Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

Item

Title

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

Author

Patty, John W.

Research Area

Class, Status and Power

Topic

Political Power

Abstract

In practical terms, political legitimacy is a subjective phenomenon, based on individuals' perceptions. These perceptions are based on four factors: the distributive efficiency of the outcomes from the decision, the distributive fairness of those outcomes, the equal access of the process used to make the decision, and the accountability of that process. In addition to discussing those factors, I also address the related questions of what factors lead individuals to make legitimacy judgments and the types of situations in which these judgments are most important.

Related Essays

Understanding American Political Conservatism (Political Science), Joel D. Aberbach

Party Organizations' Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H. Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski

Economic Models of Voting (Political Science), Ian G. Anson and Timothy Hellwig

The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office (Political Science), Sarah F. Anzia

Heuristic Decision Making (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and Nicholas J. D'Amico

Elites (Sociology), Johan S. G. Chu and Mark S. Mizruchi

Misinformation and How to Correct It (Psychology), John Cook et al.

Racial Disenfranchisement (Political Science), Vincent L. Hutchings and Davin L. Phoenix

Political Inequality (Sociology), Jeff Manza

Participatory Governance (Political Science), Stephanie L. McNulty and Brian Wampler

Gender and Women's Influence in Public Settings (Political Science), Tali Mendelberg et al.

Money in Politics (Political Science), Jeffrey Milyo

Politics of Immigration Policy (Political Science), Jeannette Money

The Politics of Disaster Relief (Political Science), Alexander J. Oliver and Andrew Reeves

Feminists in Power (Sociology), Ann Orloff and Talia Schiff

Electoral Authoritarianism (Political Science), Andreas Schedler

Does the 1 Person 1 Vote Principle Apply? (Political Science), Ian R. Turner et al.

Rulemaking Pursuing a Policy Agenda (Political Science), Richard W. Waterman

Public Opinion, the 1%, and Income Redistribution (Sociology), David L. Weakliem

Constitutionalism (Political Science), Keith E. Whittington

Identifier

etrds0401

extracted text

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of
Collective Decisions
JOHN W. PATTY

Abstract
In practical terms, political legitimacy is a subjective phenomenon, based on individuals’ perceptions. These perceptions are based on four factors: the distributive efficiency of the outcomes from the decision, the distributive fairness of those outcomes,
the equal access of the process used to make the decision, and the accountability of
that process. In addition to discussing those factors, I also address the related questions of what factors lead individuals to make legitimacy judgments and the types
of situations in which these judgments are most important.

In this essay, I discuss how individuals judge the legitimacy of collective decisions. Political legitimacy is, in the words of Peter (2014), “a virtue of political
institutions and of the decisions—about laws, policies, and candidates for
political office—made within them” and, from a subjective standpoint, legitimacy has been succinctly defined by Tyler (2006) as “the belief that authorities, institutions, and social arrangements are appropriate, proper, and just.”1
While there are many possible definitions of legitimacy, I have shaped my
discussion with Tyler’s definition as the reference point.
By considering the factors that lead people to perceive the decision of
a group to be “appropriate, proper, and just,” I am focusing on what
is often referred to as a descriptive notion of legitimacy, as opposed to a
“normative” one.2 That said, I do not rely upon this categorization in
this essay. This is because, while the question at hand—the perception of
legitimacy—essentially gives precedence to descriptive notions, it also
suggests that descriptive notions of legitimacy provide insight into the
1. Tyler (2006, p. 376).
2. Normative notions of political legitimacy are principally concerned with how political authorities
ought to behave: what kinds of actions are permissible, under what circumstances, and in what combination? Descriptive notions, on the other hand, tend to focus on the factors that lead individuals to obey
political authorities. For a succinct review of the distinctions and their historical developments, see Peter
(2014).
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Robert Scott and Marlis Buchmann (General Editors) with Stephen Kosslyn (Consulting Editor).
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

2

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

acceptance of various normative definitions.3 Put another way, I follow
authors such as Habermas and Beetham in accepting that the most useful
definitions of legitimacy include both normative and descriptive criteria.4
The ultimate goal of this essay is to provide and explain a sketch of the
features of collective decisions that lead to individuals perceiving them as
legitimate. This entails first thinking about what kinds of decisions are made
collectively, which then leads to considering how individuals evaluate such
decisions and the role that the collective nature of such decisions plays in
these evaluations. Finally, it is important to consider when legitimacy of such
decisions will tend to be important in both descriptive and normative terms.
With that broad roadmap before us, the essay proceeds as follows. I first
discuss the psychological determinants of individuals’ legitimacy judgments
(see section titled “The Psychology of Legitimacy”). After that, I consider
why it is important that I focus specifically on collective decisions (see section
titled “The Role of Collective Decisions”). Section titled “The Bases of Legitimacy Judgments” represents the heart of the essay and presents the four
basic factors that I argue undergird perceptions of the legitimacy of collective
decisions. Finally, I consider the question of when these perceptions matter
(see section titled “When Does Legitimacy Matter?”) and then offer some
directions for future work in the section titled “Concluding Thoughts: Where
Next?”.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEGITIMACY
In terms of measurement, psychological conceptions of legitimacy—in terms
of measurement—revolve around deference: put simply, legitimate policies
and institutions enjoy voluntary compliance, and illegitimate ones do not. To
be clear, the key aspect of legitimacy is the voluntary nature of the compliance. As Tyler puts it, “unlike influence based upon the influencer’s possession of power or resources, the influence motivated by legitimacy develops
from within the person who is being influenced.”5 There is now a large body
of research into what aspects of organizational structure and behavior generate the legitimating influence described by Tyler.
Procedural Fairness. One common thread running through empirical studies
of the psychological determinants of perceptions of legitimacy is the importance of the procedures that produced a policy being seen as fair (Colquitt,
Greenberg, & Zapata-Phelan, 2005; Tyler, 2001). Procedural fairness involves
various structural characteristics, including the ability for all individuals to
3. Pushing a bit farther, one could leverage the observed actions of political authorities (i.e., the
“rulers”) to gauge how individuals perceive how others (i.e., the “ruled”) perceive legitimacy.
4. For example, see Beetham (1991) and Habermas (1979). For a lengthier treatment of this topic and
the theoretical difficulties with defining legitimacy, see Patty and Penn (2014).
5. Tyler (2006, p. 378).

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

3

both submit evidence to, and have some control over, the decision process,
consistently applied procedures, reliance on accurate information, and procedures to correct mistakes.6
Explanations. A second common thread in the research on the determinants
of legitimacy is the role of explanations (Bies & Sitkin, 1992). The provision
of an explanation for an outcome increases its legitimacy, even if the explanation is not seen as satisfactory (Haines & Jost, 2000), and intergroup conflict
is reduced by “social accounts” that explain decisions (Sitkin & Bies, 1993).7
Successful (i.e., legitimating) social accounts tend to be divided into three categories: mitigating responsibilities, exonerating motives, and reframing outcomes
(Sitkin & Bies, 1993).
While procedures and justifications are important in legitimacy perceptions, it is nonetheless important to remember that an individual’s
perception of the legitimacy of a political policy or institution is a cognitive
product. Accordingly, on a day-to-day basis in the real world, an individual’s perception(s) of political legitimacy will be determined by his or her
judgment processes. Thus, a complete understanding how individuals actually perceive the legitimacy of collective decisions requires understanding
how individuals encounter and engage the question of whether a policy
or institution is in fact legitimate. In other words, when do people make
legitimacy judgments?
COGNITION AND LEGITIMACY JUDGMENTS
There is an intimate connection between legitimacy judgments and “deliberation,” or the exchanging of beliefs and reasons between individuals.8 The
psychological evidence indicates that, in practice, deliberation is “episodic,
difficult, and tentative,”9 and, at least on the margin, individuals rely on
information shortcuts, such as habits and heuristics, in order to avoid the cognitive and emotional costs of deliberation, particularly in typically low-stakes
political settings (Downs, 1957; Lau & Redlawsk, 2001). Thus, from a practical standpoint, legitimacy judgments are often determined by such informational shortcuts.
Heuristics and informational shortcuts come in various forms, but they all
generally, if imperfectly, serve to minimize an individual’s costs. Two forms
6. Procedural fairness is sometimes also referred to as procedural justice. The seminal studies along
these lines are Leventhal, Karuza, and Fry (1980) and Thibaut and Walker (1975). For an overview of the
literature, see Brockner, Ackerman, and Fairchild (2001).
7. Conflict reduction is often treated as near-equivalent to legitimacy in the psychology and organizational literatures and I leave this equivalence unchallenged.
8. At least from a theoretical standpoint, a legitimacy judgment should not only be explicable and
shareable but also be easily seen as such. For a thorough theoretical discussion of the impact of various
approaches to epistemic notions of legitimacy, see Landa and Meirowitz (2009).
9. Ryfe (2005, p. 59).

4

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

of such costs are of particular importance when considering legitimacy judgments: emotional and instrumental. Instrumental costs are particularly relevant when considering when, and about what, individuals actually make
legitimacy judgments. For example, when a person is distracted by other considerations or is otherwise unmotivated to think about a political policy or
institution, he or she is unlikely to judge its legitimacy. Of course, a lack of
individual motivation does not imply that the policy or institution is socially
or collectively unimportant. Because of this lacuna, it is risky to infer individuals’ perceptions of legitimacy from their observed deference to any given
political policy or institution. The psychological evidence suggests that individuals tend to judge the political legitimacy when the individual feels that
the stakes are high, that the individual is likely to be held accountable (called
to account) for his or her judgment, and/or belong to a diverse group.10 From
an empirical standpoint, these three factors are presumably correlated with
each other in the real world. I return to this point in the section titled “When
Does Legitimacy Matter?”.
While instrumental costs deter individuals from making legitimacy judgments at all, emotional costs loom larger when considering the impact of
these shortcuts on these judgments’ normative reliability. Specifically, if we
think that legitimacy is to some degree determined by how and whether the
citizens perceive it, then we need to worry about whether they perceive it
accurately. Most “emotional costs” associated with legitimacy judgments can
be quickly described as resulting from cognitive dissonance. As I discuss in
more detail below (see sections titled “The Bases of Legitimacy Judgments”
and “When Does Legitimacy Matter?”), the political legitimacy of a collective decision is based on principles that are often in conflict with each other.
A simple example of such a conflict occurs when a procedurally fair process produces a policy that clearly results in distributively unfair outcomes.
Evaluating the legitimacy of that policy requires one to assign primacy to
either procedural fairness or distributive fairness.11 This conflict is particularly potent for those who benefit from the policy in question.
STATUS AND LEGITIMACY JUDGMENTS
Many collective choice settings are long-lived: the procedures change rarely,
if at all, and the group tends to make the same type of policy decisions across
time. In such situations, when individuals evaluate the legitimacy of the “system” en toto, the result is a product of their evaluations of both institutions
10. For more on this, particularly in the context of deliberative democracy, see Ryfe (2005).
11. Furthermore, if such a policy is produced by an institution that itself is collectively chosen (e.g., by
a democratic legislature), this conflict can emerge when evaluating the legitimacy of the institution itself.

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

5

and policies. Furthermore, in most systems, subgroups of individuals are differentiated in procedural, substantive, and/or relational terms.12 When left
unexplained, such differentiations are presumptively unfair (Mikula, 2003).
Thus, the perceived legitimacy of the system depends on whether and how
these status differences are justified.
Regardless of the terms of the comparison, a persistence of intergroup differentiation is a difference in the statuses of the groups. Members of advantaged groups (e.g., groups that tend to have more influence on, or receive
greater benefits from, the decision process) have obvious incentives to justify
their elevated status (Della Fave, 1980), and are more likely to view the decision process as fair (Melamed, 2012). However, disadvantaged individuals
nonetheless often view the system as legitimate as well: a phenomenon that
led to system justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994). The basic foundations of
system justification by disadvantaged individuals seem to be closely related
to status quo bias (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004). That said, individuals tend
to view the system as more legitimate when they are financially dependent
upon it (Van der Toorn, Tyler, & Jost, 2011), but the degree to which one’s own
advantage in the system predisposes one to view the system as legitimate is
mixed (Stolte, 1983; Sutphin & Simpson, 2009).
Social Effects on Legitimacy Judgments. Viewed broadly, a system’s legitimacy
is collectively created or reinforced through individuals’ reactions to others’
actions in support of, or deference to, the status differentials within the
system.13 These foundations of legitimacy judgments are important for
understanding the stability (i.e., the organizational legitimacy) of collective
decision-making processes, but I set them to the side in this essay as
background conditions. That is, fundamental questions of system legitimacy
generally must be satisfied (at least among a sufficiently powerful subset of
the group’s members) for us to observe collective decisions being made.14
With that said, I now move on to consider the implications of focusing on
collective decisions.
THE ROLE OF COLLECTIVE DECISIONS
The notion of a “collective decision” can be defined in variously capacious
ways. I narrow the focus as follows: a decision is collective only if it aggregates
the information, beliefs, and/or interests of more than one person. For example, in
12. While it is of course possible that there is no differentiation between individuals, such situations
are empirically rare and, more subtly, have less need for legitimacy, as I discuss in the section titled “When
Does Legitimacy Matter?”.
13. For example, see Berger, Ridgeway, Fisek, and Norman (1998), Ridgeway and Berger (1986), Scott
(1995), and Zelditch and Walker (1984), and the edited volume by Johnson (2004). For a more general
review of social theories of legitimacy, see Johnson, Dowd, and Ridgeway (2006).
14. An interesting area for further research is how the factors identified in this essay interact with
these baseline conditions for system legitimacy.

6

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

terms of the US Federal Government, Congress produces a collective decision
whenever it passes a law, but not necessarily when one Member takes a public position, and the Supreme Court produces a collective decision whenever
it issues a ruling involving more than one Justice, but not necessarily when
a single Justice issues an emergency stay or injunction. While the Speaker of
the House or a single Justice might (rightfully) claim to speak for his or her
colleagues, I am interested in situations in which it is clear that the policy or
institution in question was chosen by a group.15
Furthermore, in terms of implementation, many decisions are better
thought of as an “order”: something that is smaller than, or ancillary to, a
collective decision. The typical distinction between an order and a collective
decision is that the order is issued by an agent or organ of the state in pursuit
of a larger goal. The larger goal, then, represents the collective decision: the
order inherits its legitimacy, in part, from that decision.16 Because much
of the legitimacy literature focuses on the legitimacy of (and/or deference
to) exercised authority, the question of where the policy or institution in
question “came from” is typically treated as one of multiple explanatory
variables. In a sense, then, the question at hand in this essay represents an
“unpacking” of this variable.
For example, it is generally and unsurprisingly found that authority is
more likely to be perceived as legitimate if the original decision—collective
or otherwise—that created and/or directs the authority is perceived as
legitimate as well. When considering orders from an agent appointed by
or responsible to another unitary actor, it is reasonable (though not wholly
uncontroversial) to suppose that the legitimacy of the more proximate
authority and that of his or her superior are defined in the very similar, if
not identical, ways.17
The distinction between how a collective decision is made and how it
is implemented is important for our purposes only insofar as sometimes
orders—or the agents who issue them—can be perceived to be illegitimate,
even though the legitimacy of the original collective decision remains
unchallenged. For example, racial profiling by agents of the state attempting
15. Space precludes a more in-depth consideration of some clearly gray areas. For example, when the
president issues an executive order, is this a collective decision? Clearly, many such putatively “unitary
decisions” are actually the product of inputs from multiple individuals, and executives often seem to
claim legitimacy for the decision by claiming that they promote collective interests. In a sense, the focus
on clearly collective decisions will illuminate how and why individuals might seek to portray their unitary
decisions as the output of collective choice processes.
16. I say “in part” because most orders are the “products” of multiple collective decisions. For
example, a subpoena might be issued by an institution that is deemed legitimate but in pursuit of an
illegitimate policy goal, or vice versa.
17. To see that legitimacy might be defined differently for a subordinate and his or her superior, consider the role of individuals such as lawyers and executors. Such “subordinates” are frequently most
legitimate precisely because they do not share the same characteristics, incentives, or information as their
superior. This tension between democratic government and efficient governance is discussed in Beetham
(1996) and Gailmard and Patty (2012).

