Research Activities
- Conceptualizing and Measuring Legitimacy for Comparative and Cross-National Analyses: A Research Agenda
- March 14, 2009
- This is closed to the public.
- This conference will address concepts surrounding legitimacy: the belief that authorities, institutions, and social arrangements are appropriate, proper, and just, which then leads to a sense of individual obligation to defer to and comply with those authorities, institutions, and social arrangements. As Weber famously observed, there are different bases for legitimacy, which poses a significant challenge for comparative research. This conference approaches this challenge and the issue of legitimacy through questions such as: What must a government do to obtain legitimacy and what different forms might that legitimacy take? How do citizens come to form their views of whether or not governments are legitimate? What strategies are there for empirical research on legitimacy? The conference includes opportunities for informal discussions on the evening before and the evening of the workshop.
- Field of Interest: Comparative Politics
- Conference Chair
- Tsai, Lily
- Former Academy Scholar, 2005-06 and 2007-08; Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- Levi, Margaret
- Jeri L. Bachrach Professor of International Studies, University of Washington
- Tyler, Tom
- University Professor of Psychology, New York University
- Contact Information
Winnie, Laurence H.- Executive Officer, Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies.
- Email Contact Form
- Tel: (617) 495-4253
- Fax: (617) 496-9592
- 1727 Cambridge Street
mailbox # 42
Cambridge, MA 02138