PubData Leuphana Repository: Perspectives on a Contested Topic: Individual Criteria, Interactive Conditionality and Political Outcomes of Legitimacy

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://doi.org/10.48548/pubdata-1081

Resource type	Dissertation
Title(s)	Perspectives on a Contested Topic: Individual Criteria, Interactive Conditionality and Political Outcomes of Legitimacy
DOI	10.48548/pubdata-1081
Handle	20.500.14123/1142
Creator	Brunkert, Lennart Joe 0000-0002-8201-7089 (Institut für Politikwissenschaft (IPW), Leuphana Universität Lüneburg 02w2y2t16)
Referee	Welzel, Christian 0000-0002-1562-3580 123591414 Dukalskis, Alexander 0000-0002-4477-7837 Kern, Anna 0000-0001-6596-6226
Advisor	Welzel, Christian 0000-0002-1562-3580 123591414
Abstract	A legitimate political system does not need to rely on force or co-optation to ensure compliance and is better able to achieve a sense of belonging and trust. Achieving such legitimacy perceptions among the ruled is no easy task and its scientific debate remains separated into normative and empirical-analytical perspectives. Using the latter approach, this synopsis emphasizes that the roots of beliefs in obedience influence the mechanism of legitimation in shaping political outcomes. This synopsis connects three separate articles that form this dissertation and extends the initial analysis in a comprehensive path-model. This dissertation argues and shows that beliefs in obedience influence the demand side of a congruence-based understanding of legitimation in such way that citizens’ personal experiences, their surrounding culture and historical contexts shape the underlying (oftentimes implicit) evaluation criteria for evaluating governmental claims to legitimacy. The differences in evaluation criteria then moderate which claims fall on fertile ground and which claims are rejected – leading to congruence or incongruence. Finally, when claims and demands are congruent, two things may follow: First, citizens express satisfaction and consent to the current regime – exemplified by evaluating their government as democratic even if it is not. Second, regimes can use this legitimate status to change the institutional structure based on their visions. This is especially worrisome, as it allows also elected rulers to gain more leeway and pave the way for further autocratization.
Language	English
Date of defense	2024-07-19
Year of publication in PubData	2024
Publishing type	First publication
Date issued	2024-08-23
Creation context	Research
Granting Institution	Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Published by	Medien- und Informationszentrum, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Related resources	Relations of this publication Relations of this publication