Exploring citizens’ judgments about the legitimacy of public policies on refugees

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is threefold: to introduce a theoretical frame regarding the meaning of legitimacy as an intangible asset of the public sector; to test a way of operationalizing legitimacy typologies that allows exploring and comparing how citizens from two countries evaluate the legitimacy of public policies; and to suggest implications for governments’ legitimacy-building strategies in shared international crisis, such as the refugees coming from the Syrian region.Design/methodology/approachBuilding on Suchman’s typology, it was defined and categorized different types of legitimacy into concrete measurable, communication related statements concerning consequential, proced…