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

30 Pages Posted: 6 Apr 2018

See all articles by Jonathan Jackson

Jonathan Jackson

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Department of Methodology

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Date Written: February 25, 2018

Abstract

This article reviews the international evidence on the 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 countries, 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, and there is fair amount of evidence that people who say they feel a moral duty to obey the law also tend 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 and legitimacy, (b) stronger differentiation between police and legal legitimacy, and (c) more attention given to isolating the mechanisms through which legitimacy motivates cooperation and compliance.

Suggested Citation

Jackson, Jonathan, Norms, Normativity and the Legitimacy of Justice Institutions: International Perspectives (February 25, 2018). LSE Legal Studies Working Paper No. 1/2018, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3129737 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3129737

Jonathan Jackson (Contact Author)

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Department of Methodology ( email )

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