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

7

to prevent terrorism might be perceived to be illegitimate without considering the collective decision to fight terrorism to be illegitimate, tax audits
based on partisan affiliations can be considered to be illegitimate without
challenging the legitimacy of the tax code, and so forth. It is important to
distinguish this type of situation—situations in which the orders are in
some sense inconsistent with (or superfluous to) the underlying collective
decisions. This is because, as I turn to the bases of legitimacy judgments,
individuals may judge a collective decision based not only on the decision
itself but also on the nature of the orders required to implement it. That said,
I now turn to describing four bases of legitimacy judgments.
THE BASES OF LEGITIMACY JUDGMENTS
As mentioned in the introduction, there are four basic characteristics of policies and institutions that affect their perceived legitimacy: efficiency, distributive fairness, equal access, and accountability.18 I refer to the first two of these
characteristics as substantive characteristics, and the final two as procedural
ones. I begin by discussing the substantive characteristics, because they are
arguably more frequently perceived by individuals than are the procedural
ones. Partly as a result of this, I will argue that the procedural characteristics
are ultimately more fundamentally linked with political legitimacy.
SUBSTANTIVE CRITERIA: EFFICIENCY AND DISTRIBUTIVE FAIRNESS
Unsurprisingly, individuals make legitimacy judgments about a collective
decision at least partially based on the outcomes produced by the decision.
When considering collective decisions, outcomes often do vary across individuals, so that two collective decisions can vary in terms of both efficiency
(e.g., the average outcome for all individuals) and distribution (e.g., how outcomes vary across individuals). The substantive criteria are in some sense
sufficient for perceived legitimacy because, in line with the discussion in the
section titled “Cognition and Legitimacy Judgments”, individuals will tend
to make legitimacy judgments only when the outcomes produced by a collective decision are poor, unfair, or both (Elsbach & Sutton, 1992). In practical
terms, it is when the substantive criteria are violated that a decision’s legitimacy will be “at stake.”
Efficiency. Put informally, the efficiency of a collective decision describes the
average quality of the individual outcomes resulting from the decision. In
18. The four characteristics, and their names, are borrowed from Weatherford’s empirical measure of
legitimacy of political systems (Weatherford, 1992, p. 153).

8

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

many cases, these outcomes are themselves multidimensional. For example,
and in line with the discussion in the section titled “The Role of Collective
Decisions”, the efficiency of a collective decision will depend on how it is
implemented. Collective decisions such as the Paperwork Reduction Acts of
198019 and 199520 —each of which attempted to limit the amount of information that the government could require from citizens in the normal processing
of government business—indicate the importance of efficiency in implementation. Similarly, the Budget Act of 1974,21 a collective decision intended to
streamline the federal budget process, indicates the importance of efficiency
in the decision-making process itself. For the purposes of this essay, however,
I need not distinguish between these types of procedural efficiency.22
Unsurprisingly, individuals prefer more efficient policies and institutions.
Thus, all else equal, a collective decision that is relatively inefficient compared to an alternative might be judged to be less legitimate. Of course, when
comparing two or more possible collective decisions, it is rare that all else is
equal. When all else is not equal and the less efficient alternative is chosen, the
other differences between the two potential decisions are an important part
of an explanation for the collective decision.23 More important with respect
to the role of efficiency is the fact that the efficiency of a collective decision
can usually be measured in multiple ways. As we will see, this reality leads to
efficiency considerations ultimately becoming entangled with fairness considerations.
Multiple Measures of Efficiency. As stated above, there are multiple forms
of efficiency. However, suppose that a group agrees on one unambiguously
measured form such as, say, time required to choose and implement the policy. In most cases, there will still remain ambiguity about how to measure the
efficiency of any given policy or institution. For example, suppose that one
institution, X, would require all 100 people in the group to each spend 1 h
of their time simultaneously choosing and implementing a policy and that a
second institution, Y, would require that two of the people each spend 25 h.
Supposing that X and Y will produce and implement the same policy (i.e.,
holding “all else equal”), which institution is more efficient? After all, while
X requires a greater sum of individuals’ times (i.e., more person-hours), it is
also a faster institution: the policy would be produced and implemented 24 h
earlier than if Y is used.
When evaluating collective decisions, choosing a definition of efficiency
necessarily implicates notions of fairness as well because any usable
19. Public Law No. 96-511.
20. Public Law No. 104-13.
21. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, Public Law 93-344.
22. Similarly, for reasons of space, I do not distinguish between procedural efficiency and other forms
of efficiency such as eliminating loss, waste, or fraud.
23. See the discussion of explanations in the section titled “The Psychology of Legitimacy”.

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

9

definition of efficiency makes interpersonal comparisons. From a practical
standpoint, this is important when considering what kind of explanations
individuals will find convincing: increasing efficiency cannot be pursued
without at least acknowledging related issues such as the fairness of the
process and resulting outcomes (Tost, 2011; Vaara, Tienari, & Laurila, 2006;
Vaara & Tienari, 2008), an issue to which I now turn.
Distributive Fairness. Distributive fairness refers to how outcomes vary across
individuals. The simplest (but by no means only) example of a “distributively
fair” outcome is one in which each individual receives an equal share of the
rewards. Unsurprisingly, distributive fairness is an important determinant
of perceptions of legitimacy: all else equal, individuals tend to prefer policies
and institutions that produce “more fair” outcomes. However, just as with
efficiency considerations, it is rare that all else is equal and there are many
ways to define distributive fairness.
Space precludes a thorough treatment of the variety of ways in which distributive fairness can be defined (e.g., equality vs equity), but a common characteristic of individuals’ evaluations of fairness is a role for both expectations
and deservingness. When outcomes are far from what is expected,24 individuals are more likely to evaluate both the outcomes others received and the
processes that produced them. Following on that, individuals’ expectations
about outcomes are frequently based on both systemic and idiosyncratic factors. From a systemic level, fairness is less important when the outcomes are
seen to be influenced by external factors, while idiosyncratic factors such as
one’s social status shape individuals’ expectations about outcomes.
Deservingness, or equity, is central to how individuals ultimately judge
distributive fairness. When individual outcomes are heterogeneous, the
distribution will be judged fair only to the degree that the variation can be
explained in terms of some socially accepted principle. This is, of course, a
key link between distributive fairness and the bigger concept of legitimacy:
social accounts are important in establishing (or salvaging) perceptions
of either concept. Distributive fairness is a more limited concept than
legitimacy because there are situations in which the rewards are either not
supposed to be or simply cannot be evenly distributed (election outcomes
and allocating scarce resources). In such situations, and generally when a
collective decision does not result in distributive fairness, individuals tend
to focus on procedural criteria, to which I now turn.

24. In addition, to some degree, regardless of whether outcomes are too high or too low, as alluded to
in the section titled “Status and Legitimacy Judgments”.

10

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

PROCEDURAL CRITERIA: EQUAL ACCESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Procedural determinants of legitimacy can be divided into two categories,
roughly based on timing. Regularized and transparent procedures that allow
individuals to provide input into the decision promote both individuals’ perceptions of the legitimacy of, and support for, collective decisions (Schneider, Scholz, Lubell, Mindruta, & Edwardsen, 2003). Similarly, legitimacy is
promoted by formal mechanisms for revisiting and revising prior decisions.
Putting the two together, legitimacy is bolstered by procedures that allow
individuals to both influence and ultimately judge the collective decision.25
Equal Access. A collective decision satisfies equal access if all of the affected
citizens have equal and meaningful opportunities to be involved in the
decision-making process. This is more easily stated than precisely defined,
of course. For example, guaranteeing that each person can have his or her
say can reduce what one might call the “procedural efficiency” of a decision
if the number of affected citizens is large. On the other hand, circumscribing
the right of equal access to a sample of affected citizens potentially raises
issue of fairness or representativeness.
Of course, full access to decision-making is often infeasible. In such cases,
the question of access is more properly recast as one about transparency.
While perceptions of transparency bolster perceptions of procedural fairness,
perceptions of transparency appear to be driven by external cues, rather than
the transparency of the actual process (de Fine Licht, 2014). While the effect
of transparency, per se, on legitimacy is mediated by context (De Fine Licht,
Naurin, Esaiasson, & Gilljam, 2014), this simply indicates that transparency
is not a panacea. This is not surprising: increased transparency should not
lead to higher levels of perceived legitimacy when the process that is made
transparent is actually unfair or capricious.
This is a challenge not only for transparency: true access itself is not a
panacea. After all, even if citizens perceive that they have (or had) access, it
is important that they believe that their input mattered or at least was taken
into account by the decision-makers. The degree to which the collective
decision did, or could, respond to the citizens’ inputs is what is captured by
the decision’s accountability, to which I now turn.
Accountability. A collective decision satisfies accountability if the citizens can
inquire into how and why the decision was made and if there is a way to
alter or reverse the decision. Accountability is particularly important for the
25. While space precludes a lengthy treatment of how individuals perceive and judge procedural
details, it is useful to note that there is some support for the idea that individuals judge a policy or institution by comparison through a process referred to as isomorphism (Deephouse, 1996).

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

11

decisions rendered by unelected decision-makers. Similar to equal access,
accountability is a function of transparency: a minimal requirement for a collective decision to satisfy accountability is that the citizens both know who
made the decision and have the ability to get an explanation for the decision
from this group. Thus, accountability is enhanced by the availability of transcripts, legislative histories, interviews, and other accounts regarding how
the decision was made.
It is important to remember that accountability is more than mere procedural details: accountability is also tied to the motives and goals of the
decision-makers. That is, there is more to why a group made a decision than
“a majority voted in favor of it.” Which majority, and why that one? Understanding dissent is an important determinant of individual perceptions of
legitimacy. In addition to bolstering perceptions of equal access, observing
and understanding dissent ideally allows individuals to understand why a
decision was made. There is significant evidence that the “proper” grounds
for a decision depend on the institution promulgating it (Gibson & Caldeira,
2009; Gibson, Caldeira, & Spence, 2005).
Finally, while citizens’ perceptions of the accountability of a political system are important determinants of their perceptions of the legitimacy of the
system as a whole,26 it is arguably even more important (at least from an
instrumental standpoint) that the decision-makers within a group perceive
the citizens as (potentially and ultimately) being able to hold them accountable for their decisions.27
Ultimately, accountability is based on two things: the ability of individuals
to request, and decision-makers to provide, an explanation for their decisions. In the end, such explanations, or “accounts,” reinforce organizational
legitimacy judgments (Elsbach, 1994; Weick, 1995), affecting the legitimacy
of the organization that “made” the collective decision (e.g., Congress, the
European Union, and the Supreme Court). This point is relevant when considering the question of when legitimacy perceptions are important, to which
I now turn.
WHEN DOES LEGITIMACY MATTER?
Of course, political legitimacy is relevant when evaluating a political authority. Thus, considering political legitimacy presumes that one or more groups
of individuals are at the very least “in the background” of the decisions and
actions being evaluated. This point has far-reaching implications, because
it implies that political legitimacy is intimately tied to the concept of social
26. For recent experimental evidence regarding the determinants of such perceptions and their impact
on legitimacy judgments, see Dickson, Gordon, and Huber (2015).
27. Weatherford (1992, p. 153).

12

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

welfare, broadly construed. To be quick about it, a relatively uncontroversial
position is that legitimate decisions.
Legitimacy is arguably most relevant when the decision being made
involves aggregating multiple factors or goals (Patty & Penn, 2015). Indeed,
taking Tyler’s definition of legitimacy (“appropriate, proper, and just”) as an
example, it is arguable that nearly every legitimacy judgment involves such
an aggregation: it need not be the case that the goals of appropriateness,
propriety, and justness are each maximally attained by the same decision.
More specifically, legitimacy judgments are more likely to occur when
the goals are at odds with each other. Generally speaking, challenges to
legitimacy tend to occur during times of organizational crisis or external
threat (Elsbach & Sutton, 1992).
Legitimacy and Democracy. Because political legitimacy is particularly salient
when competing goals or criteria must be weighed against one another, legitimacy challenges in democracies will tend to emerge when individuals have
competing beliefs or preferences. Taking this point seriously suggests a privileged position for the procedural determinants of legitimacy: equal access
and accountability. These determinants are tied to the belief that a collective
decision can be explained or rationalized. As discussed earlier in this essay,
few collective decisions are the subject of active legitimacy judgments. Such
judgments occur only when the stakes are high and some expectations have
been violated. It is in these situations that procedural fairness is particularly
important. When some individuals win and others lose, central to the decision being seen as legitimate is that all sides were both given access to, and
taken into account by, the decision process.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: WHERE NEXT?
While I have focused on individual perceptions of legitimacy, political legitimacy is a multilevel phenomenon, “taking on different aspects as it links
global attributes of the political system with the orientations of individual
citizens.”28 How these levels interact with each other is the subject of ongoing
theoretical and empirical work, but a basic structure consisting of individual
and collective measures of legitimacy is widely accepted as a starting point
(Bitektine & Haack, 2015). At the individual level, one can ask whether the
citizens believe a collective decision to be legitimate. Dornbusch and Scott
(1975) refer to this level of legitimacy judgment as propriety. On the other
hand, Weber (1968) famously offered the notion of validity to capture legitimacy at the collective level. Validity is essentially a two-part notion, requiring
not only that some citizens believe that the subject is legitimate but also that
28. Weatherford (1992, p. 150).

