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Recently, the concept of social cohesion has been increasingly used in the South African government and policy circles when discussing the challenges of social cohesion in a society deeply divided by race, class, and nationality. Related to this concept is the practice of naming and renaming places, precisely after regime change. Also known as a toponymic purge, new rulers change exisiting names to gian political legitimacy for their political values and to reflect the new socio-political order, rendering place names of the previous regime obsolete in the process. As a result, this paper analyses toponymic renaming as a reflection of social cohesion in the street renaming process of the City of Tshwane, South Africa. The paper uses a qualitative research approach and a case study design. A sample of 14 participants were puposively selected and data were technically analysed. The findings of the study revealed that the street renaming process accomodated Black people who had previously been marginalized. Therefore, Coloureds and Black participants believed that social cohesion and social justice had been accomplished through the process of renaming the streets. White participants, on the other hand, held a different perspective that the process did not contribute to social cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the factors that affect Chinese political identity. Although the Chinese government claims that maintaining the traditional Confucian political heritage represented by the Great Harmony Society (大同社会) and common prosperity is its main source of political legitimacy, this study found that for the majority of Chinese people, their support for the Chinese government is not based on the government’s Confucian political heritage, but rather on the government’s National Accountability system and national-oriented ideology, For individuals, supporting the state is an unconditional moral requirement, even if the state’s performance is not good, so Chinese people have higher political satisfaction. This ideology encourages the state to restrain freedom of the people in the form of omnipotence, and is also responsible for meeting all the needs of the people. This study suggests that China’s thousands of years of centralized political tradition and the inertia of large government have made the people more accustomed to an omnipotent government. The governance of the Chinese government is also a model of external Confucianism and internal law(外儒内法), with Confucian political heritage as the surface propaganda, but the internal system is centralized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Equity of access to electoral polling stations (EPS) is a key to enhancing the legitimacy of elections in democratic governance. A crucial characteristic of this equity is the level of spatial access to EPS and its distribution among populations and related socio-economic determinants. This study investigates the disparities of access to EPS for four selected regions in Ghana. The findings show that economic status and access to EPS are inversely related, indicating that access to EPS is not equitable within and between regions. The poor access for economically disadvantaged populations is indicative of unequal access to basic socioeconomic opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Belief in evil and hidden supernatural forces, generally referred to as witchcraft, is widespread in many parts of the African continent. In addition to affecting individual health, perceived security, and social relations, witchcraft allegations may be used as covert political instruments, resulting in governance challenges such as lack of trust, transparency, administrative delegation, and political accountability. Since witchcraft is commonly associated with physiological and psychological violence, some citizens may be less willing to participate in political activities, including seeking elected office or criticizing political elites for fear of falling victim to witchcraft. The focus of our study is Malawi where large groups in the population believe in the power of witchcraft. We aim to unpack how local witchcraft beliefs have a bearing on governance – whether, and the extent to which, witchcraft influences how citizens understand and practice transparency and accountability in everyday life. Particularly, the belief in witchcraft among Malawian elites' warrants closer scrutiny, especially since existing literature and local discourse on the impact of witchcraft tend to largely focus on rural and less educated groups in the population. As the highly secret and complex dimensions of witchcraft resist clear-cut definitions, representations, and analysis, it is not our intention to describe witchcraft in everyday life. Rather, we explore the potential political implications of not addressing elite discourses of and belief in witchcraft. We find that belief in witchcraft can influence citizens' perceptions of power and authority and can potentially undermine the legitimacy of democratic institutions and processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union established the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) to address the socio-economic impact of Covid-19. The RRF promotes domestic ownership through increased engagement of national authorities with stakeholders. However, empirical manifestations of ownership remain unclear. This study refines the concept of 'ownership' and analyses the engagement of social actors in the formulation of National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) in Croatia, the Netherlands and Sweden. The findings indicate that all three countries exhibit limited procedural ownership, while the extent of substantive ownership varies based on pre-existing conditions. Interestingly, higher financial allocation can hinder the ownership of social actors, although low allocations do not necessarily facilitate their involvement. Time pressures and divergent time horizons between EU and national politics further undermine domestic ownership. While the centralised preparation of NRRPs has led to the concentration of ownership primarily in the hands of governments, poor governance of NRRPs could erode legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The watchdog role is central to the democratic legitimacy of journalism and is also perceived as an essential part of journalists' role performance by the public. So far, the expectations on journalists' watchdog role performance have been studied as a static concept resulting in limited knowledge of the underlying dynamics in audience demand and expectations for this type of journalism. We argue that the demand for watchdog journalism is dynamic and varies according to changes in the broader context and across audience