaluation. How we are to understand legitimacy beyond the state systemically and to relate the different discussions on legitimacy to each other or to the legitimacy of our political order in its entirety are questions yet to be answered.
Against this background, I aim to systematise the underlying issues and questions discussed in contemporary politics and in academic debates by means of a relational conception of political legitimacy. This conception stresses the importance of a constructive relation between institutions and those subject to them, i.e. between objects and subjects of legitimacy. They form the frame of the norms and processes, implied in conceptions of legitimacy. By foregrounding this relation, it becomes visible that debates on norms and processes, which transcend the state, implicate uncertainties, if not struggles about the subjects and objects of legitimacy. Thus, making explicit and discussing openly who the subjects of legitimacy are and how they are or should be related to the objects of legitimacy constitutes a jurisdictional challenge. This is a challenge we have to face if we accept and apply legitimacy as a valid standard for transnational politics. In addition, determining the subject of legitimacy constitutes a conceptual and political challenge, which becomes especially relevant when debating legitimacy transnationally. While both challenges call for broadening and deepening our understanding of legitimate political orders as well as legitimate second-order decisions, the latter, in particular, constitutes a meta-jurisdictional task when thinking about and debating the legitimacy of political orders.

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The purpose of this volume is to produce a collection of articles by leading social psychologists and organizational scholars that focus on legitimacy processes in organizations. Over the last two decades in social psychology within sociology, scholars have developed legitimacy theories that strive to show how legitimacy processes merge into structures. Also, in organizational research, issues of legitimacy processes are of central concern - for example, in neoinstitutional theory. Therefore, it is worthwhile to devote a volume that will address specifically how these legitimacy processes operate in organizations. This collection of papers will accomplish two goals. First, the contributors will have an opportunity to discuss how legitimacy processes contribute to our understanding of how organizations are structured and how they work. In addition, by examining legitimacy processes, the contributors will be able to explore the micro/macro implications of these processes. Second, this volume should stimulate more discussion between social psychologists and organizational researchers on issues of legitimacy and future directions for understanding legitimacy processes

Abstract:In the last ten or fifteen years, realism has emerged as a distinct approach in political theory. Realists are skeptical about the merits of abstract theories of justice. They regard peace, order, and stability as the primary goals of politics. One of the more concrete aims of realists is to develop a realist perspective on legitimacy. I argue that realist accounts of legitimacy are unconvincing, because they do not solve what I call the "puzzle of legitimacy": the puzzle of how some persons can have the right to rule over others, given that all persons are equals. I focus on the realist accounts of legitimacy developed by Bernard Williams and John Horton.

This paper examines the theory of political legitimacy through the framework of psychological learning theory and the theory of cognitive dissonance. The concepts of primary and secondary reinforcement in cases of learning permit a general understanding of the growth of positive affect toward a political system. Cognitive dissonance theory allows us to understand how this general positive affect built up by a regime's actions produces the sub-set of attitudes called political legitimacy. In order to build a theory of political legitimacy on these foundations, it is necessary to conceive of government policy-making as a case of producing successful learning throughout a population.The diffuse, largely irrational nature of political legitimacy has made it difficult for political scientists to handle the concept systematically. That systems are or are not "legitimate" has been asserted numerous times, though often the precise definition of legitimacy employed has been at best vague and the indices of legitimacy unclearly stated. This paper attempts to meet the problem by setting forth a theory and a set of implicit indices of political legitimacy. After the general model has been explicated, I will specify several problems in the manipulation of political legitimacy. Finally, I will look at the relationship of governmental structure to these problems.Before consideration of the model two preliminary tasks must be performed: a definition of legitimacy and justification for discussing it. We may define political legitimacy as the quality of "oughtness" that is perceived by the public to inhere in a political regime.

The legitimacy of the domestic institutional system is a significant factor of political stability and an important condition of solving current socio-economic development problems. Several new factors negatively influence legitimacy. An explanatory scheme is needed of the conditions for developing effective measures to strengthen legitimacy. First, it is important to highlight institutions of institutional legitimization. Historical and transformational analysis shows that in a secular society the nation is the institution of such legitimation. At the same time, the "Nation" as a social institution functions to integrate values and social interests, which are significant factors in the effectiveness of the institutional system.

Political realists reject the view that politics is applied morality. But they also usually claim that judgements about political legitimacy are normative. Where, then, does this normativity come from? So far, realists have given two answers: 'concessive realism', which identifies legitimacy as a norm internal to political practice while delegating to morality the task of explaining why this practice is valuable; and 'naturalist realism', which holds that alternatives to legitimate politics are not 'real options' for anyone. I argue that concessive realism should be rejected because it neglects the importance of the realist critique of morality. I also argue that naturalist realism should be rejected because alternatives to legitimate politics remain 'real options' for some people. I conclude with some thoughts on how a plausible account of the normative force of realist legitimacy should proceed.

Political legitimacy is a key concept in both macro and micro theories. Pioneers in survey-based research on alienation and system support envisioned addressing macro questions about legitimacy with the sophisticated empiricism of individual-level methodology but failed; and a succession of innovations in item wording and questionnaire construction only led to an excessive concern with measurement issues at the individual level. I return to an enumeration of the informational requirements for assessing legitimacy in hopes of finding a conceptualization that better utilizes available survey indicators to tap relevant macro dimensions. I specify formal measurement models for both conventional and revised conceptualizations of legitimacy orientations and compare the fit of the two models systematically on data from the U.S. electorate. The revised model appears preferable on both theoretical and empirical grounds.