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

13

all citizens “at least know that others perceive it as legitimate and understand
that it governs behaviors.”29
In the end, legitimacy is produced by the interaction of political incentives
and procedures. In line with this, future work on legitimacy should focus
more squarely on how individuals should and do account for and respond
to procedures and their perceptions of others’ incentives. For example, how
do people evaluate trade-offs between the four bases described in the section
titled “The Bases of Legitimacy Judgments”? What leads people to recognize such trade-offs? How do they evaluate accounts for how such trade-offs
were implemented in actual decisions (Patty, 2008; Patty & Penn, 2014)? How
do people perceive the political process when deciding whether to participate (Penn, 2016)? How do individuals balance the incentives for strategic,
instrumental behavior against norms of sincere participation, and how do
procedural details affect this balancing (Gailmard, Patty, & Penn, 2008; Penn,
Patty, & Gailmard, 2011)?
These questions are important precisely because legitimacy is central to
successful governance and, more subtly, the design of procedures represents
the best tool we have at our disposal to create and sustain legitimate democratic government. By focusing more squarely on the institutional details and
how individuals perceive and account for them, we will be able to provide
more nuanced and reliable prescriptions for how democratic choices should
be made.
REFERENCES
Beetham, D. (1991). The legitimation of power. New York, NY: Palgrave.
Beetham, D. (1996). Bureaucracy (2nd ed.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota
Press.
Berger, J., Ridgeway, C. L., Fisek, M. H., & Norman, R. Z. (1998). The legitimation
and delegitimation of power and prestige orders. American Sociological Review, 63,
379–405.
Bies, R. J., & Sitkin, S. B. (1992). Explanation as legitimation: Excuse-making in organizations. In M. L. Mcaughlin, M. J. Cody & S. J. Read (Eds.), Explaining one’s self
to others: Reason-giving in a social context (pp. 183–198). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Bitektine, A., & Haack, P. (2015). The “macro” and the “micro” of legitimacy: Toward
a multilevel theory of the legitimacy process. Academy of Management Review, 40(1),
49–75.
Brockner, J., Ackerman, G., & Fairchild, G. (2001). When do elements of procedural fairness make a difference? A classification of moderating influences. In J.
Greenberg & R. Cropanzano (Eds.), Advances in organizational justice (pp. 179–212).
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
29. Tost (2011, p. 689).

14

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Colquitt, J. A., Greenberg, J., & Zapata-Phelan, C. P. (2005). What is organizational
justice? A historical overview. In J. Greenberg & J. A. Colquitt (Eds.), Handbook of
organizational justice (Vol. 1, pp. 3–58). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
de Fine Licht, J. (2014). Transparency actually: How transparency affects public
perceptions of political decision-making. European Political Science Review, 6(02),
309–330.
De Fine Licht, J., Naurin, D., Esaiasson, P., & Gilljam, M. (2014). When does transparency generate legitimacy? Experimenting on a context-bound relationship.
Governance, 27(1), 111–134.
Deephouse, D. L. (1996). Does isomorphism legitimate? Academy of Management Journal, 39(4), 1024–1039.
Della Fave, L. R. (1980). The meek shall not inherit the earth: Self-evaluation and the
legitimacy of stratification. American Sociological Review, 45, 955–971.
Dickson, E. S., Gordon, S. C., & Huber, G. A. (2015). Institutional sources of legitimate authority: An experimental investigation. American Journal of Political Science,
59(1), 109–127.
Dornbusch, S. M., & Scott, W. R. (1975). Evaluation and the exercise of authority. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Downs, A. (1957). An economic theory of democracy. New York, NY: Harper and Row.
Elsbach, K. D. (1994). Managing organizational legitimacy in the California cattle
industry: The construction and effectiveness of verbal accounts. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39(1), 57–88.
Elsbach, K. D., & Sutton, R. I. (1992). Acquiring organizational legitimacy through
illegitimate actions: A marriage of institutional and impression management theories. Academy of Management Journal, 35(4), 699–738.
Gailmard, S., & Patty, J. W. (2012). Learning while governing: Information, accountability,
and executive branch institutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Gailmard, S., Patty, J. W., & Penn, E. M. (2008). Arrow’s theorem on single-peaked
domains. In E. Aragones, H. Llavador & N. Schofield (Eds.), The political economy
of democracy. Barcelona, Spain: UAB.
Gibson, J. L., & Caldeira, G. A. (2009). Confirmation politics and the legitimacy of the
US Supreme Court: Institutional loyalty, positivity bias, and the alito nomination.
American Journal of Political Science, 53(1), 139–155.
Gibson, J. L., Caldeira, G. A., & Spence, L. K. (2005). Why do people accept public
policies they oppose? Testing legitimacy theory with a survey-based experiment.
Political Research Quarterly, 58(2), 187–201.
Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the evolution of society. Boston, MA: Beacon
Press. Translated by Thomas McCarthy.
Haines, E. L., & Jost, J. T. (2000). Placating the powerless: Effects of legitimate and illegitimate explanation on affect, memory, and stereotyping. Social Justice Research,
13(3), 219–236.
Johnson, C. (2004). Legitimacy processes in organizations. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.
Johnson, C., Dowd, T. J., & Ridgeway, C. L. (2006). Legitimacy as a social process.
Annual Review of Sociology, 32, 53–78.

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

15

Jost, J. T., & Banaji, M. R. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system-justification and
the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 1–27.
Jost, J. T., Banaji, M. R., & Nosek, B. A. (2004). A decade of system justification theory:
Accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious bolstering of the status quo.
Political psychology, 25, 881–919.
Landa, D., & Meirowitz, A. (2009). Game theory, information, and deliberative
democracy. American Journal of Political Science, 53(2), 427–444.
Lau, R. R., & Redlawsk, D. P. (2001). Advantages and disadvantages of cognitive
heuristics in political decision making. American Journal of Political Science, 45,
951–971.
Leventhal, G. S., Karuza, J., & Fry, W. R. (1980). Beyond fairness: A theory of allocation preferences. In G. Mikula (Ed.), Justice and social interaction (pp. 167–218).
Bern, Switzerland: Hans Huber.
Melamed, D. (2012). The effects of legitimacy and power on perceptions of fairness.
Sociological Focus, 45(2), 125–142.
Mikula, G. (2003). Testing an attribution-of-blame model of judgments of injustice.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 33(6), 793–811.
Patty, J. W. (2008). Arguments-based collective choice. Journal of Theoretical Politics,
20(3), 379–414.
Patty, J. W., & Penn, E. M. (2014). Social choice and legitimacy: The possibilities of impossibility. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Patty, J. W., & Penn, E. M. (2015). Aggregation, evaluation, and social choice theory.
The Good Society, 24(1), 49–72.
Penn, E. M. (2016). Engagement, Disengagement, or Exit: A Theory of Equilibrium
Associations. American Journal of Political Science, 60(2), 322–336.
Penn, E. M., Patty, J. W., & Gailmard, S. (2011). Manipulation and single-peakedness:
A general result. American Journal of Political Science, 55(2), 436–449.
Peter, F. 2014. Political legitimacy. In The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy,
(Winter 2014 ed) E.N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/
archinfo.cgi?entry=legitimacy.
Ridgeway, C. L., & Berger, J. (1986). Expectations, legitimation, and dominance
behavior in task groups. American Sociological Review, 51, 603–617.
Ryfe, D. M. (2005). Does deliberative democracy work? Annual Review of Political Science, 8, 49–71.
Schneider, M., Scholz, J., Lubell, M., Mindruta, D., & Edwardsen, M. (2003). Building
consensual institutions: Networks and the National Estuary Program. American
Journal of Political Science, 47(1), 143–158.
Scott, W. R. (1995). Institutions and organizations: Ideas and interests. Los Angeles, CA:
Sage Publications.
Sitkin, S. B., & Bies, R. J. (1993). Social accounts in conflict situations: Using explanations to manage conflict. Human Relations, 46(3), 349–370.
Stolte, J. F. (1983). The legitimation of structural inequality: Reformulation and test
of the self-evaluation argument. American Sociological Review, 331–342.
Sutphin, S. T., & Simpson, B. (2009). The role of self-evaluations in legitimizing social
inequality. Social Science Research, 38(3), 609–621.

16

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Thibaut, J. W., & Walker, L. (1975). Procedural justice: A psychological analysis. Hillsdale,
NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates.
Tost, L. P. (2011). An integrative model of legitimacy judgments. Academy of Management Review, 36(4), 686–710.
Tyler, T. R. (2001). A psychological perspective on the legitimacy of institutions and
authorities. In J. T. Jost & B. Major (Eds.), The psychology of legitimacy: Emerging perspectives on ideology (pp. 416–436). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Tyler, T. R. (2006). Psychological perspectives on legitimacy and legitimation. Annual
Review of Psychology, 57, 375–400.
Vaara, E., & Tienari, J. (2008). A discursive perspective on legitimation strategies in
multinational corporations. Academy of Management Review, 33(4), 985–993.
Vaara, E., Tienari, J., & Laurila, J. (2006). Pulp and paper fiction: On the discursive
legitimation of global industrial restructuring. Organization Studies, 27(6), 789–813.
Van der Toorn, J., Tyler, T. R., & Jost, J. T. (2011). More than fair: Outcome dependence,
system justification, and the perceived legitimacy of authority figures. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 47(1), 127–138.
Weatherford, M. S. (1992). Measuring political legitimacy. American Political Science
Review, 86(01), 149–166.
Weber, M. (1968). Economy and society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations (Vol. 3). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Zelditch, M. Jr. & Walker, H. A. (1984). Legitimacy and the stability of authority.
Advances in Group Processes, 1, 1–25.

JOHN W. PATTY SHORT BIOGRAPHY
John W. Patty is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago
and the coeditor of Journal of Theoretical Politics. Professor Patty’s research
focuses on mathematical models of political institutions. His substantive
interests include the US Congress, the federal bureaucracy, American
political development, and democratic theory.
Professor Patty has published over 25 articles in peer-reviewed journals.
He also coauthored Learning While Governing (University of Chicago Press,
2012) with Sean Gailmard, which won the 2013 William H. Riker book award,
and Social Choice and Legitimacy: The Possibilities of Impossibility (Cambridge University Press, 2014) with Elizabeth Maggie Penn. He currently
serves on the editorial boards of Games, Journal of Politics, Political Analysis,
and Political Science Research and Methods.
Professor Patty received his PhD in social sciences in 2001 and his MS
in economics in 1999 from the California Institute of Technology after
receiving his BA in mathematics and economics from the University of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1996.

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

17

RELATED ESSAYS
Understanding American Political Conservatism (Political Science), Joel D.
Aberbach
Party Organizations’ Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H.
Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski
Economic Models of Voting (Political Science), Ian G. Anson and Timothy
Hellwig
The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office (Political Science),
Sarah F. Anzia
Heuristic Decision Making (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and
Nicholas J. D’Amico
Elites (Sociology), Johan S. G. Chu and Mark S. Mizruchi
Misinformation and How to Correct It (Psychology), John Cook et al.
Racial Disenfranchisement (Political Science), Vincent L. Hutchings and
Davin L. Phoenix
Political Inequality (Sociology), Jeff Manza
Participatory Governance (Political Science), Stephanie L. McNulty and Brian
Wampler
Gender and Women’s Influence in Public Settings (Political Science), Tali
Mendelberg et al.
Money in Politics (Political Science), Jeffrey Milyo
Politics of Immigration Policy (Political Science), Jeannette Money
The Politics of Disaster Relief (Political Science), Alexander J. Oliver and
Andrew Reeves
Feminists in Power (Sociology), Ann Orloff and Talia Schiff
Electoral Authoritarianism (Political Science), Andreas Schedler
Does the 1 Person 1 Vote Principle Apply? (Political Science), Ian R. Turner
et al.
Rulemaking Pursuing a Policy Agenda (Political Science), Richard W.
Waterman
Public Opinion, the 1%, and Income Redistribution (Sociology), David L.
Weakliem
Constitutionalism (Political Science), Keith E. Whittington



Perceptions of the Legitimacy of
Collective Decisions
JOHN W. PATTY

Abstract
In practical terms, political legitimacy is a subjective phenomenon, based on individuals’ perceptions. These perceptions are based on four factors: the distributive efficiency of the outcomes from the decision, the distributive fairness of those outcomes,
the equal access of the process used to make the decision, and the accountability of
that process. In addition to discussing those factors, I also address the related questions of what factors lead individuals to make legitimacy judgments and the types
of situations in which these judgments are most important.

In this essay, I discuss how individuals judge the legitimacy of collective decisions. Political legitimacy is, in the words of Peter (2014), “a virtue of political
institutions and of the decisions—about laws, policies, and candidates for
political office—made within them” and, from a subjective standpoint, legitimacy has been succinctly defined by Tyler (2006) as “the belief that authorities, institutions, and social arrangements are appropriate, proper, and just.”1
While there are many possible definitions of legitimacy, I have shaped my
discussion with Tyler’s definition as the reference point.
By considering the factors that lead people to perceive the decision of
a group to be “appropriate, proper, and just,” I am focusing on what
is often referred to as a descriptive notion of legitimacy, as opposed to a
“normative” one.2 That said, I do not rely upon this categorization in
this essay. This is because, while the question at hand—the perception of
legitimacy—essentially gives precedence to descriptive notions, it also
suggests that descriptive notions of legitimacy provide insight into the
1. Tyler (2006, p. 376).
2. Normative notions of political legitimacy are principally concerned with how political authorities
ought to behave: what kinds of actions are permissible, under what circumstances, and in what combination? Descriptive notions, on the other hand, tend to focus on the factors that lead individuals to obey
political authorities. For a succinct review of the distinctions and their historical developments, see Peter
(2014).
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Robert Scott and Marlis Buchmann (General Editors) with Stephen Kosslyn (Consulting Editor).
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

2

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

acceptance of various normative definitions.3 Put another way, I follow
authors such as Habermas and Beetham in accepting that the most useful
definitions of legitimacy include both normative and descriptive criteria.4
The ultimate goal of this essay is to provide and explain a sketch of the
features of collective decisions that lead to individuals perceiving them as
legitimate. This entails first thinking about what kinds of decisions are made
collectively, which then leads to considering how individuals evaluate such
decisions and the role that the collective nature of such decisions plays in
these evaluations. Finally, it is important to consider when legitimacy of such
decisions will tend to be important in both descriptive and normative terms.
With that broad roadmap before us, the essay proceeds as follows. I first
discuss the psychological determinants of individuals’ legitimacy judgments
(see section titled “The Psychology of Legitimacy”). After that, I consider
why it is important that I focus specifically on collective decisions (see section
titled “The Role of Collective Decisions”). Section titled “The Bases of Legitimacy Judgments” represents the heart of the essay and presents the four
basic factors that I argue undergird perceptions of the legitimacy of collective
decisions. Finally, I consider the question of when these perceptions matter
(see section titled “When Does Legitimacy Matter?”) and then offer some
directions for future work in the section titled “Concluding Thoughts: Where
Next?”.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEGITIMACY
In terms of measurement, psychological conceptions of legitimacy—in terms
of measurement—revolve around deference: put simply, legitimate policies
and institutions enjoy voluntary compliance, and illegitimate ones do not. To
be clear, the key aspect of legitimacy is the voluntary nature of the compliance. As Tyler puts it, “unlike influence based upon the influencer’s possession of power or resources, the influence motivated by legitimacy develops
from within the person who is being influenced.”5 There is now a large body
of research into what aspects of organizational structure and behavior generate the legitimating influence described by Tyler.
Procedural Fairness. One common thread running through empirical studies
of the psychological determinants of perceptions of legitimacy is the importance of the procedures that produced a policy being seen as fair (Colquitt,
Greenberg, & Zapata-Phelan, 2005; Tyler, 2001). Procedural fairness involves
various structural characteristics, including the ability for all individuals to
3. Pushing a bit farther, one could leverage the observed actions of political authorities (i.e., the
“rulers”) to gauge how individuals perceive how others (i.e., the “ruled”) perceive legitimacy.
4. For example, see Beetham (1991) and Habermas (1979). For a lengthier treatment of this topic and
the theoretical difficulties with defining legitimacy, see Patty and Penn (2014).
5. Tyler (2006, p. 378).

