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Legitimation
Legitimation or legitimisation is the act of providing legitimacy. Legitimation in the social sciences refers to the process whereby an act, process, or ideology becomes legitimate by its attachment to norms and values within a given society. It is the process of making something acceptable and normative to a group or audience. Legitimate power is the right to exercise control over others by virtue of the authority of one's superior organization position or status. Power and influence For example, the legitimation of power can be understood using Max Weber's traditional bases of power. In a bureaucracy, people gain legitimate use of power by their positions in which it is widely agreed that the specified person hold authority. There is no inherent right to wield power. For example, a president can exercise power and authority because the position is fully legitimated by society as a whole. In another example, if an individual attempts to convince others that something is "ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legitimation Crisis
Legitimation crisis refers to a decline in the confidence of administrative functions, institutions, or leadership. The term was first introduced in 1973 by Jürgen Habermas, a German sociologist and philosopher. Habermas expanded upon the concept, claiming that with a legitimation crisis, an institution or organization does not have the administrative capabilities to maintain or establish structures effective in achieving their end goals. The term itself has been generalized by other scholars to refer not only to the political realm, but to organizational and institutional structures as well. While there is not unanimity among social scientists when claiming that a legitimation crisis exists, a predominant way of measuring a legitimation crisis is to consider public attitudes toward the organization in question. Legitimacy With respect to political theory, a state is perceived as being legitimate when its citizens treat it as properly holding and exercising political power. W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illegitimacy
Legitimacy, in traditional Western common law, is the status of a child born to parents who are legally married to each other, and of a child conceived before the parents obtain a legal divorce. Conversely, ''illegitimacy'', also known as ''bastardy'', has been the status of a child born outside marriage, such a child being known as a bastard, a love child, a natural child, or illegitimate. In Scots law, the terms natural son and natural daughter bear the same implications. The importance of legitimacy has decreased substantially in Western countries since the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s and the declining influence of conservative Christian churches in family and social life. Births outside marriage now represent a large majority in many countries of Western Europe and the Americas, as well as in many former European colonies. In many Western-influenced cultures, stigma based on parents' marital status, and use of the word ''bastard'', are now widely consider ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legitimate Power
In a notable study of power conducted by social psychologists John R. P. French and Bertram Raven in 1959, power is divided into five separate and distinct forms. They identified those five bases of power as ''coercive, reward, legitimate, referent, and expert''. This was followed by Raven's subsequent addition in 1965 of a sixth separate and distinct base of power: ''informational power''. French and Raven defined social influence as "a change in the belief, attitude, or behavior of a person (the target of influence) which results from the action of another person (an influencing agent)", and they defined social power as the potential for such influence, that is, the ability of the agent to bring about such a change using available resources. Relating to social communication studies, ''power'' in social influence settings has introduced a large realm of research pertaining to persuasion tactics and leadership practices. Through social communication studies, it has been theorized ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norm (sociology)
Social norms are shared standards of acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into rules and laws. Social normative influences or social norms, are deemed to be powerful drivers of human behavioural changes and well organized and incorporated by major theories which explain human behaviour. Institutions are composed of multiple norms. Norms are shared social beliefs about behavior; thus, they are distinct from "ideas", " attitudes", and "values", which can be held privately, and which do not necessarily concern behavior. Norms are contingent on context, social group, and historical circumstances. Scholars distinguish between regulative norms (which constrain behavior), constitutive norms (which shape interests), and prescriptive norms (which prescribe what actors ''ought'' to do). The effects of norms can be determined by a logic of appropriateness and logic of consequ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Authority
In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' Third Edition, Allan Bullock and Stephen Trombley, Eds. p. 115. In the exercise of governance, the terms ''authority'' and ''power'' are inaccurate synonyms. The term ''authority'' identifies the political legitimacy, which grants and justifies the ruler's right to exercise the power of government; and the term ''power'' identifies the ability to accomplish an authorized goal, either by compliance or by obedience; hence, ''authority'' is the ''power'' to make decisions and the legitimacy to make such legal decisions and order their execution. History Ancient history, Ancient understandings of authority trace back to Ancient Rome, Rome and draw later from Catholic (Thomism, Thomistic) thought and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delegitimization
Delegitimisation (also spelled delegitimation) is the withdrawal of legitimacy, usually from some institution such as a state, cultural practice, etc. which may have acquired it explicitly or implicitly, by statute or accepted practice. It is a sociopsychological process which undermines or marginalises an entity by presenting facts and/or value judgments that are construed to withdraw legitimacy and can in some cases be a self-justifying mechanism, with the ultimate goal of justifying harm of an outgroup. The concept applies to a wide spectrum of social contexts ranging from disputes about political entities to chronic illnesses.Arthur Kleinman, "The Social Course of Chronic Illness" in Chronic Illness: From Experience to Policy' edited by S. Kay Toombs, David Barnard, Ronald Alan Carson, p. 181 Definition, function and mechanisms Delegitimisation is the process of constructing a "categorization of groups into extreme social categories which are ultimately excluded from societ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Norms