characteristics. We take a multi-method approach to examine the demand for watchdog journalism during the COVID-19 pandemic in Denmark. First, we use data from three representative surveys (n≈1.000 in each), including a panel component (n = 336), to demonstrate that the demand for watchdog journalism increased over time, especially among opposition voters, as the political context offered more political conflict and contested policy solutions. Second, a qualitative analysis of answers to an open-ended question in the surveys examines how the audience believes the watchdog role should be performed. We show that the demand for different functions of journalists' critical reporting varies over time and that the form used by journalists when conducting critical reporting is extremely important to the audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effects of social and political accountability arrangements on citizens' legitimacy perceptions. Accountability arrangements are often suggested to improve the perceived legitimacy of governmental organizations. Based upon a pre-registered vignette experiment with a representative sample of N = 1574 citizens from the Netherlands, we show that social accountability (accountability to citizens) increases legitimacy perceptions, but that political accountability (accountability to politicians) does not affect legitimacy perceptions. These patterns are highly similar for both decision winners and losers, with accountability slightly more important for losers. This has important implications for our understanding of the impact of accountability for perceived legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies often suggest that the thrust of peasant politics is the advancement of autonomous family farming. Such studies seem remote in rural places where migration, pluriactivity, and non-agrarian jobs and aspirations are the norm. We examine peasant politics in rural Ecuador, where peasant communities have driven nationwide uprisings in recent years. We find that many peasant community organizations cultivate political legitimacy among their members by advancing diverse, non-agrarian objectives, rather than autonomous farming. We argue that researchers stand to learn much about peasant politics by attending to precisely how agrarian livelihoods and post-agrarian aspirations weave together to (re)produce rural institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IMPACT: Accounting systems have been traditionally seen as technical calculative practices to quantify public sector activities, used by governments for (internal) decision-making purposes and to be externally accountable. This article suggests taking a different perspective by considering the relational nature of accounting systems, with the idea that a more interactive approach between citizens and governments can enhance both decision-making and accountability. By relying on a more dialogic approach, policy-makers and public managers at all levels of government can encourage citizens to participate in public service performance measurement, so that citizens can comment on what counts, how to measure it, and how to account for it. Doing this will reinvigorate government legitimacy, increase mutual trust between citizens and the public sector, and pursue public values that citizens actually want. Public sector accounting systems have been criticised for being 'monological' tools, narrowly focusing on efficiency and financial values while disregarding the plurality of public values, and suffering from limited use, relevance, transparency, and involvement of citizens. This article offers a new perspective by highlighting not only the technical but also the relational nature of accounting systems where citizens and governments interact in deciding what counts, measuring it, and accounting for it. It calls for future research exploring the potential of interactive forms of accounting systems, both government- and citizen-initiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between states and the diaspora represents an important transformation from the focus on state, territoriality, and sovereignty, especially due to the rise of populist regimes and the instruments used by them. Diaspora becomes one of the instruments to not only exercise influence in international politics but also gain domestic legitimacy for political projects, transnationalising politics and populism. This paper elucidates the ways in which the current Indian government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has made efforts to craft proximity with the Indian diaspora in the USA, UK and Australia. We specifically focus on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at the Howdy, Modi! rally in 2019 in Houston Texas to illustrate the crafting of emotional proximity to the homeland, through a discourse focusing on aspirational pride. We place these populist narratives within the framework of an aspirational state, that is built on the politics of vishwas or trust, rather than empirical reality. By looking at how proponents of Hindu nationalism, shape the Indian diaspora’s emotional linkages to the homeland, the study illuminates the complex ways in which transnational emotional proximity is constructed across borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a 2022 article the author described the late Sir Julian Priestley, Secretary-General of the European Parliament, 1997–2007, as being a ‘consequential senior European Union civil servant’, notably because of initiatives Priestley championed to provide simultaneous interpretation for all languages in an enlarged European Union – a facility not guaranteed at the time but which provided the Parliament with continued democratic legitimacy. This article builds on and develops that ‘consequential’ concept, by identifying some further examples of such consequential senior EU civil servants and then by teasing out common aspects of their roles and activities. It posits that they are in effect sub-political policy entrepreneurs (in the Kingdon definition) who can and do have significant effects on the development of their institutions and of the Union more generally. It shows how they share certain characteristics: long service in or with ‘their’ institutions, enabling them to develop reformist visions; political coverage; the determination to see their visions through. The fact that they remain sub-political raises potential questions about political legitimacy. The article concludes by questioning whether the phenomenon is specific to the European Union or can also be observed in national civil services and the secretariats of other international organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In post-genocide Cambodia and Rwanda, low-level perpetrators often identify as victims of the genocidal regimes alongside those