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

3

both submit evidence to, and have some control over, the decision process,
consistently applied procedures, reliance on accurate information, and procedures to correct mistakes.6
Explanations. A second common thread in the research on the determinants
of legitimacy is the role of explanations (Bies & Sitkin, 1992). The provision
of an explanation for an outcome increases its legitimacy, even if the explanation is not seen as satisfactory (Haines & Jost, 2000), and intergroup conflict
is reduced by “social accounts” that explain decisions (Sitkin & Bies, 1993).7
Successful (i.e., legitimating) social accounts tend to be divided into three categories: mitigating responsibilities, exonerating motives, and reframing outcomes
(Sitkin & Bies, 1993).
While procedures and justifications are important in legitimacy perceptions, it is nonetheless important to remember that an individual’s
perception of the legitimacy of a political policy or institution is a cognitive
product. Accordingly, on a day-to-day basis in the real world, an individual’s perception(s) of political legitimacy will be determined by his or her
judgment processes. Thus, a complete understanding how individuals actually perceive the legitimacy of collective decisions requires understanding
how individuals encounter and engage the question of whether a policy
or institution is in fact legitimate. In other words, when do people make
legitimacy judgments?
COGNITION AND LEGITIMACY JUDGMENTS
There is an intimate connection between legitimacy judgments and “deliberation,” or the exchanging of beliefs and reasons between individuals.8 The
psychological evidence indicates that, in practice, deliberation is “episodic,
difficult, and tentative,”9 and, at least on the margin, individuals rely on
information shortcuts, such as habits and heuristics, in order to avoid the cognitive and emotional costs of deliberation, particularly in typically low-stakes
political settings (Downs, 1957; Lau & Redlawsk, 2001). Thus, from a practical standpoint, legitimacy judgments are often determined by such informational shortcuts.
Heuristics and informational shortcuts come in various forms, but they all
generally, if imperfectly, serve to minimize an individual’s costs. Two forms
6. Procedural fairness is sometimes also referred to as procedural justice. The seminal studies along
these lines are Leventhal, Karuza, and Fry (1980) and Thibaut and Walker (1975). For an overview of the
literature, see Brockner, Ackerman, and Fairchild (2001).
7. Conflict reduction is often treated as near-equivalent to legitimacy in the psychology and organizational literatures and I leave this equivalence unchallenged.
8. At least from a theoretical standpoint, a legitimacy judgment should not only be explicable and
shareable but also be easily seen as such. For a thorough theoretical discussion of the impact of various
approaches to epistemic notions of legitimacy, see Landa and Meirowitz (2009).
9. Ryfe (2005, p. 59).

4

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

of such costs are of particular importance when considering legitimacy judgments: emotional and instrumental. Instrumental costs are particularly relevant when considering when, and about what, individuals actually make
legitimacy judgments. For example, when a person is distracted by other considerations or is otherwise unmotivated to think about a political policy or
institution, he or she is unlikely to judge its legitimacy. Of course, a lack of
individual motivation does not imply that the policy or institution is socially
or collectively unimportant. Because of this lacuna, it is risky to infer individuals’ perceptions of legitimacy from their observed deference to any given
political policy or institution. The psychological evidence suggests that individuals tend to judge the political legitimacy when the individual feels that
the stakes are high, that the individual is likely to be held accountable (called
to account) for his or her judgment, and/or belong to a diverse group.10 From
an empirical standpoint, these three factors are presumably correlated with
each other in the real world. I return to this point in the section titled “When
Does Legitimacy Matter?”.
While instrumental costs deter individuals from making legitimacy judgments at all, emotional costs loom larger when considering the impact of
these shortcuts on these judgments’ normative reliability. Specifically, if we
think that legitimacy is to some degree determined by how and whether the
citizens perceive it, then we need to worry about whether they perceive it
accurately. Most “emotional costs” associated with legitimacy judgments can
be quickly described as resulting from cognitive dissonance. As I discuss in
more detail below (see sections titled “The Bases of Legitimacy Judgments”
and “When Does Legitimacy Matter?”), the political legitimacy of a collective decision is based on principles that are often in conflict with each other.
A simple example of such a conflict occurs when a procedurally fair process produces a policy that clearly results in distributively unfair outcomes.
Evaluating the legitimacy of that policy requires one to assign primacy to
either procedural fairness or distributive fairness.11 This conflict is particularly potent for those who benefit from the policy in question.
STATUS AND LEGITIMACY JUDGMENTS
Many collective choice settings are long-lived: the procedures change rarely,
if at all, and the group tends to make the same type of policy decisions across
time. In such situations, when individuals evaluate the legitimacy of the “system” en toto, the result is a product of their evaluations of both institutions
10. For more on this, particularly in the context of deliberative democracy, see Ryfe (2005).
11. Furthermore, if such a policy is produced by an institution that itself is collectively chosen (e.g., by
a democratic legislature), this conflict can emerge when evaluating the legitimacy of the institution itself.

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

5

and policies. Furthermore, in most systems, subgroups of individuals are differentiated in procedural, substantive, and/or relational terms.12 When left
unexplained, such differentiations are presumptively unfair (Mikula, 2003).
Thus, the perceived legitimacy of the system depends on whether and how
these status differences are justified.
Regardless of the terms of the comparison, a persistence of intergroup differentiation is a difference in the statuses of the groups. Members of advantaged groups (e.g., groups that tend to have more influence on, or receive
greater benefits from, the decision process) have obvious incentives to justify
their elevated status (Della Fave, 1980), and are more likely to view the decision process as fair (Melamed, 2012). However, disadvantaged individuals
nonetheless often view the system as legitimate as well: a phenomenon that
led to system justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994). The basic foundations of
system justification by disadvantaged individuals seem to be closely related
to status quo bias (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004). That said, individuals tend
to view the system as more legitimate when they are financially dependent
upon it (Van der Toorn, Tyler, & Jost, 2011), but the degree to which one’s own
advantage in the system predisposes one to view the system as legitimate is
mixed (Stolte, 1983; Sutphin & Simpson, 2009).
Social Effects on Legitimacy Judgments. Viewed broadly, a system’s legitimacy
is collectively created or reinforced through individuals’ reactions to others’
actions in support of, or deference to, the status differentials within the
system.13 These foundations of legitimacy judgments are important for
understanding the stability (i.e., the organizational legitimacy) of collective
decision-making processes, but I set them to the side in this essay as
background conditions. That is, fundamental questions of system legitimacy
generally must be satisfied (at least among a sufficiently powerful subset of
the group’s members) for us to observe collective decisions being made.14
With that said, I now move on to consider the implications of focusing on
collective decisions.
THE ROLE OF COLLECTIVE DECISIONS
The notion of a “collective decision” can be defined in variously capacious
ways. I narrow the focus as follows: a decision is collective only if it aggregates
the information, beliefs, and/or interests of more than one person. For example, in
12. While it is of course possible that there is no differentiation between individuals, such situations
are empirically rare and, more subtly, have less need for legitimacy, as I discuss in the section titled “When
Does Legitimacy Matter?”.
13. For example, see Berger, Ridgeway, Fisek, and Norman (1998), Ridgeway and Berger (1986), Scott
(1995), and Zelditch and Walker (1984), and the edited volume by Johnson (2004). For a more general
review of social theories of legitimacy, see Johnson, Dowd, and Ridgeway (2006).
14. An interesting area for further research is how the factors identified in this essay interact with
these baseline conditions for system legitimacy.

6

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

terms of the US Federal Government, Congress produces a collective decision
whenever it passes a law, but not necessarily when one Member takes a public position, and the Supreme Court produces a collective decision whenever
it issues a ruling involving more than one Justice, but not necessarily when
a single Justice issues an emergency stay or injunction. While the Speaker of
the House or a single Justice might (rightfully) claim to speak for his or her
colleagues, I am interested in situations in which it is clear that the policy or
institution in question was chosen by a group.15
Furthermore, in terms of implementation, many decisions are better
thought of as an “order”: something that is smaller than, or ancillary to, a
collective decision. The typical distinction between an order and a collective
decision is that the order is issued by an agent or organ of the state in pursuit
of a larger goal. The larger goal, then, represents the collective decision: the
order inherits its legitimacy, in part, from that decision.16 Because much
of the legitimacy literature focuses on the legitimacy of (and/or deference
to) exercised authority, the question of where the policy or institution in
question “came from” is typically treated as one of multiple explanatory
variables. In a sense, then, the question at hand in this essay represents an
“unpacking” of this variable.
For example, it is generally and unsurprisingly found that authority is
more likely to be perceived as legitimate if the original decision—collective
or otherwise—that created and/or directs the authority is perceived as
legitimate as well. When considering orders from an agent appointed by
or responsible to another unitary actor, it is reasonable (though not wholly
uncontroversial) to suppose that the legitimacy of the more proximate
authority and that of his or her superior are defined in the very similar, if
not identical, ways.17
The distinction between how a collective decision is made and how it
is implemented is important for our purposes only insofar as sometimes
orders—or the agents who issue them—can be perceived to be illegitimate,
even though the legitimacy of the original collective decision remains
unchallenged. For example, racial profiling by agents of the state attempting
15. Space precludes a more in-depth consideration of some clearly gray areas. For example, when the
president issues an executive order, is this a collective decision? Clearly, many such putatively “unitary
decisions” are actually the product of inputs from multiple individuals, and executives often seem to
claim legitimacy for the decision by claiming that they promote collective interests. In a sense, the focus
on clearly collective decisions will illuminate how and why individuals might seek to portray their unitary
decisions as the output of collective choice processes.
16. I say “in part” because most orders are the “products” of multiple collective decisions. For
example, a subpoena might be issued by an institution that is deemed legitimate but in pursuit of an
illegitimate policy goal, or vice versa.
17. To see that legitimacy might be defined differently for a subordinate and his or her superior, consider the role of individuals such as lawyers and executors. Such “subordinates” are frequently most
legitimate precisely because they do not share the same characteristics, incentives, or information as their
superior. This tension between democratic government and efficient governance is discussed in Beetham
(1996) and Gailmard and Patty (2012).

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

7

to prevent terrorism might be perceived to be illegitimate without considering the collective decision to fight terrorism to be illegitimate, tax audits
based on partisan affiliations can be considered to be illegitimate without
challenging the legitimacy of the tax code, and so forth. It is important to
distinguish this type of situation—situations in which the orders are in
some sense inconsistent with (or superfluous to) the underlying collective
decisions. This is because, as I turn to the bases of legitimacy judgments,
individuals may judge a collective decision based not only on the decision
itself but also on the nature of the orders required to implement it. That said,
I now turn to describing four bases of legitimacy judgments.
THE BASES OF LEGITIMACY JUDGMENTS
As mentioned in the introduction, there are four basic characteristics of policies and institutions that affect their perceived legitimacy: efficiency, distributive fairness, equal access, and accountability.18 I refer to the first two of these
characteristics as substantive characteristics, and the final two as procedural
ones. I begin by discussing the substantive characteristics, because they are
arguably more frequently perceived by individuals than are the procedural
ones. Partly as a result of this, I will argue that the procedural characteristics
are ultimately more fundamentally linked with political legitimacy.
SUBSTANTIVE CRITERIA: EFFICIENCY AND DISTRIBUTIVE FAIRNESS
Unsurprisingly, individuals make legitimacy judgments about a collective
decision at least partially based on the outcomes produced by the decision.
When considering collective decisions, outcomes often do vary across individuals, so that two collective decisions can vary in terms of both efficiency
(e.g., the average outcome for all individuals) and distribution (e.g., how outcomes vary across individuals). The substantive criteria are in some sense
sufficient for perceived legitimacy because, in line with the discussion in the
section titled “Cognition and Legitimacy Judgments”, individuals will tend
to make legitimacy judgments only when the outcomes produced by a collective decision are poor, unfair, or both (Elsbach & Sutton, 1992). In practical
terms, it is when the substantive criteria are violated that a decision’s legitimacy will be “at stake.”
Efficiency. Put informally, the efficiency of a collective decision describes the
average quality of the individual outcomes resulting from the decision. In
18. The four characteristics, and their names, are borrowed from Weatherford’s empirical measure of
legitimacy of political systems (Weatherford, 1992, p. 153).

8

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

many cases, these outcomes are themselves multidimensional. For example,
and in line with the discussion in the section titled “The Role of Collective
Decisions”, the efficiency of a collective decision will depend on how it is
implemented. Collective decisions such as the Paperwork Reduction Acts of
198019 and 199520 —each of which attempted to limit the amount of information that the government could require from citizens in the normal processing
of government business—indicate the importance of efficiency in implementation. Similarly, the Budget Act of 1974,21 a collective decision intended to
streamline the federal budget process, indicates the importance of efficiency
in the decision-making process itself. For the purposes of this essay, however,
I need not distinguish between these types of procedural efficiency.22
Unsurprisingly, individuals prefer more efficient policies and institutions.
Thus, all else equal, a collective decision that is relatively inefficient compared to an alternative might be judged to be less legitimate. Of course, when
comparing two or more possible collective decisions, it is rare that all else is
equal. When all else is not equal and the less efficient alternative is chosen, the
other differences between the two potential decisions are an important part
of an explanation for the collective decision.23 More important with respect
to the role of efficiency is the fact that the efficiency of a collective decision
can usually be measured in multiple ways. As we will see, this reality leads to
efficiency considerations ultimately becoming entangled with fairness considerations.
Multiple Measures of Efficiency. As stated above, there are multiple forms
of efficiency. However, suppose that a group agrees on one unambiguously
measured form such as, say, time required to choose and implement the policy. In most cases, there will still remain ambiguity about how to measure the
efficiency of any given policy or institution. For example, suppose that one
institution, X, would require all 100 people in the group to each spend 1 h
of their time simultaneously choosing and implementing a policy and that a
second institution, Y, would require that two of the people each spend 25 h.
Supposing that X and Y will produce and implement the same policy (i.e.,
holding “all else equal”), which institution is more efficient? After all, while
X requires a greater sum of individuals’ times (i.e., more person-hours), it is
also a faster institution: the policy would be produced and implemented 24 h
earlier than if Y is used.
When evaluating collective decisions, choosing a definition of efficiency
necessarily implicates notions of fairness as well because any usable
19. Public Law No. 96-511.
20. Public Law No. 104-13.
21. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, Public Law 93-344.
22. Similarly, for reasons of space, I do not distinguish between procedural efficiency and other forms
of efficiency such as eliminating loss, waste, or fraud.
23. See the discussion of explanations in the section titled “The Psychology of Legitimacy”.

