The Dynamics of Legitimation and the Case of the US Forest Service: A Theoretical and Historical Discussion

the express purpose of compiling information, reviewing available literature, researching topics related to ecosystems within the Interior Columbia Basin, or exploring relationships among biophysical and economic/social resources. This report has been reviewed by agency scientists as part of the ongoing ecosystem project. The report may be cited within the primary products produced by the project or it may have served its purposes by furthering our understanding of complex resource issues within the Basin. This report may become the basis for scientific journal articles or technical reports by the USDA Forest Service or USDI Bureau of Land Management. The attached report has not been through all the steps appropriate to final publishing as either a scientific journal article or a technical report. 1 I Introduction Over the past quarter century American politics has profoundly changed. The rise of first liberal and then conservative interest groups has led to more open, more participatory, and more contentious and confusing politics (Walker, 1991). Interest groups rejected the protest politics of the 1960s in favor of professionally run organizations that put little value on participatory democracy (Berry, 1977). One of the consequences of the rise of interest groups is that government policies have become increasingly uncoordinated as Congress and administrative agencies try to meet conflicting demands. A secondary effect of the "disorder" in public policy has been a sense of crisis casting doubt on the legitimacy of governmental institutions (Freedman, 1978; Lowi, 1969). Legitimation problems are not merely a product of the rise of interest group politics, however. In democratic systems opposition is institutionalized as part of the system, thus both diffusing and normalizing legitimation problems (Habermas, 1979). Legitimacy is a scarce resource, both necessary to make and sustain public policy and hard to come by and difficult to maintain. The history of legitimation crises can be used to track significant changes in public policies, although delegitimation is not itself the principle cause of change. This paper will address the issue of legitimacy in regard to public policy with a special focus on the US Forest Service. Following this introduction I develop a theoretical framework in the next two sections. The third section interprets the history of the Forest Service and the conservation movement in terms of 2 the theoretical framework, and the final section discusses the dynamics of opposition, rationalization, and participation in regard to the issues raised earlier. The concept of legitimacy is …