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Building popular legitimacy with reconciliatory gestures and participation: A community‐level model of authority
Author(s) -
O'Brien Thomas C.,
Tyler Tom R.,
Meares Tracey L.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
regulation and governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.417
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1748-5991
pISSN - 1748-5983
DOI - 10.1111/rego.12264
Subject(s) - legitimacy , gesture , public relations , metropolitan area , action (physics) , order (exchange) , sociology , political science , public administration , business , law , computer science , geography , artificial intelligence , politics , physics , archaeology , finance , quantum mechanics
Abstract The research tests a model of reconciliation between authorities and communities. It expands past models of legitimacy to an intergroup dynamic model by identifying two community‐level actions that legal authorities can undertake to build their popular legitimacy and promote cooperation. One type of action is a community‐level reconciliatory gesture: an initiative that authorities make to communities to build trust by recognizing and trying to move beyond prior negative experiences. A second involves community‐level opportunities for participating in decisions about how to manage social order. The results of this study with residents from a large metropolitan city suggest that both types of community‐level gestures can make distinct contributions to building trust in and cooperation with the police.