they tortured and killed. However, state and societal responses to these claims appear to have varied dramatically. In Cambodia, the government and civil society organizations seem to view former Khmer Rouge cadres’ claims to victim status as socially acceptable and politically useful, while in Rwanda, the government and civil society organizations have firmly rejected perpetrators’ efforts to claim space as victims. What accounts for these different societal responses in Cambodia and Rwanda? At present, there is ample literature on how authoritarian government actors in both contexts have shaped their nation’s post-genocide transitional justice responses to prevent future bloodshed, while simultaneously reinforcing their regimes’ sometimes tenuous political legitimacy. However, this article offers complementary insights by exploring two otherwise under-researched factors that we argue further inform these polar-opposite reactions to perpetrators’ claims to victim status: (1). post-genocide governments’ offers of inclusivity in defining who is part of each nation’s ideal post-genocide ingroup; and (2). the social proximity of perpetrators and their victims during and after the genocides. Our focus on inclusivity and social proximity related to the Cambodian and Rwandan genocide advances scholarly understandings of the various factors that shape government and social responses to perpetration in the aftermath of genocide internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of regional branding on the dual innovation of agriculture-related enterprises (AREs). Based on data from 298 Chinese AREs, the study constructs a mediated moderation model. The results indicate that, first, the regional branding of AREs enhances their political legitimacy and market legitimacy, which in turn promote their exploratory and exploitative innovation. Second, government support positively moderates the effect of regional branding on AREs’ exploitative innovation. Third, government support increases the impact of regional branding on the exploratory innovation of AREs with a low industry status relative to AREs with a high industry status. This paper expands the application of institutional theory and provides suggestions on corporate decision-making on regional branding and dual innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities are specific local entities, and as such are in competition with one another for resources and prestige. The general tone of the literature—which sees universities mainly as specific organizations—is quite negative, with competition leading to destructive market and political forces. The tone is surprising, given the extraordinary worldwide university expansion over the last seven or eight decades. This inconsistency is resolved with the perspective of neo-institutional theory: the university is a stunningly successful global institution from which specific cases derive their accredited standing and legitimacy. The enlarged and grand institutional canopy has supported thousands of expanded and rationalized organizations, which then suffer from competition. But in their struggles, the contending organizations produce further elaborations of the domain of the overall institution. The university grows, though the instances it flowers may sometimes suffer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the narrative intricacies in John Gower's adaptation of Constance's tale. Topics include the complexities of Constance's identity and marital legitimacy as a candidate for queen, the portrayal of King Allee's character as a model of charity amidst controversies, and the role of oral tradition in shaping Gower's unique narrative approach.

We argue that one is likely to accept what a speaker says when the expected utility of accepting their testimony is greater than the expected utility of continuing inquiry. One virtue of our hypothesis is that it allows us to explain why confidence in experts has declined in recent years. In a traditional media landscape expert testimony is easy to find, and alternative sources of information are relatively costly to access. Hence, practical considerations largely favour accepting expert testimony. But on social media, alternative information is easy to find, and it is often practically rational to accept this information rather than to search for (and identify) genuinely expert testimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on contemporary debates on legitimacy and contestation in international relations, the article offers a novel analytical framework to study processes of legitimation and delegitimation of international sanctions. We apply the framework to analyse foreign policymakers' evaluations of the legitimacy of the sanctions imposed by states and international organisations against Nicolás Maduro's regime in Venezuela. The content analysis of evaluative statements shows that (de)legitimation processes focus mostly on who has the right to enforce sanctions and reveals differentiated legitimacy evaluations of multilateral versus unilateral enforcers, as well as of different types of international organisations. Sanctions imposed by multilateral senders and with a restricted impact on targeted individuals are evaluated as more legitimate than unilateral sanctions with a wider scope. We argue that the study of the (de)legitimation of sanctions may have important implications not only for enhancing compliance, but especially for transforming international sanctions into a legitimate mechanism of global governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU is as a liberal normative community, where liberal norms play a central role. While contestation is considered essential within a normative community to establish the legitimacy of norms, within the EU, contestation can also challenge the validity of its foundational norms. This raises the question of how this type of contestation affects EU foreign policy. This study examines two radical forms of contestation: opposition and dissidence. Through the analysis of two case studies, namely the Global Compact for Migration and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, it becomes evident that the EU's foreign policy system can sustain opposition, but dissidence has the potential to challenge or undermine those norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractCanonical international relations research treats international orders as systemic, long-term projects of hegemons. However, orders can also provide valuable domestic political capital for leaders. Hegemonic leaders have stronger incentives to invest in hegemony when doing so potentially enhances their political legitimacy. Using a new dataset of over 8,000 Ming and Qing dynasty tribute exchanges between 1368 and 1895, I assess whether emperor legitimacy needs help explain China’s