Service Delivery and Legitimacy in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States

Brinkerhoff, Derick W.; Wetterberg, Anna; Dunn, Stephen

doi:10.1080/14719037.2012.657958

Cited by 68 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…In particular, many value-based models of legitimacy (e.g., Levi et al 2009) assume an initial trustworthiness of state institutions that post-conflict societies rarely possess. Thus, a key difference between post-conflict legitimacy and legitimacy in stable Western democracies is the 'starting point' of regime legitimacy (Brinkerhoff et al, 2012).…”

Section: Institutional Legitimacy In the Post-conflict Statementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further, illegitimacy has the potential to be self-reinforcing, as when governments turn to coercion to assert control, their service delivery capacity can decline, intensifying the potential for conflict and leading to the further weakening of government legitimacy. Thus, illegitimacy becomes both a cause and a consequence of state fragility (Brinkerhoff et al, 2012;Sacks, 2011).…”

Section: Institutional Legitimacy In the Post-conflict Statementioning

confidence: 99%

“…One aim of statebuilding is to re-establish the State as the highest authority (Brinkerhoff et al, 2012;Chesterman, 2004;Paris & Sisk, 2008), and legitimacy plays a key role in this process (Franck, 1990;Hurd, 2007;Koh, 1997;Whalan, 2013).…”

Section: Institutional Legitimacy In the Post-conflict Statementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a cross-sectional analysis of Afrobarometer data from sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and six Arab countries, Levi and Sacks (2009) found that government approval and trust ratings were affected by service provision, though only indirectly through citizens' sense of food security. Brinkerhoff et al (2012) used Iraqi's satisfaction with water services as a measure of government effectiveness, and citizens' willingness to pay more for water services as a proxy for trust in the state. Results indicated that citizens in provinces with relatively better water services reported higher willingness to pay for improvements to the water system.…”

Section: Sources Of Institutional Legitimacy a Instrumental Sources mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rebuilding institutional legitimacy in post-conflict societies: a case study of Nepal

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Legitimacy refers to the perceived rightfulness of authorities, and is central to citizens' perceptions of institutions such as the government. Legitimate authority is linked to acceptance of institutions and long-term stability of societies. As such, rebuilding the legitimacy of institutions such as the government and judiciary ('institutional legitimacy') is essential for stability in post-conflict societies. In this thesis, I explore the factors that lead citizens to view their government as legitimate following the reconstruction of central government institutions after a conflict. I draw on sociological, political science, social psychological and statebuilding theories to develop and present a theoretical model of post-conflict legitimacy.The model has three key components. The first encompasses relational and instrumental antecedents of legitimacy. Relational antecedents encompass fair and neutral decision-making, as well as respectful and dignified treatment, and are referred to collectively as procedural justice. Instrumental antecedents are those which involve outcomes to citizens, and include distributive justice (fairness in outcome distribution), outcome favourability (personal gain in outcomes), and government performance (the ability of the government to function effectively and provide services to citizens). These main variables are investigated along with contingencies relating to social groups that may influence the relationship between procedural justice and legitimacy, such as national identification and group power. Testing of the first model component revealed that procedural justice was by far the strongest predictor of post-conflict institutional legitimacy, and was significantly stronger than instrumental variables such as distributive justice, government performance, and outcome favourability. Further, the relationship between procedural justice and legitimacy was moderated by national identification and group power, suggesting that procedural justice operates through social identity to exert its positive effect. Moreover, the effect of procedural justice on government legitimacy was not simply due to trust and performance perceptions of local institutions, and was not diminished by the government's ability to provide essential services (as predicted by the statebuilding literature). 4Testing of the second model component revealed that two elements of local ownership-voice and local influence-weakly predicted legitimacy, with these relationships varying according to participants' position in the Nepalese caste hierarchy.Testing of the third model component revealed a significant social interaction effect, such that citizens' legitimacy beliefs are influenced by the legitimacy views of those around them. This effect persisted even when demographic, regional, and individual-level variables were controlled.This thesis concludes that procedural justice is more predictive of post-conflict institutional legitimacy than instrumental outcomes. Further, the relationship appears to operat...

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Section: Institutional Legitimacy In the Post-conflict Statementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Institutional Legitimacy In the Post-conflict Statementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Institutional Legitimacy In the Post-conflict Statementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sources Of Institutional Legitimacy a Instrumental Sources mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rebuilding institutional legitimacy in post-conflict societies: a case study of Nepal

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“…Initiating and sustaining the transition from conflict requires multi-pronged approaches aimed at building a sufficient anticonflict infrastructure to act as a brake on renewed conflict (Brinkerhoff and Brinkerhoff 2002, UnitedNations 2010, Bollens 2012. Security, effective delivery of public goods and services, managing political participation and ensuring accountability are all functions necessary for the effective stabilisation of fragile, conflict affected states and plural societies (Bissessar 2009, Brinkerhoff, Wetterberg et al 2012. Achieving these functions frequently requires change at institutional, organisational and political levels (Brown 1999, Murphy 2013, O'Connor 2014.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing contested spaces: Public managers, obscured mechanisms and the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland

Murphy

McDowell

Braniff

et al. 2017

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

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Societies emerging from ethno-political and inter-communal conflict face a range of complex problems that stem directly from the recent lived experience of bloodshed and injury, militarisation, securitisation and segregation. As institutional agents in such an environment, public managers perform the dual role of both interpreting public policy and implementing it within a politically contested space and place. In this article we address how managers cope with the outworking of ethno-nationalist conflict and peace building within government processes and policy implementation and contend this is a subject of emerging concern within the wider public administration, urban studies and conflict literature. Using data from a witness seminar initiative on the Northern Ireland conflict transformation experience, we explain how public sector managers make sense of their role in post-agreement public management and highlight the importance of three identified mechanisms; 'bricolage', 'diffusion' and 'translation' in the management of public sector organisations and urban spaces in a context of entrenched conflict and an uncertain path to peace.

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Water in war: Understanding the impacts of armed conflict on water resources and their management

et al. 2020

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Armed conflict has the potential to disrupt water systems that are crucial to environmental and human wellbeing. Yet there is no comprehensive overview of scientific evidence on the impact of armed conflicts on water resources and their management. This paper assesses the relevant scientific evidence through a systematic literature review. We discern conceptual, empirical, and methodological approaches adopted in the reviewed publications and synthesize the overarching research results. Common research topics across the body of literature include the role of water resources in armed conflicts, either as a casualty or as a weapon used by conflict parties, and the implications of armed conflict on water resources management, such as basic service provision and water governance. The analysis also pinpoints the research field's focus on empirical studies based on a small number of cases, and highlights a lack of conceptual engagement with the notion of armed conflict. Future research on water resources and their management in conflict settings needs to be more transparent on conceptual frameworks and assumptions to facilitate knowledge integration across different studies.

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Service Delivery and Legitimacy in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States

Cited by 68 publications

References 21 publications

Rebuilding institutional legitimacy in post-conflict societies: a case study of Nepal

Rebuilding institutional legitimacy in post-conflict societies: a case study of Nepal

Managing contested spaces: Public managers, obscured mechanisms and the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland

Water in war: Understanding the impacts of armed conflict on water resources and their management

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