Direct democracy and subjective regime legitimacy in Europe

While much research focuses on the causes and consequences of direct democracy and regime legitimacy, little attention has been paid to the potential relationship between them. In an attempt to fill this void, this paper focuses on the legal provisions for direct democracy and its use. The key argument is that possibilities for the public’s direct involvement reflect high importance given to citizens, openness of the regime towards different modes of decision-making, and ways to avoid unpopular institutions. Consequently, citizens are likely to accept and support the regime, improving or maintaining its legitimacy. The cross-national analysis includes 38 European countries ranging from transition countries to established democracies. It uses bivariate statistical analysis and country-level data collected from legislation, secondary sources, and aggregate surveys.     

Authority in rebel groups: identity,recognition and the struggle over legitimacy

This article asks how rebel leaders capture and lose legitimacy within their own movement. Analysing these complex and often uneasy relations between elites and grassroots of insurgency is important for understanding the success or failure of peace processes. This is because internal contestation over authority between rival rebel leaders can drive a movement’s external strategy. Based on ethnographic research on the Karen and Kachin rebellions in Myanmar and insights from Political Sociology, the article suggests that leadership authority is linked to social identification and the claim to recognition among insurgent grassroots. If rebel leaders manage to satisfy their grassroots’ claim to recognition, their insurgent orders are stable. Failing this, their authority erodes and is likely to be challenged. These findings contribute to understanding insurgency and peace negotiations in Myanmar and civil wars more generally by showing how struggles over legitimacy within rebel groups drive wider dynamics of war and peace.     

What autocracies say (and what citizens hear): proposing four mechanisms of autocratic legitimation

ABSTRACT

Autocratic governments make claims about why they are entitled to rule. Some autocracies are more talkative than others, but all regimes say something about why they deserve power. This article takes seriously these efforts by introducing and interrogating the concept of autocratic legitimation. After engaging in a definitional discussion, it traces the development of autocratic legitimation in modern political science by identifying major turning points, key concepts, and patterns of inquiry over time. Ultimately, this introductory article aims to not only argue that studying autocratic legitimation is important, but also to propose contexts, concepts, and distinctions for doing so productively. To this end, the article proposes four mechanisms of autocratic legitimation that can facilitate comparative analysis: indoctrination, passivity, performance, and democratic-procedural. Finally, the essay briefly introduces the five original articles that comprise the remainder of this special issue on autocratic legitimation. The article identifies avenues for further research and identifies how each article in the issue advances down productive pathways of inquiry.     

Persistent Harassment: Targets and Perpetrators Among Young Adults

In Portugal, stalking has recently been recognized as a crime. This study used an online survey to ask 3,367 college students about their experiences of persistent harassment and targets’ and perpetrators’ perceptions of fear and conduct legitimacy. Targets (34.5%) typically mentioned that they had experienced a frightening experience but considered it to have been wrong but not very serious. Perpetrators (8.9%) mostly perceived that their targets had not experienced fear and judged their own conduct to have been normal. Ordinal logistic regressions indicated that intimate partner stalking, targets’ fear, and threatening and violent behaviors predicted less conduct legitimization for both targets and perpetrators.     

Evaluating the shared and unique predictors of legal cynicism and police legitimacy from adolescence into early adulthood

In different theoretical traditions, negative social conditions, attachments, and interactions shape the way individuals view the law and its agents. Although most researchers acknowledge the conceptual distinction between different legal attitudes such as legal cynicism and police legitimacy, it remains unclear to what extent these attitudes stem from the same social sources. In the current study, therefore, we evaluate the social and individual factors that influence trajectories of legal cynicism and police legitimacy using a diverse community sample of youths in Zurich, Switzerland. Latent growth curve models were employed to examine patterns of change in legal cynicism and police legitimacy between 13 and 20 years of age. The findings show that legal cynicism and police legitimacy both decline into early adulthood and exhibit high rank-stability over time. Furthermore, we find that legal cynicism is closely related to individual characteristics that reflect one's inability to recognize or abide by their internal rules. By contrast, police legitimacy is shaped by socialization influences, particularly teacher bonds and police contacts. These results indicate a need to assess the measurement and interpretation of legal cynicism critically in relation to broader legitimacy beliefs and to investigate the shared and distinct sources of these different constructs.     

对"三个代表"关于党执政合法性的意蕴解读

"三个代表"重要思想是对中国共产党长期执政的政治合法性的直接应答,政治合法性意蕴是"三个代表"的应有之义.从政治合法性的层面解读"三个代表"重要思想,有利于完整地理解"三个代表"重要思想,消除"三个代表"研究的盲点."三个代表"重要思想从政治合法性的绩效性基础、意识形态基础、群众基础、法理型基础等方面论证了中国共产党长期执政的政治合法性.     

试论邓小平政治合法性维护的实践及其启示

合法性是关系到党和国家政权生死存亡的根本问题,"文革"结束后,党和国家政权的合法性问题凸现出来,邓小平正确处理了毛泽东的意识形态遗产,开始重建法理权威,并通过促进经济发展和反腐败树立政府形象的方法,维护了政治的合法性。新时期我们仍面临着合法性维护的问题,邓小平的实践为整个现代化进程中的合法性维护提供了诸多有益启示。     

中国特色妇女理论的后现代主义方法研究

合法性问题是中国特色妇女理论方法研究的一个重要方面,在一定意义上说解决了合法性问题也就是解决了方法问题。中国特色妇女理论的构建在方法上首先须做到“三个一致”;其次要了解后现代语境中的合法性与非合法性问题,破除对理性主义和科学主义的盲从,倡导妇女理论中的个性化、多元化表达;再次,吸取合法性即“悖谬”的启发,制定和遵从中国特色妇女理论自身的言说规则。     

行政权的正当性证成——控权—服务论理论合理性

正当性问题具有普遍性,行政权的正当性命题是行政法的根本命题。行政权需要为自身的正当性辩护,从目的和发生的进路证成自身存在和运行的合目的性及合规律性。控权-服务论认为,行政法兼具控权功能与服务导向,为行政权的正当性确立了政府有界、服务为魂、政府有责、过程可控四大正当性标准,从而推进行政权从强制到权威的转变,证成行政权的正当性,同时,也证明了控权-服务论的理论合理性。     

论行政立法回避制度——兼与杨建顺教授商榷

行政立法回避制度做为一种民主立法制度应当在我国行政立法活动中得以全面实施,并且其是提高行政立法质量、增强行政立法法律文件实效之本源。行政立法回避制度之所以能够做为一种民主制度存在既有其存在的合理性,也有其存在的合法性。为充分发挥行政立法回避制度的作用,必须从立法上予以完善,明确投标单位、被委托的专家或组织应具备的资质,并走政府规章制定的职业化之路。