engagement in tribute diplomacy, a central institution of Chinese hegemony. The findings show that new emperors, particularly those following “irregular” entry into power, invested heavily in tribute to pursue legitimacy among internal and external audiences. This behavior was most common with “high-value” counterparts. An illustrative case documents how the Yongle Emperor deployed tribute to legitimize his right to rule. The findings demonstrate the importance of domestic politics and leader legitimacy for understanding the nature and persistence of hegemonic order in early modern Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do peripheral, 'voiceless' people engage with politics in authoritarian contexts where formal politics is not a viable option? This article demonstrates the value of applying an everyday politics perspective to grassroots religious activity and mobilities, by providing an in-depth case study of a recently Christianised ethnic minority group based in Vietnam's politically sensitive borderlands. In the face of religious persecution and social conflict sponsored by an overbearing state, hundreds of thousands of ordinary ethnic Hmong Protestants subtly resist, evade and/or support religious policies through mundane, everyday behaviour which have unintended geopolitical consequences, collectively undermine state legitimacy and can be credited with substantial policy changes over time. Based on rich qualitative data, I argue that a careful investigation of everyday spaces as sites of political contestation not only highlights the agency of non-elite religious actors but can also reveal insights about the nature of the 'top-down' forces they engage with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the evaluative attitudes of citizens and their association with regime support in European democracies. In the context of widespread public scepticism with politics, different findings about the effect of political dissatisfaction in terms of democratic legitimacy have appeared. This may imply that citizens' attitudes towards politics and their interrelations are complex and that the effects might not be the same across individuals and contexts. To investigate the link between political dissatisfaction and democratic support, data from the European Values Study and hierarchical regression models are used. The results of the analysis suggest that political dissatisfaction is not related to democratic support by highly interested and highly involved citizens. Nevertheless, contrary to the assumptions, the negative effect is quite strong in less corrupt countries, while in corrupt ones it tends to be positively related to democratic support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research emphasizes popular support for democracy as a key ingredient of democratic regime consolidation. Both formal and informal institutions are commonly seen as the key actors that generate the requisite attitudinal shift, socializing ordinary citizens to adopt democratic values. It is thus puzzling that existing studies of attitudes towards democracy in the developing world have neglected to consider the impact of widely prevalent traditional institutions. Not only do these institutions vary considerably in their own democraticness, they also play a prominent role in the daily lives of many citizens. Filling this lacuna in extant knowledge, this study links a continent-wide dataset of the institutional features of contemporary traditional institutions in Africa with over fifty thousand survey respondents. The results indicate that the degree of democraticness exhibited by traditional institutions is a robust if weak predictor of ordinary Africans' support for democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of Vietnam have studied different forms of labour resistance such as wildcat strikes, petitions, complaints, work stoppages, and boycotts, with which workers demand higher wages and pensions, overall better working conditions, and the implementation of workers' rights. This article pays attention to the small, yet not negligible group of dissident labour activists, who are subjected to much harsher state repression compared to labour resistance in and around the workplace. This article asks: What makes dissident labour activism a (real or perceived) threat to the state? A common and widely accepted explanation refers to the nature of the demands of dissidents, which includes independent trade unions, democratisation, and regime change. This article digs deeper and finds that dissident labour activists function as agents of an emerging epistemological third space, which permits the revitalisation of hidden knowledges about labour rights, the reclamation of the silenced idea of independent trade unions and the co-existence of critique of the status quo and imagination of an alternative future, which together threaten to endanger the Communist Party of Vietnam's political legitimacy and, by implication, capital utilisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Member States of the ECHR are complex entities made up of many levels. The subsidiarity principle is grounded in this social reality. However, the ECHR, just like general international law, treats its States as unitary entities: local authorities are procedurally and institutionally inexistent in the ECHR system, although they play important roles as protectors and violators of human rights. I show that the codification of the subsidiarity principle in the ECHR preamble was not intended to strengthen the role of local and regional authorities. Protocol No. 15 was only concerned with reinforcing 'the' States role vis-à-vis the Court. I explain this with the state's role as the bearer of political sovereignty and the fact that sovereignty is a pre-condition for a functioning political democracy and, therefore, a democratically legitimate human rights system. Finally, the paper enquires into whether the subsidiarity principle of the ECHR might be read as an interpretative principle, which contributes to determining the scope and content of the human rights that the Strasbourg Court must guarantee, and whether this might benefit local and regional associations. I answer in the negative. Such a reading would be contrary to Protocol No. 15, as it would further empower the Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does migration pose a threat to welfare state legitimacy? We address this prominent question with a multilevel analysis of novel survey data, the 'Inequality Barometer', which includes individual and local-level context data in Germany (6208 individuals, up to 401 local districts). Our results suggest that the public is more reluctant to support welfare where the proportion of migrants at the local level is larger. This effect even persists when welfare is directed at groups that are