Profile Area Political Legitimacy, Leiden University

The legitimacy and justice of political institutions and arrangements are among the perennial and defining subjects of the field of political theory. Political theorists who participate in the research cluster ‘Legitimacy and Justice’ engage in both systematic and historical reflection on the ways legitimacy…

Can conspiracy constructions explain for hatred of the system? And if so, should conspiracy constructions be considered to be a risk in terms of national security?

Legitimacy is generally a term that is associated with the state. The term surfaces when there are problems with state legitimacy—when it is lacking or absent. This present volume attempts to think through the relevance of the concept of legitimacy for other political actors than the state.

This article explores levels and patterns of legitimacy beliefs with respect to multistakeholder global governance at ICANN. From a large and systematic evidence base, Jongen & Scholte have found that ICANN has strong legitimacy underpinnings among its staff and board, as well as quite uniformly moderate-to-high…

Stakeholder engagement practices are on the rise in regulatory governance. This raises an important question regarding implications for regulatory legitimacy. Engagement mechanisms are not by default legitimizing: Even when initiated to tap into an array of ‘benevolent’ desiderata, unless carefully…

This political theory specialisation focuses on the concepts of legitimacy and justice—political philosophy’s core themes. Immersing yourself in theories, philosophical and theoretical methods, and complex cases, you will make the leap from opinion to analysis.

How can and should tasks and competences for the purpose of the criminal justice system (i.e. legislation, enforcement, the administration of justice and sentencing) be defined and formulated, while at the same time taking into account the chain concept, adjoining national and international legal domains…

Liu Puning defended his thesis on 25 April 2018.

In what ways do historical and current events affect how we should judge the legitimacy of political authorities?

Does the political context (e.g., democracy vs. authoritarianism) influence what makes people perceive authorities as legitimate?

This book systematically evaluates the empirical evidence for legitimacy decline in established democracies, the explanatory power of theories of legitimacy decline, and promises new routes in investigating and assessing political legitimacy.

Debates on political legitimacy in Dutch parliament in the 1880s, 1930s, and 1960s

This article by Honorata Mazepus and Florian van Leeuwen in the journal Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration and Institutions looks at how evaluations of authorities were influenced by four aspects of a governmental response to a hypothetical disaster.

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Is the legitimacy of law and governance of multilevel jurisdictions diminishing?” “What is the significance of (diminishing) legitimacy for the effectiveness of law?” These kinds of questions about the legitimacy of the supranational formation of law, its application, and the policy and governance based…

This month's news and events by the profile area Political Legitimacy features the announcement of two PhD defences and several interesting seminars and conferences at Leiden University.

This programme aims to identify the intellectual contexts that were of importance for the architectural theory of the period, and especially to clarify the relation of architectural theory to primitivism.

A fair distribution of goods and services is the most important factor in justifying political power. This is the conclusion of Honorata Mazepus in her PhD dissertation 'What makes authorities legitimate in the eyes of citizens?' PhD defence September.

This dissertation looks into the role of discretion granted by EU directives (Article 288 Treaty on Functioning of the European Union) in legislative decision-making and national transposition processes of these directives.

On May 13, prof. Tom R. Tyler (Yale Law School) will hold a lecture at Leiden Law School on

On April 16th, Radboud University Nijmegen hosted an online workshop on (challenges to) judicial legitimacy. Legitimacy is one of the core concepts within the research theme Institutions for Conflict Resolution (COI). COI is a nation-wide partnership that serves to implement the Dutch Sector Plan for…

The Leiden Research Profile Area Political Legitimacy organizes a public symposium on the 12th of May 2016 on the legitimacy and future of the Dutch Senate.

Robert Pee, William Michael Schmidli (Eds.) This book posits that democracy promotion played a key role in the Reagan administration’s Cold War foreign policy.

Both Europe and Latin America face challenges globally and at home. Conflicts over land and resources have been resurgent in recent years.

This book brings together contributions on topics related to the Dutch EU Presidency Agenda 2016 from a number of scholars who are affiliated with Leiden University.

This book focuses on policing in city-regions in Europe bringing together experts from across the continent to develop a sociology of urban policing and a unique methodology for comparing different metropolises in the same country.

Law and peace in the work of Hans Kelsen. A re-evaluation of Kelsen’s legal philosophy: legal pacifism as tacit meaning of his Pure Theory of Law

The Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law of Leiden University has published a collection of research essays on the separation of powers. This collection addresses the main question of whether the historically developed combination of concepts of democratic legitimacy and the separation…

The process of unification and the character of the union are the central topics of Magnanimous Dukes and Rising States. Robert Stein mirrors continuity and modernisation in Burgundian times with the bankruptcy of the former dynasties and the decline of feudal government. The powerful towns played an…

This book investigates how the rulers of the Habsburg world empire developed and implemented a central maritime policy for the Netherlands and appointed an admiral of the sea or admiral-general for that purpose.

The first results of the “Policing European Metropolises project” (PEMP) that associate Professor Elke Devroe and Professor P. Ponsaers launched in April 2013 are now published. Having been the referent for The Netherlands and Belgium in the Urbis project (Leonardo programme), the project focuses on…

For ‘Voor de Ommekeer-TV’, an online television network created by leading Dutch journalists and thinkers to stimulate in-depth journalism and debate, Armin Cuyvers was the studio guest of journalist Paul van Liempt for an hour-long interview on the EU and the many challenges it faces, including Brexit,…

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