Social norms are shared standards of acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into rules and laws. Social normative influences or social norms, are deemed to be powerful drivers of human behavioural changes and well organized and incorporated by major theories which explain human behaviour. Institutions are composed of multiple norms. Norms are shared social beliefs about behavior; thus, they are distinct from "ideas", " attitudes", and "values", which can be held privately, and which do not necessarily concern behavior. Norms are contingent on context, social group, and historical circumstances. Scholars distinguish between regulative norms (which constrain behavior), constitutive norms (which shape interests), and prescriptive norms (which prescribe what actors ''ought'' to do). The effects of norms can be determined by a logic of appropriateness and logic of conseque ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legitimacy (political)
In political science, legitimacy is the right and acceptance of an authority, usually a governing law or a regime. Whereas ''authority'' denotes a specific position in an established government, the term ''legitimacy'' denotes a system of government—wherein ''government'' denotes "sphere of influence". An authority viewed as legitimate often has the right and justification to exercise power. Political legitimacy is considered a basic condition for governing, without which a government will suffer legislative deadlock(s) and collapse. In political systems where this is not the case, unpopular regimes survive because they are considered legitimate by a small, influential elite.Dahl, Robert A. ''Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition'' (pp. 124–188). New Haven (Connecticut) and London: Yale University Press, 1971 In Chinese political philosophy, since the historical period of the Zhou Dynasty (1046–256 BC), the political legitimacy of a ruler and government was derived from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Recognition (family Law)
Recognition is the process in some jurisdictions whereby a man is recognised as the father of a child in situations of no presumption of paternity, generally because the mother is unwed. Historically, the Roman law principle of ''mater semper certa est'' (the mother is always certain) causes the action was not available to mothers, but the introduction of in-vitro fertilisation has changed that to change. Recognition is an act that confers legitimacy (family law), legitimacy on the child. Overview When a child is born the mother is known, but the father is not certain. When the mother is married, the husband is presumed to be the father (see presumption of legitimacy). When the mother is unmarried, some jurisdictions require the father to take extra steps to be recognised as the father, the presumption of paternity does not apply. The laws vary between jurisdictions but common themes are: * the mother must give consent * a child can only be 'recognised' once * if the child is old ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symbolic Violence
Symbolic violence is a term coined by Pierre Bourdieu, a prominent 20th-century French sociologist, and appears in his works as early as the 1970s. Symbolic violence describes a type of non-physical violence manifested in the power differential between social groups. It is often unconsciously agreed upon by both parties and is manifested in an imposition of the norms of the group possessing greater social power on those of the subordinate group. Symbolic violence can be manifested across different social domains such as nationality, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnic identity. The term began to be used by other sociologists and authors in the early 1990s. Bourdieu made efforts to stress that symbolic violence is generally not a deliberate action by a hegemonic power, rather an unconscious reinforcement of the status quo that is seen as the “norm” by those who exist within that social stratification. Slavoj Žižek discusses symbolic violence in ''Violence'' (2008), arguing t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Structural Abuse
Structural abuse is the process by which an individual or group is dealt with unfairly by a social or cultural system or authority. This unfairness manifests itself as abuse in a psychological, financial, physical or spiritual form, and victims often are unable to protect themselves from harm. An individual's inability to protect themselves may lead to their entrapment in the system, preventing them from seeking justice or recompense for crimes endured and damages incurred, creating a feeling of isolation or helplessness. Systems containing abusive structures are primarily designed to control individuals or manipulate them for material gain. Most social systems contain at least one structure that induces structural abuse. These structures, when allowed to exist, create a cycle of abuse, wherein the abuse is repetitive or contagious in nature, and may become acceptable in other parts of the system. Structural abuse differs to structural violence in terms of scale – structural vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rationalization (psychology)
Rationalization is a defense mechanism (ego defense) in which apparent logical reasons are given to justify behavior that is motivated by unconscious instinctual impulses. It is an attempt to find reasons for behaviors, especially one's own. Rationalizations are used to defend against feelings of guilt, maintain self-respect, and protect oneself from criticism. Rationalization happens in two steps: # A decision, action, judgement is made for a given reason, or no (known) reason at all. # A rationalization is performed, constructing a seemingly good or logical reason, as an attempt to justify the act after the fact (for oneself or others). Rationalization encourages irrational or unacceptable behavior, motives, or feelings and often involves ad hoc hypothesizing. This process ranges from fully conscious (e.g. to present an external defense against ridicule from others) to mostly unconscious (e.g. to create a block against internal feelings of guilt or shame). People rationalize fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