perceived as more deserving of welfare support (like children, sick or older individuals) and when we examine the levels of employed migrants (that pay into the welfare state). We also find that these effects are moderated by economic risk. Particularly, we find that individuals facing higher economic risk support welfare less than their counterparts when exposed to migration. Future research should expand the local-level approach and investigate the causal mechanisms that the welfare-migration nexus is based on in more detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions have long revolved around the European Union's (EU) capacity to develop 'post-national' political myths – sacred narratives that provide a basis for long-term political legitimacy. The need for new EU political myths has become particularly severe with the declining power of the Union's foundational myths of peace and prosperity, and as the EU has entered an era of almost permanent crisis. This article critically assesses whether one contemporary EU policy innovation – the European Green Deal (EGD) – has the potential to transform from a set of policies and an accompanying narrative into a sacred narrative for the Union. The analysis is conducted by applying a novel framework that assesses a myth's features, including significance, development, and impact, to draw conclusions about the EGD's mythic capacity. Drawing on key speeches, texts, and Eurobarometer findings, the conclusion is drawn that the EGD does have mythic capacity in terms of its significance and development. However, its impact has been limited by critical voices on both sides of the climate action debate. This conclusion has important implications for the possibilities of post-national mythmaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophical theorizing on democracy typically assumes away the existence of nonhuman animals – even though animals are systematically affected by democratic decisions in morally relevant ways. This paper inspects under which circumstances, if at all, this omission can be justified. First, I distinguish between two possible explanations of this neglect: (i) that animals are neglected by democratic theorists due to speciesist biases, according to a debunking account, or (ii) that animals are deliberately idealized away, on a reconstructive approach. Largely, this paper is devoted to assessing when assuming away animals can function as a theoretically productive or practically helpful idealization when theorizing about democracy. In particular, I identify three different aims that may be served by idealizing animals away in democratic theory: (i) to understand what makes democracy valuable, legitimate, or authoritative, (ii) to assess how the pitfalls of really existing democracies might be fixed and (iii) to isolate what robust agents owe each other in democratic societies. I then argue that, whereas the third goal might be usefully advanced by idealizing animals away, the first two goals can only be suitably tackled if we take into account how democracies affect animals’ interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to explore the cultural politics of the November Uprising through the lens of popularity. It investigates both the idea of popularity that pervaded the discourse of the time and the social practice of using popular reputations to shape the politics of the Uprising. Instead of treating popularity as just another manifestation of the ideological conflicts typical of the age of revolutions, this paper posits that the discourse surrounding popularity became a crucial axis of conceptualizing public individuality during the uprising. The debates surrounding popularity, including those concerning the dangers of hasty political ambitions, the increasing importance of personality in public life and the search for alternative sources of legitimacy, fostered an evolving political landscape in which it became possible to envision a different way of being a public figure and to reconsider the tools available for shaping public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the facilitation of the emancipatory in an International Baccalaureate (IB) context of privilege. It aligns with the idea that capitalism, even in welfare state democracies or 'do good' corporations, maintains the interests of the owners of capital. It is by nature unjust and exploitative and must conceal this injustice by securing a (spurious) legitimacy for itself. This makes a rare methodological contribution as the article provides critical 'meta-analysis' of IB research literature by prioritising work that affords insight into the lived reality within the IB-Sphere. It then triangulates this analysis through the work of German Social Philosopher Jürgen Habermas. This work provides a significant and timely contribution to 'franchised education' in the twenty-first Century, and will be of essential reading to scholars, policymakers and leadership whether involved in the IB, or active in the Neo Liberal spaces of education more generally: such as Multi Trust Academies, Free Schools, or Charter Schools. This is thanks to the lessons learned over nearly 60 years of educational franchise in a diverse and globalising sphere as presented here from IB research through critical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, public service delivery models have changed to include non-state actors and cross-sector collaboration as service providers. Using a survey experiment, we investigate if service providers' sector (including single-sector and cross-sector providers) and their performance information shape public perceptions of their legitimacy. We find that cross-sector collaboration does not produce legitimacy gains over traditional public service provision. While providers' sector has overall little impact on legitimacy perceptions, we find an anti-for-profit sector bias regarding value-laden aspects of perceived legitimacy. Additionally, performance information affects legitimacy perceptions. These findings have implications for legitimacy building in contemporary governance settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is divided into two main parts. In the first half, I identify a tension within Bernard Williams’ political realist conception of political legitimacy. On the one hand, he was committed to a peculiar universalist criterion of political legitimacy – what is politically unacceptable is summed up in the old Catholic saying quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est. On the other, he supported the idea that what counts as political legitimacy depends on what we, in the here and now, deem to be politically legitimate – thus suggesting some kind of relativist criterion for political legitimacy. In order to eliminate this tension, I propose a two-step reconstruction of Williams’ works on political philosophy. The second half of the article assesses three criticisms to Willliams’ conception of political legitimacy levied by contemporary political realists. I use my two-step reconstruction of Williams to reject two of these three objections. In addressing the third, I sketch a reading of Williams’ notion of political legitimacy in the context of his ethical project as a whole and, in so doing, overcome the difficulty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The willingness of voters on the losing side to accept electoral outcomes – losers' consent – is essential to democratic legitimacy. This article examines the role of emotions in shaping people's perceptions of electoral fairness, arguing that voters on the losing side who feel angry are less willing to accept democratic outcomes. This is examined in the context of the 2016 Brexit referendum, as well as the 2019 UK general election, using original survey data and an experiment in which specific emotional responses (anger and happiness) are induced to test the causal effect of emotions. The results show that losers who felt angry about an electoral outcome are less likely to accept the legitimacy of the democratic process and that anger has a causal effect in reducing losers' consent. These findings suggest that politicians may be able to influence voters' faith in democracy by mobilising emotional responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent work in political economy suggests that autocratic regimes have been moving from an approach of mass repression based on violence, towards one of manipulation of information, where highlighting regime performance is a strategy used to boost regime popularity and maintain control. While the evolving strategies autocratic governments use to legitimise their rule have been the subject of much analysis, the role of third parties in adding to such strategies is less examined. This paper argues that corporations confer legitimacy on autocratic governments through a number of material and symbolic activities, including by praising their economic performance. We trace out the implications of adopting legitimation as a key concept in the analysis of corporate relations to autocratic regimes. We identify the ethically problematic aspects of legitimation, present new quantitative evidence suggesting that corporate legitimation of regimes matters empirically and outline a research agenda on legitimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tendency to identify anti-politics with populism obscures the diverse ideological positions from which the political class and political institutions are denounced and rejected. It is important, therefore, to distinguish between populist and non-populist anti-politics discourses. An anti-politics discourse can be classified as populist only when it is articulated with key concepts of populism, understood as a thin ideology, such as popular sovereignty, the people as the underdog and the will of the people as the ultimate source of political legitimacy. Given that populism as a thin ideology consists of a very limited number of core concepts it is rarely the only, or the dominant, ideological dimension of anti-politics. The rejection of the ruling political class and institutions can be justified from a number of ideological positions. There are populist, conservative, nationalist, liberal and socialist anti-politics, or a combination thereof. It is only by distinguishing between populism and anti-politics that we can identify the multiple ideological dimensions of the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conceptualisation and popularisation of soft power have spurred nation-states to establish and operate international institutions of cultural diplomacy (ICD) to exert global influence through cultural activities. The uniqueness of ICD lies in its many multiplicities: multi-national operation, multi-level coordination, and multi-actor participation. Such multiplicities challenge the understanding, policy design, and assessment of ICD. In response to this compounding challenge, this article constructs a transformational governance framework with a focus on the dynamic relationship between governing decisions (measured by the dimensions of structure and process) and institutional capacities including legitimacy, efficiency, flexibility, and sustainability. The utilities, benefits, and limitations of the framework as a policy and research tool are discussed through the case of the Chinese Confucius Institute (the CI). We argue that the CI's top-down decisions are shaped by international political discourse and target legitimacy as the institutional capacity, whereas the CI's street-level governance is largely driven by the considerations of efficiency and sustainability as the institutional capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post 9/11 global proliferation of counterterrorism legislation is increasingly being interpreted as part of a longer story of colonialism. Scholars have shown how expansive counterterrorism can be interpreted not merely as an exceptional state of violence in situations where the rule of law and guarantees of ordinary civil liberties are suspended, but as a form of law-making that draws upon colonial logics and frameworks of governance. However, a major lacuna in this scholarship is the lack of attention to counterterrorism laws in postcolonial states and their negotiations with colonial logics of law-making. This article makes a postcolonial contribution to Critical Terrorism Studies and International Politics by showing how colonial logics of counterterrorism are repurposed by postcolonial states in comparable ways. By comparing counterterror laws in two postcolonial states, India and Egypt, this article shows how colonial logics intersect with nationalist ideologies, postcolonial anxieties, as well as an attempt by postcolonial states to seek international legitimacy post 9/11 vis-a-vis the War on Terror. In both states, counterterror laws are weaponised to target civil society activists, journalists, and religious, ethnic and other minorities in comparable ways. This article, therefore, challenges the centrality of 9/11 and state of exception/emergency in the framing of counterterror laws. In so doing, it advances knowledge of counterterrorism vis-à-vis postcolonial engagements with colonial epistemes and "normal" practices of security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article investigates the close tie between political authority and the legitimacy of 'lesser jihad' in Shi'ism, or belligerence towards the outer world. The question of authority within this minor branch of Islam has been the subject of lively and prolonged controversies. Since the 10th century, the absence of a respected and universally recognized religio-political