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      Norms, Normativity, and the Legitimacy of Justice Institutions: International Perspectives

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      Annual Review of Law and Social Science
      Annual Reviews

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          Abstract

          This article reviews the international evidence on the potential nature, sources, and consequences of police and legal legitimacy. In brief, I find that procedural justice is the strongest predictor of police legitimacy in most of the countries under investigation, although normative judgements about fair process may—in some contexts—be crowded out by public concerns about police effectiveness and corruption, the scale of the crime problem, and the association of the police with a historically oppressive and underperforming state. Legitimacy tends to be linked to people's willingness to cooperate with the police, with only a small number of national exceptions. There is also a fair amount of evidence that people who say they feel a moral duty to obey the law tend also to report complying with the law in the past or intending to comply with the law in the future. The main argument is, however, that international enthusiasm for testing procedural justice theory is outpacing methodological rigor and theoretical clarity. On the one hand, the lack of attention to methodological equivalence is holding back the development of a properly comparative cross-national analysis. On the other hand, the literature would benefit from ( a) greater delineation between legitimation (the bases on which citizens judge the rightfulness of an institution) and legitimacy (the acceptance or rejection of the rightfulness of an institution and the normatively grounded duty to obey), ( b) stronger differentiation between police and legal legitimacy, and ( c) more attention given to isolating the mechanisms through which rightfulness and consent motivate cooperation and compliance.

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          Most cited references100

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          Psychological perspectives on legitimacy and legitimation.

          Legitimacy is a psychological property of an authority, institution, or social arrangement that leads those connected to it to believe that it is appropriate, proper, and just. Because of legitimacy, people feel that they ought to defer to decisions and rules, following them voluntarily out of obligation rather than out of fear of punishment or anticipation of reward. Being legitimate is important to the success of authorities, institutions, and institutional arrangements since it is difficult to exert influence over others based solely upon the possession and use of power. Being able to gain voluntary acquiescence from most people, most of the time, due to their sense of obligation increases effectiveness during periods of scarcity, crisis, and conflict. The concept of legitimacy has a long history within social thought and social psychology, and it has emerged as increasingly important within recent research on the dynamics of political, legal, and social systems.
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            The Role of Procedural Justice and Legitimacy in Shaping Public Support for Policing

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              Why People Obey the Law

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Annual Review of Law and Social Science
                Annu. Rev. Law. Soc. Sci.
                Annual Reviews
                1550-3585
                1550-3631
                October 13 2018
                October 13 2018
                : 14
                : 1
                : 145-165
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Methodology, London School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom;
                Article
                10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-110316-113734
                f5545f37-549c-47b9-a8d6-b18b229364ff
                © 2018
                History

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