On the Dual Motivational Force of Legitimate Authority.

In this chapter I consider two ways by which the legitimacy of legal authorities might motivate people to abide by the law. Following recent criminological research I define legitimacy along two different dimensions: the first is the public recognition of the rightful authority of an institution, and the second is a sense among citizens that the institution is just, moral and appropriate. Data from a randomized controlled trial of procedurally just policing provide further support for the idea that justice systems can secure compliance by (a) instilling in citizens a sense of deference and obligation, and (b) showing to citizens that they represent a requisite sense of moral appropriateness. While prior work has tended to focus on the idea that legitimacy shape compliance through felt obligation, the current analysis shows that compliance is predicted by both duty to obey and moral endorsement. Consistent with a good deal of existing evidence, the findings also indicate the importance of procedural justice and group identification in the production of institutional legitimacy. I conclude with the idea that legitimacy may be able to shape compliance through shape content-free obligation and shared moral appropriateness. [189 words] Word count 9,862 words including references but not footnotes Biography Jonathan Jackson is Professor of Research Methodology and member of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology at the LSE. Orcid: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2426-2219 Acknowledgements I would like to thank all of the organizers of the 2014 Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, especially Brian Bornstein and Alan Tomkins. It was a great honor to be invited to this superb event. I would also like to thank Yale Law School and Harvard Kennedy School for hosting me during research leave while I wrote this chapter. I am grateful to the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council for funding that research leave (grant number ES/L011611/1).