reference point has challenged the legitimacy of 'lesser jihad'. Here, the Shia approach towards the legitimacy of warfare during Occultation is examined through two periods in Persian history, namely the Safavid and Qajar dynasties. The article aims to show how the clergy-state relationship in these two periods changed the method of waging 'lesser jihad', and how the latter, in turn, redefined that relationship. Towards this aim, Persian and Arabic manuscripts are consulted, alongside existing literature on jihad in Shi'ism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the evolution of rural water governance in the People's Republic of China through a historical review of its water governance transformations, including the ideology, institutions, and discourses. It is argued that the evolution of agricultural water management and rural drinking water development in China is inextricably linked to addressing political legitimacy. Rural water governance, is shown to be intertwined with state identity and citizenship formation, in order to produce and control hydrosocial territorial objects and subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AI-enabled systems are likely to inform future decisions to initiate war. They are well placed to manage data and deliver recommendations at speeds that far surpass human abilities. Yet, AI-enabled vision and knowledge, which inform military intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance practices, curiously sustain both exposure and opacity. Machine learning algorithms are famously called black boxes even as they are in practice widening what we can see and know. While many call for greater algorithmic transparency to combat this technological opacity, I argue that this desire is misguided because it overlooks how algorithmic reason, which promises more precise knowledge and more efficient decision making, naturally conceals through political and socio-technical practices of in-visibility, anonymity, and fragmentation. Given how these practices will likely come to shape AI-enabled resort-to-force decision making, this article concludes with the suggestion that AI-enabled decisions are likely to undermine democratic legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the case of Zimbabwe to explore the interface between militarisation and state capacity, and through that critique the emancipatory potential of the human security concept. It argues that militarisation undermines state capacity to provide emancipatory security as envisioned in the human security concept. A militarised state is severely incapacitated and challenged to deliver emancipatory security because it lacks the functional capacity and legitimacy of a state that is capable of safeguarding the security of the individual. The Zimbabwean case shows how the nature of the struggle for the country's independence conditioned the political elite's siege mentality and concomitant predisposition to use militarisation to safeguard their interests while ignoring those of the broader citizenry. By underscoring the adverse effects of militarisation on state capacity and legitimacy, the Zimbabwean case reinforces critiques of the state-centric approach of the human security concept, which severely constraints the latter's emancipatory potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several political philosophers have recently developed novel legitimacy-based theories of migration. These accounts argue that individual states' legitimacy depends upon their role in a legitimate state system characterized by global cooperation on migration. This review critically assesses these arguments, as articulated by Christopher Bertram, Gillian Brock, and David Owen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Islamic State, IS, is known for extreme violence and publishing and distributing extreme violent material online. IS's public executions have previously been researched in the context of state legitimacy building, but this research has mostly focused on Western and/or foreign victims, leaving out other demographic groups, like local sexual and gender minorities, and what role their murders play in building IS's legitimacy. This research analyses IS's violence against sexual and gender minorities and how this violence helped build IS's legitimacy regionally and internationally. To analyse a quasi-state actor with legitimacy aspirations, I develop a theoretical framework using Michel Foucault's paradigms of sovereign, disciplinary and biopolitical power. Utilising visual and audio-visual material from 18 different executions of victims accused of homosexuality, I argue that the persecution and murders of sexual and gender minorities build IS's legitimacy on two levels: the local and the international. Furthermore, the "Us vs. Them" dichotomy typical for terrorist organisations is also formed in these executions and becomes present on these two levels. The research demonstrates that the participation of audience, whether present or witnessing the executions online later, is at the heart of the rationality of power in these executions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a broad consensus on the legitimacy of states to control immigration. However, this belief has recently been questioned, among other reasons, due to the contradiction with current practices in emigration and internal mobility. The principle of symmetry states that any restriction on immigration should also apply to emigration; or that, to the contrary, if there is a right to emigrate, there should be a corresponding right to immigrate. The principle of coherence posits that every reason one might have for moving within a country also counts for moving between countries. This article proposes to extend the coherence principle from external to internal migration, arguing that the same reasons that justify restrictions on mobility across borders justify restrictions on mobility within borders too. Therefore, either freedom of movement is a fundamental right or the right of the political community to control mobility prevails. The interests at stake are in both cases the same, so asymmetry is not warranted. This leads us to an apagogical argument for open borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The director selection processes of nonprofit national sport organizations underpin board composition and hence board and organizational performance. In the New Zealand context, this study verifies the emergence of nomination committees (NCs) and critically examines, from a democratic theory perspective, the extent to which democratic legitimacy is promoted within the NC structures of national sport organizations' director selection processes. An analysis of national sport organization (NSO) constitutions affirms the NC emergence as a governance phenomenon and results in the