As courts in separation-of-powers systems are said to have the power of neither the purse nor the sword, their institutional legitimacy is essential for ensuring compliance with their decisions. While institutional legitimacy has been examined in-depth for national high courts, the legitimacy of sub-national courts has been overlooked. In this dissertation I develop a new measure of court-level institutional legitimacy for state high courts. I use multilevel regression and poststratification to create state-level measures from individual-level survey results. In this dissertation, I develop a theory of review and delegation by state high courts. I argue that these courts work toward two main goals: implementing their policy preferences and maintaining the legitimacy of their institution. I argue for a two-stage process that considers whether or not the court will decide on the constitutionality of a statute in the first stage and whether they will overturn the statute and delegate policy control back to the other branches of government in the second. Relying on the literatures on both institutional legitimacy and political delegation, I suggest that courts may delegate policy control back to the other branches of government by specifically stating this in their opinion. Finally, I examine the conditions under which a state high court will delegate to either the state legislature or the executive branch. Overall, I find that legitimacy is important when considering state high court decision-making; and it must be considered along with political context and institutional rules as one of the central motivations for state high courts in separation of powers theories.

Cette étude des pratiques RH dans les moyennes entreprises met en évidence l'influence significative des facteurs organisationnels et institutionnels. Dans le cadre de cette recherche, nous nous intéressons à ces pratiques à travers une approche intégratrice des théories mobilisées et montrons des particularismes en termes : 1/ de différenciation et d'hybridité structurelle, 2/ de légitimité institutionnelle et 3/ de complexité relationnelle.Reposant sur une méthodologie de recherche qualitative, l'étude empirique comprend 40 entretiens dont 13 menés dans le cadre de deux études de cas. Ces entretiens réalisés auprès de plusieurs acteurs RH permettent des comparaisons entre des moyennes entreprises de différentes tailles.À la lumière des spécificités des moyennes entreprises, nos résultats mettent en évidence une diversité des pratiques de RH. Notre recherche confirme l'intérêt d'une approche « non consensuelle » des pratiques de RH, celle-ci étant due au recul de la hiérarchie face à l'arrivée des managers. Nos résultats montrent aussi que dans les moyennes entreprises, les pratiques de RH sont personnelles, conformistes, pseudo-conformistes, pseudo-innovantes et innovantes. / This study of HR practices in medium-sized enterprises emphasizes on the significative influence of organizational and institutional factors. In this research, we examine these HR practices through an approach which integrates mobilized theories. We also point-out the specificities of these HRpractices in terms of: 1/ differentiation and structural hybridity, 2/ institutional legitimacy and 3/ relational complexity.Based on a methodology of qualitative research, this empirical study includes 40 interviews, 13 of which were part of two case studies. These interviews with different HR actors allow to make comparisons between medium-sized enterprises of different sizes.In light of the specificities of the medium-sized enterprises, our results highlight a variety of HR practices. Our research confirms that beyond the leader, there is a strong interest for a « nonconsensual » approach of HR practices, given that the hierarchy was forced to play a lesser role after the arrival of the managers. Our results show that in medium-sized enterprises, HR practicesare personal, conformist, pseudo-conformist, pseudo-innovative and innovative.

Judicial politics scholars routinely posit that the behavior of Supreme Court justices is motivated in important part by concerns of institutional maintenance, that is, by a desire to maintain the Court’s unusually large store of institutional legitimacy. Previous work on this topic, however, has focused almost exclusively on the influence of such motivation on judicial decision making. We contend that if institutional maintenance is an important goal, it should be observable in other contexts as well. We examine televised mass-media interviews with Supreme Court justices from 1998 to 2016 and find that legitimacy reinforcement is the predominant goal reflected in justices’ rhetoric in those interviews.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This thesis has as context the institutional legitimation crisis that occurs in our society and affects the mediating role of journalism informative, maximized by the interactive practices of digital social media, with their abilities for participation, sharing and decentralized distribution of messages by public. This logic is opposed to the broadcast model of mass media that mark the process of journalism legitimacy. The research problem asks: what strategies of institutional legitimacy emerge in the contents of messages postedby the newspaper Zero Hora on Twitter? The overall goal is to understand the strategies used by journalism in order to gain institutional legitimacy through the use of digital social media. The specific objectives are: to recognize the institutional uses of Twitter for Zero Hora, identifying the emerging strategies of institutional legitimacy for the posts of Zero Hora on Twitter, watch as Zero Hora develops its mediation role in the informational use of Twitter as social media, analyze the relationship between the mediating role of journalism and the characteristics of digital social media disintermediation. The Hybrid methodology is qualitative, using content analysis (CA), semi-structured interviews and participant observation in the writing of Zero Hora. The Content Analysis (CA) was performed in two corpora relating to news coverage carried out by Zero Hora with a one year interval between them. The results of the CA was crossed with data from participant observation and interviews, relating to the theoretical analysis. The main uses of Twitter found relate to the categories of information dissemination, participation, sharing and conversation, making to emerge strategies of institutional legitimacy by journalism. The analysis indicates for continuities and ruptures in the process of legitimation by journalism on the passage of the emission centered logic of mass media for decentralized and interactive logic by digital social media. Comparing the two corpora analysis was possible to observe a transformation in the mediating role of the news organization's Twitter, with a growing ownership of the possibilities of digital social media participation, in which the public is increasingly included. / Esta dissertação possui como contexto a crise de legitimação institucional que ocorre na sociedade atual e afeta o papel de mediação do jornalismo informativo, potencializada pelas práticas interativas das mídias sociais digitais, com suas possibilidades de participação, compartilhamento e distribuição de informações pelo público. Essa lógica se contrapõe ao modelo de transmissão da mídia de massa que tem marcado o processo de legitimação do jornalismo. O problema de pesquisa é que estratégias de legitimação institucional emergem no conteúdo das mensagens postadas pelo jornal Zero Hora no Twitter? . O objetivo geral é compreender as estratégias utilizadas pelo jornalismo informativo com vistas a obter legitimação institucional por meio do uso das mídias sociais digitais. Os objetivos específicos são reconhecer os usos institucionais do Twitter por Zero Hora; identificar as estratégias de legitimação institucional emergentes nas postagens de Zero Hora no Twitter; observar como Zero Hora desenvolve seu papel de mediação informativa no uso do Twitter como mídia social; analisar a relação entre o papel de mediação do jornalismo e as características desintermediadoras das mídias sociais digitais. A metodologia é híbrida com caráter qualitativo, utilizando análise de conteúdo (AC), entrevista semi-estruturada e observação participante na redação de Zero Hora. A análise de conteúdo (AC) foi realizada em dois corpora relativos a coberturas jornalísticas realizadas por Zero Hora com um intervalo de um ano entre elas. Os resultados da AC foram cruzados com os dados provenientes da observação participante e das entrevistas, relacionando-se as análises ao referencial teórico. Os principais usos do Twitter encontrados relacionam-se às categorias de difusão de informações, participação, compartilhamento e conversação, em que emergem estratégias de legitimação institucional do jornalismo. A análise indica continuidades e possíveis rupturas no processo de legitimação do jornalismo informativo na passagem da lógica de emissão centralizada da comunicação de massa para a lógica interativa e descentralizada da mídia social digital. Comparando-se os dois corpora de análise foi possível observar uma transformação no papel de mediação da organização jornalística no Twitter, com uma crescente apropriação das possibilidades de participação da mídia social digital, em que o público é cada vez mais incluído.