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

9

definition of efficiency makes interpersonal comparisons. From a practical
standpoint, this is important when considering what kind of explanations
individuals will find convincing: increasing efficiency cannot be pursued
without at least acknowledging related issues such as the fairness of the
process and resulting outcomes (Tost, 2011; Vaara, Tienari, & Laurila, 2006;
Vaara & Tienari, 2008), an issue to which I now turn.
Distributive Fairness. Distributive fairness refers to how outcomes vary across
individuals. The simplest (but by no means only) example of a “distributively
fair” outcome is one in which each individual receives an equal share of the
rewards. Unsurprisingly, distributive fairness is an important determinant
of perceptions of legitimacy: all else equal, individuals tend to prefer policies
and institutions that produce “more fair” outcomes. However, just as with
efficiency considerations, it is rare that all else is equal and there are many
ways to define distributive fairness.
Space precludes a thorough treatment of the variety of ways in which distributive fairness can be defined (e.g., equality vs equity), but a common characteristic of individuals’ evaluations of fairness is a role for both expectations
and deservingness. When outcomes are far from what is expected,24 individuals are more likely to evaluate both the outcomes others received and the
processes that produced them. Following on that, individuals’ expectations
about outcomes are frequently based on both systemic and idiosyncratic factors. From a systemic level, fairness is less important when the outcomes are
seen to be influenced by external factors, while idiosyncratic factors such as
one’s social status shape individuals’ expectations about outcomes.
Deservingness, or equity, is central to how individuals ultimately judge
distributive fairness. When individual outcomes are heterogeneous, the
distribution will be judged fair only to the degree that the variation can be
explained in terms of some socially accepted principle. This is, of course, a
key link between distributive fairness and the bigger concept of legitimacy:
social accounts are important in establishing (or salvaging) perceptions
of either concept. Distributive fairness is a more limited concept than
legitimacy because there are situations in which the rewards are either not
supposed to be or simply cannot be evenly distributed (election outcomes
and allocating scarce resources). In such situations, and generally when a
collective decision does not result in distributive fairness, individuals tend
to focus on procedural criteria, to which I now turn.

24. In addition, to some degree, regardless of whether outcomes are too high or too low, as alluded to
in the section titled “Status and Legitimacy Judgments”.

10

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

PROCEDURAL CRITERIA: EQUAL ACCESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Procedural determinants of legitimacy can be divided into two categories,
roughly based on timing. Regularized and transparent procedures that allow
individuals to provide input into the decision promote both individuals’ perceptions of the legitimacy of, and support for, collective decisions (Schneider, Scholz, Lubell, Mindruta, & Edwardsen, 2003). Similarly, legitimacy is
promoted by formal mechanisms for revisiting and revising prior decisions.
Putting the two together, legitimacy is bolstered by procedures that allow
individuals to both influence and ultimately judge the collective decision.25
Equal Access. A collective decision satisfies equal access if all of the affected
citizens have equal and meaningful opportunities to be involved in the
decision-making process. This is more easily stated than precisely defined,
of course. For example, guaranteeing that each person can have his or her
say can reduce what one might call the “procedural efficiency” of a decision
if the number of affected citizens is large. On the other hand, circumscribing
the right of equal access to a sample of affected citizens potentially raises
issue of fairness or representativeness.
Of course, full access to decision-making is often infeasible. In such cases,
the question of access is more properly recast as one about transparency.
While perceptions of transparency bolster perceptions of procedural fairness,
perceptions of transparency appear to be driven by external cues, rather than
the transparency of the actual process (de Fine Licht, 2014). While the effect
of transparency, per se, on legitimacy is mediated by context (De Fine Licht,
Naurin, Esaiasson, & Gilljam, 2014), this simply indicates that transparency
is not a panacea. This is not surprising: increased transparency should not
lead to higher levels of perceived legitimacy when the process that is made
transparent is actually unfair or capricious.
This is a challenge not only for transparency: true access itself is not a
panacea. After all, even if citizens perceive that they have (or had) access, it
is important that they believe that their input mattered or at least was taken
into account by the decision-makers. The degree to which the collective
decision did, or could, respond to the citizens’ inputs is what is captured by
the decision’s accountability, to which I now turn.
Accountability. A collective decision satisfies accountability if the citizens can
inquire into how and why the decision was made and if there is a way to
alter or reverse the decision. Accountability is particularly important for the
25. While space precludes a lengthy treatment of how individuals perceive and judge procedural
details, it is useful to note that there is some support for the idea that individuals judge a policy or institution by comparison through a process referred to as isomorphism (Deephouse, 1996).

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

11

decisions rendered by unelected decision-makers. Similar to equal access,
accountability is a function of transparency: a minimal requirement for a collective decision to satisfy accountability is that the citizens both know who
made the decision and have the ability to get an explanation for the decision
from this group. Thus, accountability is enhanced by the availability of transcripts, legislative histories, interviews, and other accounts regarding how
the decision was made.
It is important to remember that accountability is more than mere procedural details: accountability is also tied to the motives and goals of the
decision-makers. That is, there is more to why a group made a decision than
“a majority voted in favor of it.” Which majority, and why that one? Understanding dissent is an important determinant of individual perceptions of
legitimacy. In addition to bolstering perceptions of equal access, observing
and understanding dissent ideally allows individuals to understand why a
decision was made. There is significant evidence that the “proper” grounds
for a decision depend on the institution promulgating it (Gibson & Caldeira,
2009; Gibson, Caldeira, & Spence, 2005).
Finally, while citizens’ perceptions of the accountability of a political system are important determinants of their perceptions of the legitimacy of the
system as a whole,26 it is arguably even more important (at least from an
instrumental standpoint) that the decision-makers within a group perceive
the citizens as (potentially and ultimately) being able to hold them accountable for their decisions.27
Ultimately, accountability is based on two things: the ability of individuals
to request, and decision-makers to provide, an explanation for their decisions. In the end, such explanations, or “accounts,” reinforce organizational
legitimacy judgments (Elsbach, 1994; Weick, 1995), affecting the legitimacy
of the organization that “made” the collective decision (e.g., Congress, the
European Union, and the Supreme Court). This point is relevant when considering the question of when legitimacy perceptions are important, to which
I now turn.
WHEN DOES LEGITIMACY MATTER?
Of course, political legitimacy is relevant when evaluating a political authority. Thus, considering political legitimacy presumes that one or more groups
of individuals are at the very least “in the background” of the decisions and
actions being evaluated. This point has far-reaching implications, because
it implies that political legitimacy is intimately tied to the concept of social
26. For recent experimental evidence regarding the determinants of such perceptions and their impact
on legitimacy judgments, see Dickson, Gordon, and Huber (2015).
27. Weatherford (1992, p. 153).

12

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

welfare, broadly construed. To be quick about it, a relatively uncontroversial
position is that legitimate decisions.
Legitimacy is arguably most relevant when the decision being made
involves aggregating multiple factors or goals (Patty & Penn, 2015). Indeed,
taking Tyler’s definition of legitimacy (“appropriate, proper, and just”) as an
example, it is arguable that nearly every legitimacy judgment involves such
an aggregation: it need not be the case that the goals of appropriateness,
propriety, and justness are each maximally attained by the same decision.
More specifically, legitimacy judgments are more likely to occur when
the goals are at odds with each other. Generally speaking, challenges to
legitimacy tend to occur during times of organizational crisis or external
threat (Elsbach & Sutton, 1992).
Legitimacy and Democracy. Because political legitimacy is particularly salient
when competing goals or criteria must be weighed against one another, legitimacy challenges in democracies will tend to emerge when individuals have
competing beliefs or preferences. Taking this point seriously suggests a privileged position for the procedural determinants of legitimacy: equal access
and accountability. These determinants are tied to the belief that a collective
decision can be explained or rationalized. As discussed earlier in this essay,
few collective decisions are the subject of active legitimacy judgments. Such
judgments occur only when the stakes are high and some expectations have
been violated. It is in these situations that procedural fairness is particularly
important. When some individuals win and others lose, central to the decision being seen as legitimate is that all sides were both given access to, and
taken into account by, the decision process.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: WHERE NEXT?
While I have focused on individual perceptions of legitimacy, political legitimacy is a multilevel phenomenon, “taking on different aspects as it links
global attributes of the political system with the orientations of individual
citizens.”28 How these levels interact with each other is the subject of ongoing
theoretical and empirical work, but a basic structure consisting of individual
and collective measures of legitimacy is widely accepted as a starting point
(Bitektine & Haack, 2015). At the individual level, one can ask whether the
citizens believe a collective decision to be legitimate. Dornbusch and Scott
(1975) refer to this level of legitimacy judgment as propriety. On the other
hand, Weber (1968) famously offered the notion of validity to capture legitimacy at the collective level. Validity is essentially a two-part notion, requiring
not only that some citizens believe that the subject is legitimate but also that
28. Weatherford (1992, p. 150).

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

13

all citizens “at least know that others perceive it as legitimate and understand
that it governs behaviors.”29
In the end, legitimacy is produced by the interaction of political incentives
and procedures. In line with this, future work on legitimacy should focus
more squarely on how individuals should and do account for and respond
to procedures and their perceptions of others’ incentives. For example, how
do people evaluate trade-offs between the four bases described in the section
titled “The Bases of Legitimacy Judgments”? What leads people to recognize such trade-offs? How do they evaluate accounts for how such trade-offs
were implemented in actual decisions (Patty, 2008; Patty & Penn, 2014)? How
do people perceive the political process when deciding whether to participate (Penn, 2016)? How do individuals balance the incentives for strategic,
instrumental behavior against norms of sincere participation, and how do
procedural details affect this balancing (Gailmard, Patty, & Penn, 2008; Penn,
Patty, & Gailmard, 2011)?
These questions are important precisely because legitimacy is central to
successful governance and, more subtly, the design of procedures represents
the best tool we have at our disposal to create and sustain legitimate democratic government. By focusing more squarely on the institutional details and
how individuals perceive and account for them, we will be able to provide
more nuanced and reliable prescriptions for how democratic choices should
be made.
REFERENCES
Beetham, D. (1991). The legitimation of power. New York, NY: Palgrave.
Beetham, D. (1996). Bureaucracy (2nd ed.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota
Press.
Berger, J., Ridgeway, C. L., Fisek, M. H., & Norman, R. Z. (1998). The legitimation
and delegitimation of power and prestige orders. American Sociological Review, 63,
379–405.
Bies, R. J., & Sitkin, S. B. (1992). Explanation as legitimation: Excuse-making in organizations. In M. L. Mcaughlin, M. J. Cody & S. J. Read (Eds.), Explaining one’s self
to others: Reason-giving in a social context (pp. 183–198). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Bitektine, A., & Haack, P. (2015). The “macro” and the “micro” of legitimacy: Toward
a multilevel theory of the legitimacy process. Academy of Management Review, 40(1),
49–75.
Brockner, J., Ackerman, G., & Fairchild, G. (2001). When do elements of procedural fairness make a difference? A classification of moderating influences. In J.
Greenberg & R. Cropanzano (Eds.), Advances in organizational justice (pp. 179–212).
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
29. Tost (2011, p. 689).

14

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Colquitt, J. A., Greenberg, J., & Zapata-Phelan, C. P. (2005). What is organizational
justice? A historical overview. In J. Greenberg & J. A. Colquitt (Eds.), Handbook of
organizational justice (Vol. 1, pp. 3–58). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
de Fine Licht, J. (2014). Transparency actually: How transparency affects public
perceptions of political decision-making. European Political Science Review, 6(02),
309–330.
De Fine Licht, J., Naurin, D., Esaiasson, P., & Gilljam, M. (2014). When does transparency generate legitimacy? Experimenting on a context-bound relationship.
Governance, 27(1), 111–134.
Deephouse, D. L. (1996). Does isomorphism legitimate? Academy of Management Journal, 39(4), 1024–1039.
Della Fave, L. R. (1980). The meek shall not inherit the earth: Self-evaluation and the
legitimacy of stratification. American Sociological Review, 45, 955–971.
Dickson, E. S., Gordon, S. C., & Huber, G. A. (2015). Institutional sources of legitimate authority: An experimental investigation. American Journal of Political Science,
59(1), 109–127.
Dornbusch, S. M., & Scott, W. R. (1975). Evaluation and the exercise of authority. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Downs, A. (1957). An economic theory of democracy. New York, NY: Harper and Row.
Elsbach, K. D. (1994). Managing organizational legitimacy in the California cattle
industry: The construction and effectiveness of verbal accounts. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39(1), 57–88.
Elsbach, K. D., & Sutton, R. I. (1992). Acquiring organizational legitimacy through
illegitimate actions: A marriage of institutional and impression management theories. Academy of Management Journal, 35(4), 699–738.
Gailmard, S., & Patty, J. W. (2012). Learning while governing: Information, accountability,
and executive branch institutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Gailmard, S., Patty, J. W., & Penn, E. M. (2008). Arrow’s theorem on single-peaked
domains. In E. Aragones, H. Llavador & N. Schofield (Eds.), The political economy
of democracy. Barcelona, Spain: UAB.
Gibson, J. L., & Caldeira, G. A. (2009). Confirmation politics and the legitimacy of the
US Supreme Court: Institutional loyalty, positivity bias, and the alito nomination.
American Journal of Political Science, 53(1), 139–155.
Gibson, J. L., Caldeira, G. A., & Spence, L. K. (2005). Why do people accept public
policies they oppose? Testing legitimacy theory with a survey-based experiment.
Political Research Quarterly, 58(2), 187–201.
Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the evolution of society. Boston, MA: Beacon
Press. Translated by Thomas McCarthy.
Haines, E. L., & Jost, J. T. (2000). Placating the powerless: Effects of legitimate and illegitimate explanation on affect, memory, and stereotyping. Social Justice Research,
13(3), 219–236.
Johnson, C. (2004). Legitimacy processes in organizations. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.
Johnson, C., Dowd, T. J., & Ridgeway, C. L. (2006). Legitimacy as a social process.
Annual Review of Sociology, 32, 53–78.

