POWER-HOLDER
LEGITIMACY:
THEORY AND EVIDENCE
Justice Tankebe
( jt340@cam.ac.uk
)
4 th International Conference on Evidence
Based Policing (Cambridge, 5 July 2011)

• Conceptual Groundwork
• Correlates of Power-holder
Legitimacy
• Concluding Thoughts

To condemn something as illegitimate is, I think, implicitly to threaten defiance.
Calling a decision illegitimate adds the suggestion that the decision is mistaken, or lawless, or immoral, in a way or to a degree that raises a question about whether it should not be obeyed’
(Strauss 2005: 1854)

• It encourages cooperation with the police
(Sunshine & Tyler 2003).
• It facilitates acceptance of police decisions, and general compliance with the law (Tyler
1990).
• It generates a willingness to empower the police (Sunshine and Tyler 2003).
• Reduces reoffending, and support for vigilante violence (Paternoster et al 1997;
Tankebe 2009).

Procedural elements
•quality of decision making
•quality of treatment
Tyler’s Model of ‘Process-Based
Regulation’
Supportive values
(legitimacy)
General cooperation
•compliance
•cooperation
•empowerment
Process-based judgments
•procedural justice
•motive-based trust
Immediate decision acceptance
Long-term decision acceptance
Source: Tyler (2003: 283.

Herbert’s ‘Conflicting Pathways to
Police Legitimacy’
• Subservience – Democratic
• Separation
– Liberal order (human rights)
– Professionalism
• Protection from citizen meddling
• Need for unquestioned authority
• Quest for prestige
• Generativity
– Police understandings shaping situations
– Deployment of moralistic frameworks (self-identity as
‘moral guardians’)

Power-holder
Legitimacy
The self-belief power-holders (e.g. police officers) have in their moral right to govern
(Bottoms & Tankebe 2008)
People with power ‘must persuade themselves that their fates are deserved and therefore [morally] rightful (Kronman
1983).

Rulers need to believe that the power they possess is morally justified, that they are servants of a larger collective goal or system of values surpassing mere determination to perpetuate themselves in power, that their exercise of power is not inescapably at odds with hallowed standards of morality.
(Dennis Wrong 1995: 103).

Police Legitimacy
Defined
Legitimacy is the recognition of the moral rightness of the police’s claim to exercise power.
It consists in justifying simultaneously police power and citizens’ obligation towards obedience.
Adapted from Coicaud, J-M (2002)

• Procedural Fairness
• Relational Social Capital (RSC)
• Performance
• Corruption
• Corruption reforms

• Sample of 181 officers in Accra (response rate = 82%)
• Education: secondary school (80.1%); tertiary education (19.9%)
• Length of service = 15 years (mean)
• Gender = 29.3% female

Individual Variables
Gender
Education
Length of service
Performance
Effectiveness
Corruption
Corruption reforms
Internal Cohesion
Relational Social Capital
Procedural Fairness
Constant
Adjusted R 2
N = 181; * p <0.05, ** p <0.01, *** p <0.001
---
---
---
---
---
ß
Model 1
(s.e)
.04
.01
-.15*
.10
.11
.02
---
---
---
---
---
.10
.01
.27**
-.06
-.08
---
---
ß
Model 2
(s.e)
.06
.04
-.22**
.09
.11
.02
.07
.10
.05
---
---
.30
.07
.12*
-.05
-.08
.13*
.40***
ß
Model 3
(s.e)
.07
.04
-.22**
.08
.10
-.07
.07
.09
.04
.08
.07
.36
.28

• Responsible exercise of authority
• Stable and effective exercise of authority
• A precondition for ‘external legitimacy’
• Organisational commitment; use of force?

THANK YOU!
QUESTIONS?
Justice Tankebe
( jt340@cam.ac.uk
)
4 th International Conference on Evidence
Base Policing (Cambridge, 5 July 2011)