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Legitimacy

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Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy

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Introduction

Political legitimacy is the fundamental normative standard when it comes to evaluating governance in all its forms. Whether the governing organization is a state, an international agency, or a local municipality, it exercises power and authority by issuing public guidance and directives that provide structure to social life. Normally, a ruling organization also establishes itself as the arbiter and enforcer of those directives. Political legitimacy, then, concerns a particular ruling organization’s standing to exercise its authority and power (Adams 2022; Greene 2019).

Legitimacy can be studied empirically and normatively. Scholars doing empirical work measure the degree to which individuals believe that a government has the standing that it claims for itself, as well as the social-psychological processes leading to those beliefs (Jost 2020; Levi et al. 2009; Tyler 2006). The normative study of legitimacy, the focus here, asks whether the ruling organization actually has...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    N. P. Adams

  2. University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Amanda R. Greene

Authors
  1. N. P. Adams
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  2. Amanda R. Greene
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Correspondence to N. P. Adams .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Regents Professor of the University System of Maryland and Director of the University of Baltimore Center for International and Comparative Law, University of Baltimore School of Law, Baltimore, USA

    Mortimer Sellers

  2. Professor for Legal and Social Philosophy, Department of Legal Theory, International and European Law, University of Salzburg, Austria, Churfurststrasse 1, 5020 Salzburg, Austria

    Stephan Kirste

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Patricia Mindus Ph.D

  2. Charles III University, Madrid, Spain

    Triantafyllos Gkouvas

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Adams, N.P., Greene, A.R. (2023). Legitimacy. In: Sellers, M., Kirste, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_1092-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_1092-1

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