The Discursive Legitimation of Political Regimes: A Network Perspective

TranState Working Papers 177

28 Pages Posted: 4 Nov 2013

See all articles by Sebastian Haunss

Sebastian Haunss

University of Bremen - Centre for Social Policy Research (CeS)

Steffen G. Schneider

University of Bremen - TranState Research Center

Date Written: November 4, 2013

Abstract

In this working paper, we treat legitimacy and legitimation as interactive, discursive and relational concepts: Legitimacy is socially constructed in the public spheres of (democratic) political regimes, that is, in discursive exchanges of political elites and citizens about the acceptability of these regimes. Legitimacy claims and assessments establish a link between regimes and their institutions on the one hand, and normative benchmarks on the other. Hence they may be examined with the help of discourse network analysis – a novel application of network analysis whose rationale and potential are illustrated on the basis of a corpus of legitimation statements gleaned from German and US quality newspapers. Our method enables us to discover and visualize the structures of legitimation discourses – prominent speaker types, privileged legitimation criteria and discourse coalitions – and to offer some conjectures on the link between discourses and the institutional arrangements of the German and US polities.

Keywords: Legitimation, Legitimacy, USA, Germany, Political Discoure, Network Analysis

Suggested Citation

Haunss, Sebastian and Schneider, Steffen G., The Discursive Legitimation of Political Regimes: A Network Perspective (November 4, 2013). TranState Working Papers 177, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2349667 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2349667

Sebastian Haunss (Contact Author)

University of Bremen - Centre for Social Policy Research (CeS) ( email )

Bremen
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://shaunss.ipgovernance.eu

Steffen G. Schneider

University of Bremen - TranState Research Center ( email )

Universitaetsallee GW I
Bremen, D-28334
Germany

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
174
Abstract Views
1,229
Rank
337,224
PlumX Metrics