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

15

Jost, J. T., & Banaji, M. R. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system-justification and
the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 1–27.
Jost, J. T., Banaji, M. R., & Nosek, B. A. (2004). A decade of system justification theory:
Accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious bolstering of the status quo.
Political psychology, 25, 881–919.
Landa, D., & Meirowitz, A. (2009). Game theory, information, and deliberative
democracy. American Journal of Political Science, 53(2), 427–444.
Lau, R. R., & Redlawsk, D. P. (2001). Advantages and disadvantages of cognitive
heuristics in political decision making. American Journal of Political Science, 45,
951–971.
Leventhal, G. S., Karuza, J., & Fry, W. R. (1980). Beyond fairness: A theory of allocation preferences. In G. Mikula (Ed.), Justice and social interaction (pp. 167–218).
Bern, Switzerland: Hans Huber.
Melamed, D. (2012). The effects of legitimacy and power on perceptions of fairness.
Sociological Focus, 45(2), 125–142.
Mikula, G. (2003). Testing an attribution-of-blame model of judgments of injustice.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 33(6), 793–811.
Patty, J. W. (2008). Arguments-based collective choice. Journal of Theoretical Politics,
20(3), 379–414.
Patty, J. W., & Penn, E. M. (2014). Social choice and legitimacy: The possibilities of impossibility. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Patty, J. W., & Penn, E. M. (2015). Aggregation, evaluation, and social choice theory.
The Good Society, 24(1), 49–72.
Penn, E. M. (2016). Engagement, Disengagement, or Exit: A Theory of Equilibrium
Associations. American Journal of Political Science, 60(2), 322–336.
Penn, E. M., Patty, J. W., & Gailmard, S. (2011). Manipulation and single-peakedness:
A general result. American Journal of Political Science, 55(2), 436–449.
Peter, F. 2014. Political legitimacy. In The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy,
(Winter 2014 ed) E.N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/
archinfo.cgi?entry=legitimacy.
Ridgeway, C. L., & Berger, J. (1986). Expectations, legitimation, and dominance
behavior in task groups. American Sociological Review, 51, 603–617.
Ryfe, D. M. (2005). Does deliberative democracy work? Annual Review of Political Science, 8, 49–71.
Schneider, M., Scholz, J., Lubell, M., Mindruta, D., & Edwardsen, M. (2003). Building
consensual institutions: Networks and the National Estuary Program. American
Journal of Political Science, 47(1), 143–158.
Scott, W. R. (1995). Institutions and organizations: Ideas and interests. Los Angeles, CA:
Sage Publications.
Sitkin, S. B., & Bies, R. J. (1993). Social accounts in conflict situations: Using explanations to manage conflict. Human Relations, 46(3), 349–370.
Stolte, J. F. (1983). The legitimation of structural inequality: Reformulation and test
of the self-evaluation argument. American Sociological Review, 331–342.
Sutphin, S. T., & Simpson, B. (2009). The role of self-evaluations in legitimizing social
inequality. Social Science Research, 38(3), 609–621.

16

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Thibaut, J. W., & Walker, L. (1975). Procedural justice: A psychological analysis. Hillsdale,
NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates.
Tost, L. P. (2011). An integrative model of legitimacy judgments. Academy of Management Review, 36(4), 686–710.
Tyler, T. R. (2001). A psychological perspective on the legitimacy of institutions and
authorities. In J. T. Jost & B. Major (Eds.), The psychology of legitimacy: Emerging perspectives on ideology (pp. 416–436). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Tyler, T. R. (2006). Psychological perspectives on legitimacy and legitimation. Annual
Review of Psychology, 57, 375–400.
Vaara, E., & Tienari, J. (2008). A discursive perspective on legitimation strategies in
multinational corporations. Academy of Management Review, 33(4), 985–993.
Vaara, E., Tienari, J., & Laurila, J. (2006). Pulp and paper fiction: On the discursive
legitimation of global industrial restructuring. Organization Studies, 27(6), 789–813.
Van der Toorn, J., Tyler, T. R., & Jost, J. T. (2011). More than fair: Outcome dependence,
system justification, and the perceived legitimacy of authority figures. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 47(1), 127–138.
Weatherford, M. S. (1992). Measuring political legitimacy. American Political Science
Review, 86(01), 149–166.
Weber, M. (1968). Economy and society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations (Vol. 3). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Zelditch, M. Jr. & Walker, H. A. (1984). Legitimacy and the stability of authority.
Advances in Group Processes, 1, 1–25.

JOHN W. PATTY SHORT BIOGRAPHY
John W. Patty is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago
and the coeditor of Journal of Theoretical Politics. Professor Patty’s research
focuses on mathematical models of political institutions. His substantive
interests include the US Congress, the federal bureaucracy, American
political development, and democratic theory.
Professor Patty has published over 25 articles in peer-reviewed journals.
He also coauthored Learning While Governing (University of Chicago Press,
2012) with Sean Gailmard, which won the 2013 William H. Riker book award,
and Social Choice and Legitimacy: The Possibilities of Impossibility (Cambridge University Press, 2014) with Elizabeth Maggie Penn. He currently
serves on the editorial boards of Games, Journal of Politics, Political Analysis,
and Political Science Research and Methods.
Professor Patty received his PhD in social sciences in 2001 and his MS
in economics in 1999 from the California Institute of Technology after
receiving his BA in mathematics and economics from the University of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1996.

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

17

RELATED ESSAYS
Understanding American Political Conservatism (Political Science), Joel D.
Aberbach
Party Organizations’ Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H.
Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski
Economic Models of Voting (Political Science), Ian G. Anson and Timothy
Hellwig
The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office (Political Science),
Sarah F. Anzia
Heuristic Decision Making (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and
Nicholas J. D’Amico
Elites (Sociology), Johan S. G. Chu and Mark S. Mizruchi
Misinformation and How to Correct It (Psychology), John Cook et al.
Racial Disenfranchisement (Political Science), Vincent L. Hutchings and
Davin L. Phoenix
Political Inequality (Sociology), Jeff Manza
Participatory Governance (Political Science), Stephanie L. McNulty and Brian
Wampler
Gender and Women’s Influence in Public Settings (Political Science), Tali
Mendelberg et al.
Money in Politics (Political Science), Jeffrey Milyo
Politics of Immigration Policy (Political Science), Jeannette Money
The Politics of Disaster Relief (Political Science), Alexander J. Oliver and
Andrew Reeves
Feminists in Power (Sociology), Ann Orloff and Talia Schiff
Electoral Authoritarianism (Political Science), Andreas Schedler
Does the 1 Person 1 Vote Principle Apply? (Political Science), Ian R. Turner
et al.
Rulemaking Pursuing a Policy Agenda (Political Science), Richard W.
Waterman
Public Opinion, the 1%, and Income Redistribution (Sociology), David L.
Weakliem
Constitutionalism (Political Science), Keith E. Whittington


Perceptions of the Legitimacy of
Collective Decisions
JOHN W. PATTY

Abstract
In practical terms, political legitimacy is a subjective phenomenon, based on individuals’ perceptions. These perceptions are based on four factors: the distributive efficiency of the outcomes from the decision, the distributive fairness of those outcomes,
the equal access of the process used to make the decision, and the accountability of
that process. In addition to discussing those factors, I also address the related questions of what factors lead individuals to make legitimacy judgments and the types
of situations in which these judgments are most important.

In this essay, I discuss how individuals judge the legitimacy of collective decisions. Political legitimacy is, in the words of Peter (2014), “a virtue of political
institutions and of the decisions—about laws, policies, and candidates for
political office—made within them” and, from a subjective standpoint, legitimacy has been succinctly defined by Tyler (2006) as “the belief that authorities, institutions, and social arrangements are appropriate, proper, and just.”1
While there are many possible definitions of legitimacy, I have shaped my
discussion with Tyler’s definition as the reference point.
By considering the factors that lead people to perceive the decision of
a group to be “appropriate, proper, and just,” I am focusing on what
is often referred to as a descriptive notion of legitimacy, as opposed to a
“normative” one.2 That said, I do not rely upon this categorization in
this essay. This is because, while the question at hand—the perception of
legitimacy—essentially gives precedence to descriptive notions, it also
suggests that descriptive notions of legitimacy provide insight into the
1. Tyler (2006, p. 376).
2. Normative notions of political legitimacy are principally concerned with how political authorities
ought to behave: what kinds of actions are permissible, under what circumstances, and in what combination? Descriptive notions, on the other hand, tend to focus on the factors that lead individuals to obey
political authorities. For a succinct review of the distinctions and their historical developments, see Peter
(2014).
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Robert Scott and Marlis Buchmann (General Editors) with Stephen Kosslyn (Consulting Editor).
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

2

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

acceptance of various normative definitions.3 Put another way, I follow
authors such as Habermas and Beetham in accepting that the most useful
definitions of legitimacy include both normative and descriptive criteria.4
The ultimate goal of this essay is to provide and explain a sketch of the
features of collective decisions that lead to individuals perceiving them as
legitimate. This entails first thinking about what kinds of decisions are made
collectively, which then leads to considering how individuals evaluate such
decisions and the role that the collective nature of such decisions plays in
these evaluations. Finally, it is important to consider when legitimacy of such
decisions will tend to be important in both descriptive and normative terms.
With that broad roadmap before us, the essay proceeds as follows. I first
discuss the psychological determinants of individuals’ legitimacy judgments
(see section titled “The Psychology of Legitimacy”). After that, I consider
why it is important that I focus specifically on collective decisions (see section
titled “The Role of Collective Decisions”). Section titled “The Bases of Legitimacy Judgments” represents the heart of the essay and presents the four
basic factors that I argue undergird perceptions of the legitimacy of collective
decisions. Finally, I consider the question of when these perceptions matter
(see section titled “When Does Legitimacy Matter?”) and then offer some
directions for future work in the section titled “Concluding Thoughts: Where
Next?”.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEGITIMACY
In terms of measurement, psychological conceptions of legitimacy—in terms
of measurement—revolve around deference: put simply, legitimate policies
and institutions enjoy voluntary compliance, and illegitimate ones do not. To
be clear, the key aspect of legitimacy is the voluntary nature of the compliance. As Tyler puts it, “unlike influence based upon the influencer’s possession of power or resources, the influence motivated by legitimacy develops
from within the person who is being influenced.”5 There is now a large body
of research into what aspects of organizational structure and behavior generate the legitimating influence described by Tyler.
Procedural Fairness. One common thread running through empirical studies
of the psychological determinants of perceptions of legitimacy is the importance of the procedures that produced a policy being seen as fair (Colquitt,
Greenberg, & Zapata-Phelan, 2005; Tyler, 2001). Procedural fairness involves
various structural characteristics, including the ability for all individuals to
3. Pushing a bit farther, one could leverage the observed actions of political authorities (i.e., the
“rulers”) to gauge how individuals perceive how others (i.e., the “ruled”) perceive legitimacy.
4. For example, see Beetham (1991) and Habermas (1979). For a lengthier treatment of this topic and
the theoretical difficulties with defining legitimacy, see Patty and Penn (2014).
5. Tyler (2006, p. 378).

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

3

both submit evidence to, and have some control over, the decision process,
consistently applied procedures, reliance on accurate information, and procedures to correct mistakes.6
Explanations. A second common thread in the research on the determinants
of legitimacy is the role of explanations (Bies & Sitkin, 1992). The provision
of an explanation for an outcome increases its legitimacy, even if the explanation is not seen as satisfactory (Haines & Jost, 2000), and intergroup conflict
is reduced by “social accounts” that explain decisions (Sitkin & Bies, 1993).7
Successful (i.e., legitimating) social accounts tend to be divided into three categories: mitigating responsibilities, exonerating motives, and reframing outcomes
(Sitkin & Bies, 1993).
While procedures and justifications are important in legitimacy perceptions, it is nonetheless important to remember that an individual’s
perception of the legitimacy of a political policy or institution is a cognitive
product. Accordingly, on a day-to-day basis in the real world, an individual’s perception(s) of political legitimacy will be determined by his or her
judgment processes. Thus, a complete understanding how individuals actually perceive the legitimacy of collective decisions requires understanding
how individuals encounter and engage the question of whether a policy
or institution is in fact legitimate. In other words, when do people make
legitimacy judgments?
COGNITION AND LEGITIMACY JUDGMENTS
There is an intimate connection between legitimacy judgments and “deliberation,” or the exchanging of beliefs and reasons between individuals.8 The
psychological evidence indicates that, in practice, deliberation is “episodic,
difficult, and tentative,”9 and, at least on the margin, individuals rely on
information shortcuts, such as habits and heuristics, in order to avoid the cognitive and emotional costs of deliberation, particularly in typically low-stakes
political settings (Downs, 1957; Lau & Redlawsk, 2001). Thus, from a practical standpoint, legitimacy judgments are often determined by such informational shortcuts.
Heuristics and informational shortcuts come in various forms, but they all
generally, if imperfectly, serve to minimize an individual’s costs. Two forms
6. Procedural fairness is sometimes also referred to as procedural justice. The seminal studies along
these lines are Leventhal, Karuza, and Fry (1980) and Thibaut and Walker (1975). For an overview of the
literature, see Brockner, Ackerman, and Fairchild (2001).
7. Conflict reduction is often treated as near-equivalent to legitimacy in the psychology and organizational literatures and I leave this equivalence unchallenged.
8. At least from a theoretical standpoint, a legitimacy judgment should not only be explicable and
shareable but also be easily seen as such. For a thorough theoretical discussion of the impact of various
approaches to epistemic notions of legitimacy, see Landa and Meirowitz (2009).
9. Ryfe (2005, p. 59).

4

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

of such costs are of particular importance when considering legitimacy judgments: emotional and instrumental. Instrumental costs are particularly relevant when considering when, and about what, individuals actually make
legitimacy judgments. For example, when a person is distracted by other considerations or is otherwise unmotivated to think about a political policy or
institution, he or she is unlikely to judge its legitimacy. Of course, a lack of
individual motivation does not imply that the policy or institution is socially
or collectively unimportant. Because of this lacuna, it is risky to infer individuals’ perceptions of legitimacy from their observed deference to any given
political policy or institution. The psychological evidence suggests that individuals tend to judge the political legitimacy when the individual feels that
the stakes are high, that the individual is likely to be held accountable (called
to account) for his or her judgment, and/or belong to a diverse group.10 From
an empirical standpoint, these three factors are presumably correlated with
each other in the real world. I return to this point in the section titled “When
Does Legitimacy Matter?”.
While instrumental costs deter individuals from making legitimacy judgments at all, emotional costs loom larger when considering the impact of
these shortcuts on these judgments’ normative reliability. Specifically, if we
think that legitimacy is to some degree determined by how and whether the
citizens perceive it, then we need to worry about whether they perceive it
accurately. Most “emotional costs” associated with legitimacy judgments can
be quickly described as resulting from cognitive dissonance. As I discuss in
more detail below (see sections titled “The Bases of Legitimacy Judgments”
and “When Does Legitimacy Matter?”), the political legitimacy of a collective decision is based on principles that are often in conflict with each other.
A simple example of such a conflict occurs when a procedurally fair process produces a policy that clearly results in distributively unfair outcomes.
Evaluating the legitimacy of that policy requires one to assign primacy to
either procedural fairness or distributive fairness.11 This conflict is particularly potent for those who benefit from the policy in question.
STATUS AND LEGITIMACY JUDGMENTS
Many collective choice settings are long-lived: the procedures change rarely,
if at all, and the group tends to make the same type of policy decisions across
time. In such situations, when individuals evaluate the legitimacy of the “system” en toto, the result is a product of their evaluations of both institutions
10. For more on this, particularly in the context of deliberative democracy, see Ryfe (2005).
11. Furthermore, if such a policy is produced by an institution that itself is collectively chosen (e.g., by
a democratic legislature), this conflict can emerge when evaluating the legitimacy of the institution itself.