This paper tries to contribute to the collective knowledge on Bonoli’s (2010) concept “The Activation Turn “, both as a phenomenon and a turning point for ALMP in Sweden. It is argued that the Activation Turn has been legitimized in four phases in Sweden (Identification, First organisation, Second organisation and Stabilisation phase, between years of 1991-2017). This thesis argues that the blueprint for understanding and exploring the Activation Turn as a phenomonenon is to capture and compare the discourse and how it has developed within the state during these four phases. Using two guiding research questions: How can we describe the characteristics of ALMP during each phase? And how have ALMP have changed in Sweden since the beginning of the 90’s? This paper has tried to answer these two questions by doing a content analysis that captures the dominating characteristics of ALMP during each phase and how they have changed. The analysis has been done with a help of a coding scheme, which is derived from a theoretical framework on the three elements of institutional legitimacy: regulative, normative, and cognitive element. After counting the number of coded references from 38 state documents, and then analysing and discussing the results, we came to two overall conclusions. First, there has not been an Activation Turn, shift or transformation of ALMP, since the beginning of the 90’s within the state discourse. Second, the development of ALMP in Sweden can be characterized as fairly stable and resilient against changes.

Over the last couple of decades or so, comparative public law scholars have been reporting a dramatic increase in the power and influence of judicial institutions worldwide. One obvious effect of this “judicialization of politics” is to highlight legitimacy concerns associated with the exercise of judicial power. Indeed, how do courts attain and retain their legitimacy particularly in the context of their increasing political relevance? To answer this question I develop a novel theory of strategic legitimacy cultivation. The theory is developed through an application of the institutionalist branch of the rational choice theory which suggests that institutional structures, rules, and imperatives provide behavioural incentives and disincentives for relevant actors who respond by acting strategically in order to attain favourable outcomes. The theory shows that courts cultivate legitimacy by exhibiting strategic sensitivities to factors operating in the external, political environment. In particular, legitimacy cultivation requires courts to devise decisions that are sensitive to the state of public opinion, that avoid overt clashes and entanglements with key political actors, that do not overextend the outreach of judicial activism, and that employ politically sensitive jurisprudence. The theory is tested in the context of the Supreme Court of Canada through a mixed-method research design that combines a quantitative analysis of a large number of cases, case-study approaches, and cross-policy comparisons. One of the central findings of the dissertation is that understanding judicial institutions and judicial policymaking influence requires taking close accounts of external contexts within which courts operate.

Over the last couple of decades or so, comparative public law scholars have been reporting a dramatic increase in the power and influence of judicial institutions worldwide. One obvious effect of this “judicialization of politics” is to highlight legitimacy concerns associated with the exercise of judicial power. Indeed, how do courts attain and retain their legitimacy particularly in the context of their increasing political relevance? To answer this question I develop a novel theory of strategic legitimacy cultivation. The theory is developed through an application of the institutionalist branch of the rational choice theory which suggests that institutional structures, rules, and imperatives provide behavioural incentives and disincentives for relevant actors who respond by acting strategically in order to attain favourable outcomes. The theory shows that courts cultivate legitimacy by exhibiting strategic sensitivities to factors operating in the external, political environment. In particular, legitimacy cultivation requires courts to devise decisions that are sensitive to the state of public opinion, that avoid overt clashes and entanglements with key political actors, that do not overextend the outreach of judicial activism, and that employ politically sensitive jurisprudence. The theory is tested in the context of the Supreme Court of Canada through a mixed-method research design that combines a quantitative analysis of a large number of cases, case-study approaches, and cross-policy comparisons. One of the central findings of the dissertation is that understanding judicial institutions and judicial policymaking influence requires taking close accounts of external contexts within which courts operate.