Search results for "Legitimacy"
showing 10 items of 183 documents
Responsibility in uncertain times: an institutional perspective on precaution
2008
Precaution is a key issue in environmental governance. Variously defined, intensively debated and introduced in many regulations, its meaning, scope and application remain problematic. This article argues that the controversy on precaution is a matter of culturally patterned expectations concerning the production and use of knowledge and the related social positions and responsibilities. The way uncertainty and its role in the policy process are understood is crucial. For some precaution is a flawed concept, to be accommodated to the current expert-based cooperative scheme. For others it is a major innovation requiring a rearrangement of the latter. Precautionary policies may evolve in dif…
Navigating multiple logics: Legitimacy and the quest for societal impact in science
2022
Academic scientists are encouraged to pursue research that delivers both scientific and societal impact. This may involve a search for alternative mechanisms of social approval which lead to endorsement of scientists’ research goals. We explore how scientists mobilise and accumulate different forms of legitimacy, which might favour their participation in practices related to innovation and societal impact. We propose three specific sources of scientific legitimacy: i) scientists’ social networks (research-related legitimacy ties), ii) prominence in the relevant academic community (reputation-based legitimacy); and direct contact with the primary beneficiaries of the research (beneficiary-ba…
Reconciling credibility and accountability: how expert bodies achieve credibility through accountability processes
2018
Arguments about the legitimate role of expert bodies in Europe often centre on the following question: Does their independence help to make policies credible or should they be made democratically accountable to principals and stakeholders? This article claims this is a false dichotomy. It does so by arguing theoretically that credibility can be achieved through accountability processes. Then, drawing on exemplary case studies, this article identifies distinctive accountability processes for ensuring credibility: revisable competencies, deliberation over institutional design, and engagement in public justification. Credibility and accountability are thus not conflicting, but co-constitutive …
‘There should be no open doors in the police’: criminal investigations in northern Ghana as boundary work
2012
ABSTRACTIn criminal investigations by police officers in northern Ghana, the lines are fluid: civilians arrest suspects on their own, assuming the tasks of the police. Police officers are heavily influenced by civilians, often forming paid alliances with them. Yet such entanglements paradoxically enable state policing and integrate the police into society in a context of low resources and low legitimacy. Other practices limit and frame such transgressions. Using the concept of boundary work, this article analyses how actors maintain and negotiate the seemingly blurred distinction between state and society in West Africa.
The Gender Politics of Celebrity Humanitarianism in Africa
2011
This article examines Anglo-American news media through a discourse-theoretical framework to study first, how celebrities are constituted as gendered humanitarian subjects acting on behalf of African problems, and second, how the concept of ‘Africa’ is produced, not only as a place, but also as a purpose in the world system. The debate surrounding celebrities is at an impasse, where they are seen as either instrumental or detrimental to African development. To break this standoff, we begin by placing celebrities in their neo-colonial context. We argue that the legitimacy of Bono, Bob Geldof and Angelina Jolie as humanitarian actors is underpinned by particular reproductions of race, class a…
The Criterion of “Consistent and Systematic Manner” in Free Movement Law
2017
The conflict between the four freedoms and national regulation is not merely about colliding interests but also of colliding values and thus has, potentially, constitutional implications. The conflict has often been phrased as one between national sovereignty and European integration, but is far more than this. It is about marked liberalism and market regulation, the latter constituting the very fundament upon which the European welfare states rest. In settling conflicts between the two constitutional orders—the ordo-liberal and the welfare-state constitutions—the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) applies the proportionality principle. However, the proportionality principle is a…
Le pouvoir royal (1814-1848). A la recherche du quatrième pouvoir ?
2021
This work sheds light on the representations of royal power that confronted each other until 1848 to fulfil the programme of reconciliation of the "two France" wanted by Louis XVIII. They are divided between the desire to return to the Ancien Régime and the attempt to renew the royal function. Opposed to the ultraroyalists, the supporters of this original path wished to consecrate liberal constitutionalism by resorting to an unexpected expedient, the power of the King, which had to be remodelled. As with Constant and Dunoyer, it was a question of creating a fourth power with its own essence and a new mission: to watch over the institutions. This regulating or preserving power produced a pas…
Public Service Media’s Funding Crisis in the Face of the Digital Challenge
2020
The funding crisis of Public Service Media (PSM) is also a crisis affecting its legitimacy, business model, audience, innovation and transformation required to adapt to the current digital ecosystem, which is dominated by the changes in the access and consumption ways available to citizens, as well as by the new telecommunications global players. Eleven European countries have cut back the budgets of their public service media organizations during the past five years, and those which haven’t done it yet are facing adjustment plans until 2020. Besides financial pressures, European PSM is also facing increasing opposition from private operators, populist parties and the constant appetite for …
Strategy as Dialogue and Engagement
2019
AbstractThis chapter illuminates two critical aspects underpinning university life in the Nordic countries, namely, who gets involved with strategic processes and to what extent these processes affect behaviour across the organisation. Participation in strategy work was found to be unstable, which in turn further weakens the legitimacy of the strategy. The comparative data also show that some academic staff are not involved in the strategy process at all, and hence do not relate their daily tasks to the goals and/or values expressed in the strategy. The importance of strategies appears to lie in recognising the relevant problems, values, and normative postures, including the excellence and …
Climate change, consumer lifestyles and legitimation strategies of sustainability-oriented firms
2021
Abstract This study explores the links between climate change, consumer lifestyles, and legitimation strategies of sustainable firms. Our findings offer new insight into this under-researched area based on qualitative case studies of four Nordic firms operating in industrial and consumer contexts. We find that climate change consciousness is a major driver for all case firms’ sustainability-focused operations, but the dynamics differed. Achieving sociopolitical legitimacy emerges as an important factor for the case firms operating in the energy sector, especially as it connects to government incentives and regulative pressures. However, cognitive legitimacy is increasingly important for the…