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Conceptualizing Legitimacy, Measuring Legitimating Beliefs
Abstract
Legitimacy is a concept meant to capture the beliefs that bolster willing obedience. The authors model legitimacy as a sense of obligation or willingness to obey authorities (value-based legitimacy) that then translates into actual compliance with governmental regulations and laws (behavioral legitimacy). The focus is on the factors that elicit this sense of obligation and willingness to comply in a way that supports rational-legal authority. The framework posits that legitimacy has two antecedent conditions: trustworthiness of government and procedural justice. Using African survey data, the authors model the relationship between the existence of a relatively effective, fair, and trustworthy government and beliefs that government deserves deference to its rules. The authors find considerable evidence of a link between the extent of the trustworthiness of government and procedural justice and citizens’ willingness to defer to the police, courts, and tax department in a wide range of African societies.
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“The intervention described here provides an example of how a relatively simple change to police behavior can have a substantial positive effect on measures of both values-based and behavioral legitimacy (35).”
From A field experiment on community policing and police legitimacy (2019) · cites this paper as [35]
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“…Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler, 2001), and fi ndings strongly suggest that prior beliefs concerning the fairness of legal processes has a signi fi cant causal in fl uence on how the public views the legitimacy and credibility of law in any discrete instance (Levi et al., 2009; Tyler, 2003, 2006, 2009).”
Taxation, Democracy, and Accountability
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“In certain contexts, support for the existing constitutional order tends to wane in tandem with the decline of the regime ’ s performance on key social and economic outcomes such as material and physical security (Gerschewski 2013; Levi, Sacks, and Tyler 2009; Perry 2008; Soest and Grauvogel 2016).”
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“A significant effect of legitimacy is an increased likelihood of compliance with governance rules and regulations (Levi, Sacks, & Tyler, 2007).”
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“Adapting from the works of scholars like Sunshine and Tyler (2003), Levi, Sacks, and Tyler (2009), and Jackson et al. (2012), this paper discusses three key aspects that could be tied to the building of legislative legitimacy: (1) the perceived trust-worthiness of the authorities, (2) the…”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Levi, M., Sacks, A., & Tyler, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Washington (US)
- New York University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Levi, Margaret
- Venue
- American Behavioral Scientist
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2009-10-12
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 354-375
- ISSN
- 0002-7642 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3381
- OpenAlex
- W2094450202
- Semantic Scholar
- 05680fac7340b7c3564044442ab6026033bab450
- Cited by
- 729
- References
- 73
- Citations by year
- 2026: 58 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 51 · 2023: 56 · 2022: 87 · 2021: 50 · 2020: 79 · 2019: 53 · 2018: 82 · 2017: 32 · 2016: 32 · 2015: 27 · 2014: 32 · 2013: 20 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 37.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- American Behavioral Scientist (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Political Theory and Democracy
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policing Practices and Perceptions
- Keywords
- legitimacy, legal compliance, rational-legal authority, procedural justice, deference to authority, African societies, public trust in government
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