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

5

and policies. Furthermore, in most systems, subgroups of individuals are differentiated in procedural, substantive, and/or relational terms.12 When left
unexplained, such differentiations are presumptively unfair (Mikula, 2003).
Thus, the perceived legitimacy of the system depends on whether and how
these status differences are justified.
Regardless of the terms of the comparison, a persistence of intergroup differentiation is a difference in the statuses of the groups. Members of advantaged groups (e.g., groups that tend to have more influence on, or receive
greater benefits from, the decision process) have obvious incentives to justify
their elevated status (Della Fave, 1980), and are more likely to view the decision process as fair (Melamed, 2012). However, disadvantaged individuals
nonetheless often view the system as legitimate as well: a phenomenon that
led to system justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994). The basic foundations of
system justification by disadvantaged individuals seem to be closely related
to status quo bias (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004). That said, individuals tend
to view the system as more legitimate when they are financially dependent
upon it (Van der Toorn, Tyler, & Jost, 2011), but the degree to which one’s own
advantage in the system predisposes one to view the system as legitimate is
mixed (Stolte, 1983; Sutphin & Simpson, 2009).
Social Effects on Legitimacy Judgments. Viewed broadly, a system’s legitimacy
is collectively created or reinforced through individuals’ reactions to others’
actions in support of, or deference to, the status differentials within the
system.13 These foundations of legitimacy judgments are important for
understanding the stability (i.e., the organizational legitimacy) of collective
decision-making processes, but I set them to the side in this essay as
background conditions. That is, fundamental questions of system legitimacy
generally must be satisfied (at least among a sufficiently powerful subset of
the group’s members) for us to observe collective decisions being made.14
With that said, I now move on to consider the implications of focusing on
collective decisions.
THE ROLE OF COLLECTIVE DECISIONS
The notion of a “collective decision” can be defined in variously capacious
ways. I narrow the focus as follows: a decision is collective only if it aggregates
the information, beliefs, and/or interests of more than one person. For example, in
12. While it is of course possible that there is no differentiation between individuals, such situations
are empirically rare and, more subtly, have less need for legitimacy, as I discuss in the section titled “When
Does Legitimacy Matter?”.
13. For example, see Berger, Ridgeway, Fisek, and Norman (1998), Ridgeway and Berger (1986), Scott
(1995), and Zelditch and Walker (1984), and the edited volume by Johnson (2004). For a more general
review of social theories of legitimacy, see Johnson, Dowd, and Ridgeway (2006).
14. An interesting area for further research is how the factors identified in this essay interact with
these baseline conditions for system legitimacy.

6

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

terms of the US Federal Government, Congress produces a collective decision
whenever it passes a law, but not necessarily when one Member takes a public position, and the Supreme Court produces a collective decision whenever
it issues a ruling involving more than one Justice, but not necessarily when
a single Justice issues an emergency stay or injunction. While the Speaker of
the House or a single Justice might (rightfully) claim to speak for his or her
colleagues, I am interested in situations in which it is clear that the policy or
institution in question was chosen by a group.15
Furthermore, in terms of implementation, many decisions are better
thought of as an “order”: something that is smaller than, or ancillary to, a
collective decision. The typical distinction between an order and a collective
decision is that the order is issued by an agent or organ of the state in pursuit
of a larger goal. The larger goal, then, represents the collective decision: the
order inherits its legitimacy, in part, from that decision.16 Because much
of the legitimacy literature focuses on the legitimacy of (and/or deference
to) exercised authority, the question of where the policy or institution in
question “came from” is typically treated as one of multiple explanatory
variables. In a sense, then, the question at hand in this essay represents an
“unpacking” of this variable.
For example, it is generally and unsurprisingly found that authority is
more likely to be perceived as legitimate if the original decision—collective
or otherwise—that created and/or directs the authority is perceived as
legitimate as well. When considering orders from an agent appointed by
or responsible to another unitary actor, it is reasonable (though not wholly
uncontroversial) to suppose that the legitimacy of the more proximate
authority and that of his or her superior are defined in the very similar, if
not identical, ways.17
The distinction between how a collective decision is made and how it
is implemented is important for our purposes only insofar as sometimes
orders—or the agents who issue them—can be perceived to be illegitimate,
even though the legitimacy of the original collective decision remains
unchallenged. For example, racial profiling by agents of the state attempting
15. Space precludes a more in-depth consideration of some clearly gray areas. For example, when the
president issues an executive order, is this a collective decision? Clearly, many such putatively “unitary
decisions” are actually the product of inputs from multiple individuals, and executives often seem to
claim legitimacy for the decision by claiming that they promote collective interests. In a sense, the focus
on clearly collective decisions will illuminate how and why individuals might seek to portray their unitary
decisions as the output of collective choice processes.
16. I say “in part” because most orders are the “products” of multiple collective decisions. For
example, a subpoena might be issued by an institution that is deemed legitimate but in pursuit of an
illegitimate policy goal, or vice versa.
17. To see that legitimacy might be defined differently for a subordinate and his or her superior, consider the role of individuals such as lawyers and executors. Such “subordinates” are frequently most
legitimate precisely because they do not share the same characteristics, incentives, or information as their
superior. This tension between democratic government and efficient governance is discussed in Beetham
(1996) and Gailmard and Patty (2012).

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

7

to prevent terrorism might be perceived to be illegitimate without considering the collective decision to fight terrorism to be illegitimate, tax audits
based on partisan affiliations can be considered to be illegitimate without
challenging the legitimacy of the tax code, and so forth. It is important to
distinguish this type of situation—situations in which the orders are in
some sense inconsistent with (or superfluous to) the underlying collective
decisions. This is because, as I turn to the bases of legitimacy judgments,
individuals may judge a collective decision based not only on the decision
itself but also on the nature of the orders required to implement it. That said,
I now turn to describing four bases of legitimacy judgments.
THE BASES OF LEGITIMACY JUDGMENTS
As mentioned in the introduction, there are four basic characteristics of policies and institutions that affect their perceived legitimacy: efficiency, distributive fairness, equal access, and accountability.18 I refer to the first two of these
characteristics as substantive characteristics, and the final two as procedural
ones. I begin by discussing the substantive characteristics, because they are
arguably more frequently perceived by individuals than are the procedural
ones. Partly as a result of this, I will argue that the procedural characteristics
are ultimately more fundamentally linked with political legitimacy.
SUBSTANTIVE CRITERIA: EFFICIENCY AND DISTRIBUTIVE FAIRNESS
Unsurprisingly, individuals make legitimacy judgments about a collective
decision at least partially based on the outcomes produced by the decision.
When considering collective decisions, outcomes often do vary across individuals, so that two collective decisions can vary in terms of both efficiency
(e.g., the average outcome for all individuals) and distribution (e.g., how outcomes vary across individuals). The substantive criteria are in some sense
sufficient for perceived legitimacy because, in line with the discussion in the
section titled “Cognition and Legitimacy Judgments”, individuals will tend
to make legitimacy judgments only when the outcomes produced by a collective decision are poor, unfair, or both (Elsbach & Sutton, 1992). In practical
terms, it is when the substantive criteria are violated that a decision’s legitimacy will be “at stake.”
Efficiency. Put informally, the efficiency of a collective decision describes the
average quality of the individual outcomes resulting from the decision. In
18. The four characteristics, and their names, are borrowed from Weatherford’s empirical measure of
legitimacy of political systems (Weatherford, 1992, p. 153).

8

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

many cases, these outcomes are themselves multidimensional. For example,
and in line with the discussion in the section titled “The Role of Collective
Decisions”, the efficiency of a collective decision will depend on how it is
implemented. Collective decisions such as the Paperwork Reduction Acts of
198019 and 199520 —each of which attempted to limit the amount of information that the government could require from citizens in the normal processing
of government business—indicate the importance of efficiency in implementation. Similarly, the Budget Act of 1974,21 a collective decision intended to
streamline the federal budget process, indicates the importance of efficiency
in the decision-making process itself. For the purposes of this essay, however,
I need not distinguish between these types of procedural efficiency.22
Unsurprisingly, individuals prefer more efficient policies and institutions.
Thus, all else equal, a collective decision that is relatively inefficient compared to an alternative might be judged to be less legitimate. Of course, when
comparing two or more possible collective decisions, it is rare that all else is
equal. When all else is not equal and the less efficient alternative is chosen, the
other differences between the two potential decisions are an important part
of an explanation for the collective decision.23 More important with respect
to the role of efficiency is the fact that the efficiency of a collective decision
can usually be measured in multiple ways. As we will see, this reality leads to
efficiency considerations ultimately becoming entangled with fairness considerations.
Multiple Measures of Efficiency. As stated above, there are multiple forms
of efficiency. However, suppose that a group agrees on one unambiguously
measured form such as, say, time required to choose and implement the policy. In most cases, there will still remain ambiguity about how to measure the
efficiency of any given policy or institution. For example, suppose that one
institution, X, would require all 100 people in the group to each spend 1 h
of their time simultaneously choosing and implementing a policy and that a
second institution, Y, would require that two of the people each spend 25 h.
Supposing that X and Y will produce and implement the same policy (i.e.,
holding “all else equal”), which institution is more efficient? After all, while
X requires a greater sum of individuals’ times (i.e., more person-hours), it is
also a faster institution: the policy would be produced and implemented 24 h
earlier than if Y is used.
When evaluating collective decisions, choosing a definition of efficiency
necessarily implicates notions of fairness as well because any usable
19. Public Law No. 96-511.
20. Public Law No. 104-13.
21. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, Public Law 93-344.
22. Similarly, for reasons of space, I do not distinguish between procedural efficiency and other forms
of efficiency such as eliminating loss, waste, or fraud.
23. See the discussion of explanations in the section titled “The Psychology of Legitimacy”.

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

9

definition of efficiency makes interpersonal comparisons. From a practical
standpoint, this is important when considering what kind of explanations
individuals will find convincing: increasing efficiency cannot be pursued
without at least acknowledging related issues such as the fairness of the
process and resulting outcomes (Tost, 2011; Vaara, Tienari, & Laurila, 2006;
Vaara & Tienari, 2008), an issue to which I now turn.
Distributive Fairness. Distributive fairness refers to how outcomes vary across
individuals. The simplest (but by no means only) example of a “distributively
fair” outcome is one in which each individual receives an equal share of the
rewards. Unsurprisingly, distributive fairness is an important determinant
of perceptions of legitimacy: all else equal, individuals tend to prefer policies
and institutions that produce “more fair” outcomes. However, just as with
efficiency considerations, it is rare that all else is equal and there are many
ways to define distributive fairness.
Space precludes a thorough treatment of the variety of ways in which distributive fairness can be defined (e.g., equality vs equity), but a common characteristic of individuals’ evaluations of fairness is a role for both expectations
and deservingness. When outcomes are far from what is expected,24 individuals are more likely to evaluate both the outcomes others received and the
processes that produced them. Following on that, individuals’ expectations
about outcomes are frequently based on both systemic and idiosyncratic factors. From a systemic level, fairness is less important when the outcomes are
seen to be influenced by external factors, while idiosyncratic factors such as
one’s social status shape individuals’ expectations about outcomes.
Deservingness, or equity, is central to how individuals ultimately judge
distributive fairness. When individual outcomes are heterogeneous, the
distribution will be judged fair only to the degree that the variation can be
explained in terms of some socially accepted principle. This is, of course, a
key link between distributive fairness and the bigger concept of legitimacy:
social accounts are important in establishing (or salvaging) perceptions
of either concept. Distributive fairness is a more limited concept than
legitimacy because there are situations in which the rewards are either not
supposed to be or simply cannot be evenly distributed (election outcomes
and allocating scarce resources). In such situations, and generally when a
collective decision does not result in distributive fairness, individuals tend
to focus on procedural criteria, to which I now turn.

24. In addition, to some degree, regardless of whether outcomes are too high or too low, as alluded to
in the section titled “Status and Legitimacy Judgments”.

10

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

PROCEDURAL CRITERIA: EQUAL ACCESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Procedural determinants of legitimacy can be divided into two categories,
roughly based on timing. Regularized and transparent procedures that allow
individuals to provide input into the decision promote both individuals’ perceptions of the legitimacy of, and support for, collective decisions (Schneider, Scholz, Lubell, Mindruta, & Edwardsen, 2003). Similarly, legitimacy is
promoted by formal mechanisms for revisiting and revising prior decisions.
Putting the two together, legitimacy is bolstered by procedures that allow
individuals to both influence and ultimately judge the collective decision.25
Equal Access. A collective decision satisfies equal access if all of the affected
citizens have equal and meaningful opportunities to be involved in the
decision-making process. This is more easily stated than precisely defined,
of course. For example, guaranteeing that each person can have his or her
say can reduce what one might call the “procedural efficiency” of a decision
if the number of affected citizens is large. On the other hand, circumscribing
the right of equal access to a sample of affected citizens potentially raises
issue of fairness or representativeness.
Of course, full access to decision-making is often infeasible. In such cases,
the question of access is more properly recast as one about transparency.
While perceptions of transparency bolster perceptions of procedural fairness,
perceptions of transparency appear to be driven by external cues, rather than
the transparency of the actual process (de Fine Licht, 2014). While the effect
of transparency, per se, on legitimacy is mediated by context (De Fine Licht,
Naurin, Esaiasson, & Gilljam, 2014), this simply indicates that transparency
is not a panacea. This is not surprising: increased transparency should not
lead to higher levels of perceived legitimacy when the process that is made
transparent is actually unfair or capricious.
This is a challenge not only for transparency: true access itself is not a
panacea. After all, even if citizens perceive that they have (or had) access, it
is important that they believe that their input mattered or at least was taken
into account by the decision-makers. The degree to which the collective
decision did, or could, respond to the citizens’ inputs is what is captured by
the decision’s accountability, to which I now turn.
Accountability. A collective decision satisfies accountability if the citizens can
inquire into how and why the decision was made and if there is a way to
alter or reverse the decision. Accountability is particularly important for the
25. While space precludes a lengthy treatment of how individuals perceive and judge procedural
details, it is useful to note that there is some support for the idea that individuals judge a policy or institution by comparison through a process referred to as isomorphism (Deephouse, 1996).

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

11

decisions rendered by unelected decision-makers. Similar to equal access,
accountability is a function of transparency: a minimal requirement for a collective decision to satisfy accountability is that the citizens both know who
made the decision and have the ability to get an explanation for the decision
from this group. Thus, accountability is enhanced by the availability of transcripts, legislative histories, interviews, and other accounts regarding how
the decision was made.
It is important to remember that accountability is more than mere procedural details: accountability is also tied to the motives and goals of the
decision-makers. That is, there is more to why a group made a decision than
“a majority voted in favor of it.” Which majority, and why that one? Understanding dissent is an important determinant of individual perceptions of
legitimacy. In addition to bolstering perceptions of equal access, observing
and understanding dissent ideally allows individuals to understand why a
decision was made. There is significant evidence that the “proper” grounds
for a decision depend on the institution promulgating it (Gibson & Caldeira,
2009; Gibson, Caldeira, & Spence, 2005).
Finally, while citizens’ perceptions of the accountability of a political system are important determinants of their perceptions of the legitimacy of the
system as a whole,26 it is arguably even more important (at least from an
instrumental standpoint) that the decision-makers within a group perceive
the citizens as (potentially and ultimately) being able to hold them accountable for their decisions.27
Ultimately, accountability is based on two things: the ability of individuals
to request, and decision-makers to provide, an explanation for their decisions. In the end, such explanations, or “accounts,” reinforce organizational
legitimacy judgments (Elsbach, 1994; Weick, 1995), affecting the legitimacy
of the organization that “made” the collective decision (e.g., Congress, the
European Union, and the Supreme Court). This point is relevant when considering the question of when legitimacy perceptions are important, to which
I now turn.
WHEN DOES LEGITIMACY MATTER?
Of course, political legitimacy is relevant when evaluating a political authority. Thus, considering political legitimacy presumes that one or more groups
of individuals are at the very least “in the background” of the decisions and
actions being evaluated. This point has far-reaching implications, because
it implies that political legitimacy is intimately tied to the concept of social
26. For recent experimental evidence regarding the determinants of such perceptions and their impact
on legitimacy judgments, see Dickson, Gordon, and Huber (2015).
27. Weatherford (1992, p. 153).