development of an NC (constitutional powers-based) classification system. This NC classification contributes to a largely unexamined area of nonprofit sport governance by providing a foundational description of NC structural design features then used to reflect on the extent to which the identified design features may serve to protect member voice (community logic) in the face of increasing pressures on NSOs to adopt professionalized governance structures (corporate logic). A holistic system objectives approach to democratic theory is used to better understand how NC structural design may support such member voice. In this way, the article offers both scholars and practitioners an insight into a range of NC strategic design choices and potential implications for democratic legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the tensions in Turkish–Israeli relations during the 2010s as well as prospects and challenges of normalisation from an ontological security perspective. Emphasising the role of conflicts in the provision of ontological security, it illustrates how frictions with Israel and attachment to the Palestinian issue serve the identity needs of Turkey's political elites and provides additional avenues for responding to legitimacy challenges. The article suggests that comprehensive normalisation of relations remains elusive and uncertain despite recent positive steps as this may engender ontological insecurity for both countries and can lead to a backlash towards hostile identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the literature echoes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s official explanation of the Great Leap Famine (1959–1961) to argue that the Party survived the legitimacy crisis posed by the famine by blaming the weather. While several have suggested that the CCP held the local cadres responsible for generating the famine, little evidence had been gathered to show how this was done. This article reconciles the above arguments by asserting that the CCP, by exploiting the urban–rural informational asymmetry, employed a dual propaganda approach that combined an urban explanation that blamed the weather with a more important rural strategy that admitted the famine's man-made nature but shifted the blame onto local leaders, to direct the responsibility away from the Party centre. By leveraging local government archives in Henan Province's Nanyang Prefecture, this study analyses how the Party propagated the rural explanation through the Rural Party Rectification Movement (1960–1961) to placate immediate peasantry discontent and reconstruct long-run famine memories. Interviews conducted in 2021 show that the re-engineering of the famine narrative contributed to the peasants' distrust of local cadres. This perception persisted over time, at least partially affecting the peasants' willingness to cooperate with local policies in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the concept of green nationalism in the authoritarian context of China, where the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has adopted the rhetoric of ecological civilization as a means of promoting environmental protection and securing global legitimacy. The authors argue that the CCP's performance legitimacy is closely linked to its ability to address environmental concerns in the context of climate change, and that the development of green nationalism is a rational choice for leaders seeking to maintain this legitimacy. However, the authors also highlight the role of actors such as social entrepreneurs, academics, and environmental NGOs in promoting green nationalism from the bottom-up. Using constructivist political theory, the paper explores how the intersection of different green narratives at various levels can be used to rethink the nation and make claims to legitimacy. Overall, the paper contributes to theory-building by providing a framework for understanding the complex relationship between environmental protection, nationalism, and authoritarian politics in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade has witnessed a new trend towards restrictions and surveillance on civil society organizations in China, which seriously affected China's grassroots LGBT NGOs. Based on a field study of Chinese grassroots LGBT NGOs, this article explores the coping strategies utilized by these organizations to survive in a restricted civic space. Empirical evidence shows these organizations adopting various tactics to obtain funding and legitimacy. Yet despite the undeniable agency of these LGBT NGOs, they are still restricted by institutional power. While scrupulously avoiding political risks, grassroots LGBT NGOs inevitably shifted away from rights advocacy missions to become service-oriented, depoliticizing and even distorting their agendas. Consequently, the intensifying restrictions and surveillance have invisibly but saliently reshaped the structures and practices of these NGOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) is facing a democratic deficit, but the debate on how to address it has been caught in a dichotomy that pitches EU democracy as either national or supranational. Considering EU democracy through the nation-state lens, whereby the EU either becomes a nation-state itself or borrows democratic legitimacy from its Member States, obscures the many dilemmas and trade-offs involved in the institutional design and practice of EU democracy. Moving beyond this national-supranational dichotomy thus requires coming to grips with a variety of diverging democratic criteria the EU is facing when pursuing democratisation. The books reviewed in this article have done exactly that. While the books under review approach the challenges of EU democracy from a variety of angles, this review touches upon three major points of discussion: legitimacy, representation and citizenship. It concludes that EU democracy should not be considered as an end-point to be reached, but as a continuous interaction between various and conflicting ideas about the nature of the EU and of democracy. Particularly with a view on the upcoming 2024 European elections, is it thus vital to foster open and public debate on the tensions and dilemmas inherent in (EU) democracy. Bremberg, N. & Norman, L. (Eds.). (2023). Dilemmas of European Democracy: New Perspectives on Democratic Politics in the European Union. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Jančić, D. (Ed.) (2023). The Changing Role of Citizens in EU Democratic Governance. London: Hart. Lord, C. Bursens, P. De Bièvre, D. Trondal, J. & Wessel, R. A. (Eds.). (2022). The Politics of Legitimation in the European Union. London: Routledge. Wolfs, W. (2022). European Political Parties and Party Finance Reform: Funding Democracy? London: Palgrave Macmillan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]