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The history of France's defeat, occupation and subsequent liberation may be read, and written, as a constant struggle for legitimacy. Here the diverse candidates for legitimacy are analysed (Pétain, de Gaulle and the internal Resistance) as well as the agents of legitimation, and the arbiters of that process of legitimation (French society, the German occupier, Britain and the United States). Four successive configurations are distinguished within that struggle for legitimacy: summer 1940 to spring 1941, the time of the defeat; summer and autumn 1941, when French society called into question the legitimacy of the Vichy French State; the crossroads of greatest legitimacy between late 1942 and mid-1943, which also marked the period of greatest fragility for de Gaulle; and spring to autumn 1944, when the key question was which state should be rebuilt.

In this essay two conceptions of social order maintenance have been examined in the light of Mannheim's argument that concept use reveals the perspectivistic base of all knowledge. The perspectives from within which Weber evolved the concept of legitimacy and Berger and Luckmann the concept of legitimations have been "imputed" from these concepts' idiosyncratic use. It has been found that legitimacy only has meaning within an "ideological" perspective which values the stabilization of existing institutions while legitimations has meaning within a "utopian" perspective which values the transformation of existing institutions. The concepts of order maintenance examined in this essay have a political function. They not only illuminate order, they seek to alter order by stabilizing or transforming it. ; http://web.ku.edu/~starjrnl

ZusammenfassungDer Beitrag rekonstruiert die Legitimationsvorstellungen politischer Akteure, wie sie in der Großen Regierungserklärung und der parlamentarischen Aussprache der 19. Wahlperiode diskursiv artikuliert werden und tastet sie auf den (post-)demokratischen Gehalt der Legitimationsargumente ab. Mit der Postdemokratiedebatte wird an eine der prominentesten aktuellen Krisendiagnosen der Demokratie angeknüpft, die auf ihren empirischen Gehalt hinsichtlich ideationaler Wandlungsprozesse, gefasst als legitimatorische Leitideen, befragt wird. Mittels einer diskursnetzwerkanalytischen Betrachtung der legitimatorischen Kerngehalte und über einen Vergleich mit den früheren Regierungserklärungen seit 1949 wird ermittelt, inwieweit die öffentlich vermittelten legitimatorischen Vorstellungen in Tradition oder Opposition zu längerfristigen Entwicklungslinien stehen.Es wird gezeigt, wie Legitimationsargumente zusammenspielen und letztlich Begründungsmuster dominant sind, die demokratische Kernnormen eher randständig verhandeln und insbesondere die legitimatorische Inputdimension vernachlässigen. Damit setzt sich im legitimationspolitischen Diskurs eine bereits seit Längerem andauernde Entwicklung fort, die sich zudem dadurch auszeichnet, dass es kaum mehr gemeinsame legitimatorische Kernnormen gibt, gleichzeitig aber nur in wenigen Fällen ein offener Konflikt über den legitimatorischen Gehalt von Legitimationsargumenten besteht. Im Vergleich zu Vorgängerdebatten vollzieht sich nun allerdings ein Wandel hinsichtlich einzelner Legitimationsargumente. Insbesondere bricht die Verwendung von Ökonomisierungs- und Freiheitsargumenten sowie ein Konflikt über die legitimatorische Bedeutung von 'Nationalismus' mit bislang bestehenden Kontinuitäten.

The "puzzle" of why the Communist Party of China (CPC) remains in power has produced a number of competing and complementary explanations. Of these, legitimacy has gained much attention in recent years. While largely convincing, the Weberian-influenced approach, with its focus on economic growth and nationalism, is unable to explain a number of incongruities in contemporary China. Consequently, this has provoked a turn towards empirical methods. Again, though highly informative, these methods also suffer shortcomings, not least whether they are measuring legitimacy. Given this, this article proposes the concept of legitimation to complement these existing approaches for the purpose of enhancing our understanding of why the regime remains in power. (China/GIGA)

Private transnational organizations have grown in number and in influence. However, sociologists and political scientists often study them separately, either as transnational social movement organizations (TSMOs) or the larger category of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs). In this paper, I examine the determinants of TSMO legitimacy by drawing on the literature on INGOs. In so doing, I call for bridging the disciplinary gap between sociology and political science. Empirically, I find that legitimation benefits already prominent organizations more than those that are not. Networking thus helps reproduce the hierarchy among the TSMOs, challenging the earlier notion that TSMOs are horizontally networked. However, I also find that Southern TSMOs are more likely to gain legitimacy than Northern TSMOs once they are visible to their peers. The analysis of TSMOs thus cautions our bias to study Northern INGOs and generalize the findings to INGO population. Overall, my findings reveal that the incentives and strategies that INGO research has documented exist among TSMOs despite their counter-hegemonic ambitions.

Theorizing about the legitimacy of international institutions usually begins with a framing assumption according to which the legitimacy of the state is understood solely in terms of the relationship between the state and its citizens, without reference to the effects of state power on others. In contrast, this article argues that whether a state is legitimate vis-a-vis its own citizens depends upon whether its exercise of power respects the human rights of people in other states. The other main conclusions are as follows. First, a state's participation in international institutions can contribute to its legitimacy in several ways. Second, when international institutions contribute to the legitimacy of states, their doing so can contribute to their own legitimacy. Third, a theory of international legitimacy ought to recognize reciprocal legitimation between states and international institutions.