12

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

welfare, broadly construed. To be quick about it, a relatively uncontroversial
position is that legitimate decisions.
Legitimacy is arguably most relevant when the decision being made
involves aggregating multiple factors or goals (Patty & Penn, 2015). Indeed,
taking Tyler’s definition of legitimacy (“appropriate, proper, and just”) as an
example, it is arguable that nearly every legitimacy judgment involves such
an aggregation: it need not be the case that the goals of appropriateness,
propriety, and justness are each maximally attained by the same decision.
More specifically, legitimacy judgments are more likely to occur when
the goals are at odds with each other. Generally speaking, challenges to
legitimacy tend to occur during times of organizational crisis or external
threat (Elsbach & Sutton, 1992).
Legitimacy and Democracy. Because political legitimacy is particularly salient
when competing goals or criteria must be weighed against one another, legitimacy challenges in democracies will tend to emerge when individuals have
competing beliefs or preferences. Taking this point seriously suggests a privileged position for the procedural determinants of legitimacy: equal access
and accountability. These determinants are tied to the belief that a collective
decision can be explained or rationalized. As discussed earlier in this essay,
few collective decisions are the subject of active legitimacy judgments. Such
judgments occur only when the stakes are high and some expectations have
been violated. It is in these situations that procedural fairness is particularly
important. When some individuals win and others lose, central to the decision being seen as legitimate is that all sides were both given access to, and
taken into account by, the decision process.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: WHERE NEXT?
While I have focused on individual perceptions of legitimacy, political legitimacy is a multilevel phenomenon, “taking on different aspects as it links
global attributes of the political system with the orientations of individual
citizens.”28 How these levels interact with each other is the subject of ongoing
theoretical and empirical work, but a basic structure consisting of individual
and collective measures of legitimacy is widely accepted as a starting point
(Bitektine & Haack, 2015). At the individual level, one can ask whether the
citizens believe a collective decision to be legitimate. Dornbusch and Scott
(1975) refer to this level of legitimacy judgment as propriety. On the other
hand, Weber (1968) famously offered the notion of validity to capture legitimacy at the collective level. Validity is essentially a two-part notion, requiring
not only that some citizens believe that the subject is legitimate but also that
28. Weatherford (1992, p. 150).

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

13

all citizens “at least know that others perceive it as legitimate and understand
that it governs behaviors.”29
In the end, legitimacy is produced by the interaction of political incentives
and procedures. In line with this, future work on legitimacy should focus
more squarely on how individuals should and do account for and respond
to procedures and their perceptions of others’ incentives. For example, how
do people evaluate trade-offs between the four bases described in the section
titled “The Bases of Legitimacy Judgments”? What leads people to recognize such trade-offs? How do they evaluate accounts for how such trade-offs
were implemented in actual decisions (Patty, 2008; Patty & Penn, 2014)? How
do people perceive the political process when deciding whether to participate (Penn, 2016)? How do individuals balance the incentives for strategic,
instrumental behavior against norms of sincere participation, and how do
procedural details affect this balancing (Gailmard, Patty, & Penn, 2008; Penn,
Patty, & Gailmard, 2011)?
These questions are important precisely because legitimacy is central to
successful governance and, more subtly, the design of procedures represents
the best tool we have at our disposal to create and sustain legitimate democratic government. By focusing more squarely on the institutional details and
how individuals perceive and account for them, we will be able to provide
more nuanced and reliable prescriptions for how democratic choices should
be made.
REFERENCES
Beetham, D. (1991). The legitimation of power. New York, NY: Palgrave.
Beetham, D. (1996). Bureaucracy (2nd ed.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota
Press.
Berger, J., Ridgeway, C. L., Fisek, M. H., & Norman, R. Z. (1998). The legitimation
and delegitimation of power and prestige orders. American Sociological Review, 63,
379–405.
Bies, R. J., & Sitkin, S. B. (1992). Explanation as legitimation: Excuse-making in organizations. In M. L. Mcaughlin, M. J. Cody & S. J. Read (Eds.), Explaining one’s self
to others: Reason-giving in a social context (pp. 183–198). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Bitektine, A., & Haack, P. (2015). The “macro” and the “micro” of legitimacy: Toward
a multilevel theory of the legitimacy process. Academy of Management Review, 40(1),
49–75.
Brockner, J., Ackerman, G., & Fairchild, G. (2001). When do elements of procedural fairness make a difference? A classification of moderating influences. In J.
Greenberg & R. Cropanzano (Eds.), Advances in organizational justice (pp. 179–212).
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
29. Tost (2011, p. 689).

14

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Colquitt, J. A., Greenberg, J., & Zapata-Phelan, C. P. (2005). What is organizational
justice? A historical overview. In J. Greenberg & J. A. Colquitt (Eds.), Handbook of
organizational justice (Vol. 1, pp. 3–58). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
de Fine Licht, J. (2014). Transparency actually: How transparency affects public
perceptions of political decision-making. European Political Science Review, 6(02),
309–330.
De Fine Licht, J., Naurin, D., Esaiasson, P., & Gilljam, M. (2014). When does transparency generate legitimacy? Experimenting on a context-bound relationship.
Governance, 27(1), 111–134.
Deephouse, D. L. (1996). Does isomorphism legitimate? Academy of Management Journal, 39(4), 1024–1039.
Della Fave, L. R. (1980). The meek shall not inherit the earth: Self-evaluation and the
legitimacy of stratification. American Sociological Review, 45, 955–971.
Dickson, E. S., Gordon, S. C., & Huber, G. A. (2015). Institutional sources of legitimate authority: An experimental investigation. American Journal of Political Science,
59(1), 109–127.
Dornbusch, S. M., & Scott, W. R. (1975). Evaluation and the exercise of authority. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Downs, A. (1957). An economic theory of democracy. New York, NY: Harper and Row.
Elsbach, K. D. (1994). Managing organizational legitimacy in the California cattle
industry: The construction and effectiveness of verbal accounts. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39(1), 57–88.
Elsbach, K. D., & Sutton, R. I. (1992). Acquiring organizational legitimacy through
illegitimate actions: A marriage of institutional and impression management theories. Academy of Management Journal, 35(4), 699–738.
Gailmard, S., & Patty, J. W. (2012). Learning while governing: Information, accountability,
and executive branch institutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Gailmard, S., Patty, J. W., & Penn, E. M. (2008). Arrow’s theorem on single-peaked
domains. In E. Aragones, H. Llavador & N. Schofield (Eds.), The political economy
of democracy. Barcelona, Spain: UAB.
Gibson, J. L., & Caldeira, G. A. (2009). Confirmation politics and the legitimacy of the
US Supreme Court: Institutional loyalty, positivity bias, and the alito nomination.
American Journal of Political Science, 53(1), 139–155.
Gibson, J. L., Caldeira, G. A., & Spence, L. K. (2005). Why do people accept public
policies they oppose? Testing legitimacy theory with a survey-based experiment.
Political Research Quarterly, 58(2), 187–201.
Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the evolution of society. Boston, MA: Beacon
Press. Translated by Thomas McCarthy.
Haines, E. L., & Jost, J. T. (2000). Placating the powerless: Effects of legitimate and illegitimate explanation on affect, memory, and stereotyping. Social Justice Research,
13(3), 219–236.
Johnson, C. (2004). Legitimacy processes in organizations. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.
Johnson, C., Dowd, T. J., & Ridgeway, C. L. (2006). Legitimacy as a social process.
Annual Review of Sociology, 32, 53–78.

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

15

Jost, J. T., & Banaji, M. R. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system-justification and
the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 1–27.
Jost, J. T., Banaji, M. R., & Nosek, B. A. (2004). A decade of system justification theory:
Accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious bolstering of the status quo.
Political psychology, 25, 881–919.
Landa, D., & Meirowitz, A. (2009). Game theory, information, and deliberative
democracy. American Journal of Political Science, 53(2), 427–444.
Lau, R. R., & Redlawsk, D. P. (2001). Advantages and disadvantages of cognitive
heuristics in political decision making. American Journal of Political Science, 45,
951–971.
Leventhal, G. S., Karuza, J., & Fry, W. R. (1980). Beyond fairness: A theory of allocation preferences. In G. Mikula (Ed.), Justice and social interaction (pp. 167–218).
Bern, Switzerland: Hans Huber.
Melamed, D. (2012). The effects of legitimacy and power on perceptions of fairness.
Sociological Focus, 45(2), 125–142.
Mikula, G. (2003). Testing an attribution-of-blame model of judgments of injustice.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 33(6), 793–811.
Patty, J. W. (2008). Arguments-based collective choice. Journal of Theoretical Politics,
20(3), 379–414.
Patty, J. W., & Penn, E. M. (2014). Social choice and legitimacy: The possibilities of impossibility. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Patty, J. W., & Penn, E. M. (2015). Aggregation, evaluation, and social choice theory.
The Good Society, 24(1), 49–72.
Penn, E. M. (2016). Engagement, Disengagement, or Exit: A Theory of Equilibrium
Associations. American Journal of Political Science, 60(2), 322–336.
Penn, E. M., Patty, J. W., & Gailmard, S. (2011). Manipulation and single-peakedness:
A general result. American Journal of Political Science, 55(2), 436–449.
Peter, F. 2014. Political legitimacy. In The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy,
(Winter 2014 ed) E.N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/
archinfo.cgi?entry=legitimacy.
Ridgeway, C. L., & Berger, J. (1986). Expectations, legitimation, and dominance
behavior in task groups. American Sociological Review, 51, 603–617.
Ryfe, D. M. (2005). Does deliberative democracy work? Annual Review of Political Science, 8, 49–71.
Schneider, M., Scholz, J., Lubell, M., Mindruta, D., & Edwardsen, M. (2003). Building
consensual institutions: Networks and the National Estuary Program. American
Journal of Political Science, 47(1), 143–158.
Scott, W. R. (1995). Institutions and organizations: Ideas and interests. Los Angeles, CA:
Sage Publications.
Sitkin, S. B., & Bies, R. J. (1993). Social accounts in conflict situations: Using explanations to manage conflict. Human Relations, 46(3), 349–370.
Stolte, J. F. (1983). The legitimation of structural inequality: Reformulation and test
of the self-evaluation argument. American Sociological Review, 331–342.
Sutphin, S. T., & Simpson, B. (2009). The role of self-evaluations in legitimizing social
inequality. Social Science Research, 38(3), 609–621.

16

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Thibaut, J. W., & Walker, L. (1975). Procedural justice: A psychological analysis. Hillsdale,
NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates.
Tost, L. P. (2011). An integrative model of legitimacy judgments. Academy of Management Review, 36(4), 686–710.
Tyler, T. R. (2001). A psychological perspective on the legitimacy of institutions and
authorities. In J. T. Jost & B. Major (Eds.), The psychology of legitimacy: Emerging perspectives on ideology (pp. 416–436). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Tyler, T. R. (2006). Psychological perspectives on legitimacy and legitimation. Annual
Review of Psychology, 57, 375–400.
Vaara, E., & Tienari, J. (2008). A discursive perspective on legitimation strategies in
multinational corporations. Academy of Management Review, 33(4), 985–993.
Vaara, E., Tienari, J., & Laurila, J. (2006). Pulp and paper fiction: On the discursive
legitimation of global industrial restructuring. Organization Studies, 27(6), 789–813.
Van der Toorn, J., Tyler, T. R., & Jost, J. T. (2011). More than fair: Outcome dependence,
system justification, and the perceived legitimacy of authority figures. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 47(1), 127–138.
Weatherford, M. S. (1992). Measuring political legitimacy. American Political Science
Review, 86(01), 149–166.
Weber, M. (1968). Economy and society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations (Vol. 3). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Zelditch, M. Jr. & Walker, H. A. (1984). Legitimacy and the stability of authority.
Advances in Group Processes, 1, 1–25.

JOHN W. PATTY SHORT BIOGRAPHY
John W. Patty is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago
and the coeditor of Journal of Theoretical Politics. Professor Patty’s research
focuses on mathematical models of political institutions. His substantive
interests include the US Congress, the federal bureaucracy, American
political development, and democratic theory.
Professor Patty has published over 25 articles in peer-reviewed journals.
He also coauthored Learning While Governing (University of Chicago Press,
2012) with Sean Gailmard, which won the 2013 William H. Riker book award,
and Social Choice and Legitimacy: The Possibilities of Impossibility (Cambridge University Press, 2014) with Elizabeth Maggie Penn. He currently
serves on the editorial boards of Games, Journal of Politics, Political Analysis,
and Political Science Research and Methods.
Professor Patty received his PhD in social sciences in 2001 and his MS
in economics in 1999 from the California Institute of Technology after
receiving his BA in mathematics and economics from the University of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1996.

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions

17

RELATED ESSAYS
Understanding American Political Conservatism (Political Science), Joel D.
Aberbach
Party Organizations’ Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H.
Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski
Economic Models of Voting (Political Science), Ian G. Anson and Timothy
Hellwig
The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office (Political Science),
Sarah F. Anzia
Heuristic Decision Making (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and
Nicholas J. D’Amico
Elites (Sociology), Johan S. G. Chu and Mark S. Mizruchi
Misinformation and How to Correct It (Psychology), John Cook et al.
Racial Disenfranchisement (Political Science), Vincent L. Hutchings and
Davin L. Phoenix
Political Inequality (Sociology), Jeff Manza
Participatory Governance (Political Science), Stephanie L. McNulty and Brian
Wampler
Gender and Women’s Influence in Public Settings (Political Science), Tali
Mendelberg et al.
Money in Politics (Political Science), Jeffrey Milyo
Politics of Immigration Policy (Political Science), Jeannette Money
The Politics of Disaster Relief (Political Science), Alexander J. Oliver and
Andrew Reeves
Feminists in Power (Sociology), Ann Orloff and Talia Schiff
Electoral Authoritarianism (Political Science), Andreas Schedler
Does the 1 Person 1 Vote Principle Apply? (Political Science), Ian R. Turner
et al.
Rulemaking Pursuing a Policy Agenda (Political Science), Richard W.
Waterman
Public Opinion, the 1%, and Income Redistribution (Sociology), David L.
Weakliem
Constitutionalism (Political Science), Keith E. Whittington



Media

Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Collective Decisions