The Legitimacy of Legal and Political |
A Longitudinal Analysis of the Consequences of the U.S. Presidential
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| In the past decade or so, social scientists have rather dramatically renewed their interest in the concept “ legitimacy.” Focusing mainly (but not exclusively) on the United States Supreme Court, a phalanx of studies has addressed such questions as why people obey the law; how relatively impotent courts get (or do not get) the authority and power to make and enforce controversial decisions; and whether and how courts have the ability to “transfer” their legitimacy to other institutions of government. There seems to be considerable agreement that political institutions, especially courts, need some sort of “reservoir of goodwill” in order to govern effectively, and assessing the causes and consequences of legitimacy has captured the attention to many of our best political scientists. The American presidential election of 2000 could not more strongly reinforce the importance of understanding legitimacy. In the weeks following the contested election of November 2000, one heard countless commentators and scholars discuss the importance of the election and its aftermath being judged as legitimate by the American people. To those who have incessantly argued that “institutions matter,” the election of 2000 dramatically underscores the retort that cultural values, perceptions, and expectations are crucial in shaping the way that institutions matter. The moment is now propitious to mount a major new study of the causes and consequences of legitimacy. With the new national government most likely in short supply of popular legitimacy, and with the deep and sharp ideological divisions in the country, the next four years in American politics are likely to provide great challenges to the ability of American political institutions to govern. The Supreme Court will undoubtedly be embroiled in a series of decisions associated with the legitimacy shortfall, and the salience of the institution to ordinary people will likely reach new heights. Thus, however troubling to the country as a whole, the election of 2000 provides an unparalleled opportunity to advance a major field of study within political science. Thus, the purpose of this project is to mount a bold new attack on problem of the causes and consequences of the legitimacy of American political institutions. We believe that one cause of the sorry condition of the legitimacy literature is that researchers have addressed various hypotheses in a piecemeal fashion, typically being forced to rely upon data collected for other purposes. With the sole exception of the monograph by Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (1995), most extant research is of a scale that cannot justify book-length treatments of the problems. This project is a comprehensive, multi-dimensional, and dynamic attack on twelve specific deficiencies in extant literature (detailed below). Not only do we deal with questions ranging from conceptual confusion and measurement to the ability of the courts to “transfer” their legitimacy, but we do so within the context of a longitudinal research design, based on a three-wave panel survey (employing experimental vignettes), with special sub-surveys connected to actual political controversies that arise, and over-samples of opinion leaders, African Americans, and American youth. In addition, we contemplate cross-sectional surveys in Ohio and Florida to investigate highly contextualized aspects of legitimacy (e.g., the influence of judicial campaign contributions in Ohio, and the consequences of the recount fiasco in Florida). By combining a comprehensive analysis of the major hypotheses of Legitimacy Theory with a bold research design, this project should advance the study of political legitimacy far beyond its condition today and set the research agenda for the next generation of scholars concerned about legitimacy.
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