Thesis (doctoral)--Uppsala University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 208-221).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Uppsala University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 290-308).

Thesis (doctoral)--Uppsala University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 208-221).

This thesis addresses the conflict between Anna Stilz and specific liberal political philosophers regarding the nature of duties and obligations owed by individuals to the state. First, I will analyze Stilz’s argument about the nature and grounds of obligation, then address the case against such obligations, particularly as presented by the philosophical anarchist A. John Simmons. Finally, I address what I believe to be the root of the disagreement.

This thesis contributes to the debate on hate speech by arguing for a compromise solution. It breaks with the absolutist solutions under which either all hate speech should be banned or all should be protected. The prohibition of some hateful expressions is assumed to be legitimate. This follows the European constitutional tradition. However, the prohibitionist norm should be reconciled with the right to political speech. This flows from the normative importance of free political expression that is widely endorsed. The research relies on three theoretical pillars. First, it defines the strongest democratic justificatory case for political speech in liberal democracies. Then, it argues for a richer understanding of what should count as political speech. The proposed approach assigns more weight to the political circumstances than to the sheer content of speech. The argument then proceeds through investigating the strongest objections against protecting hate speech. These prohibitionist arguments assert that hate speech incites against, silences or vilifies vulnerable groups, moreover that hate speech harms democracy. The thesis disputes these objections as applied to political hate speech. The conclusion is that political hate speech narrowly defined should be an exception from the otherwise legitimate ban on hate speech. In the final two chapters, the theoretical findings are applied to the case law of the ECtHR and to the United Kingdom's statutory hate speech regulation. The critical evaluation of hate speech judgments and statutes is coupled with suggestions how to reform the broadly prohibitionist position that these jurisdictions had come to endorse.

Japan’s early modern period (1568-1868) achieved a break from the violent political and social upheaval of the preceding Warring States period (1467-1568). The return to a stable and more centralized rule was made possible by the development and implementation of an emerging politico-religious trend, in which powerful leaders were posthumously apotheosized and worshiped as tutelary deities. Ieyasu, the first of the Tokugawa shoguns, was deified and venerated at the Tōshōgū Shrine in Nikkō, and the politico-religious movement that was propagated by Ieyasu’s descendants became a central tool for the government’s legitimacy. Because Ieyasu’s cult was the only source of ideological legitimacy that was exclusive to the Tokugawa, the sources of Tokugawa success can be found by examining the development of the Nikkō shrine and its accompanying religious movement.

This thesis is about the reasonable agreement principle, a principle which holds that the exercise of political power must be acceptable to all reasonable citizens in order to be morally legitimate. Though this principle has become popular in contemporary political philosophy, it has been formulated and defended in a variety of often conflicting ways. I argue first that a successful defence of the principle will have to meet three conditions. First, it must explain who reasonable citizens are. Second, it must offer a compelling a rationale for tying the legitimacy of the exercise of political power to what these citizens accept. Third, it must show that the rules or principles that would be acceptable to reasonable citizens are not implausible. In the first part of the thesis, I examine some of the most significant ways in which the principle has been formulated and defended, and argue that none meets these three conditions. In the second part of the thesis, I develop an account of the reasonable agreement principle which can meet these three conditions. I argue that reasonable citizens should be understood as agents in circumstances where their powers of moral judgment operate free of distortions, offer an account of what these circumstances consist in, and suggest that a compelling rationale for the principle can be given when they are understood in this way. I then go on to consider what citizens in such circumstances would accept, arguing that they would accept principles of political morality that express a commitment to the fact that they are fallible choosers of their final ends.

abstract: Perceptions of legitimacy are an important antecedent of rule-abiding behavior. However, most research on the link between legitimacy and compliance has focused on legal authorities (i.e., police, courts, and corrections). To help fill this gap, the present study investigates the relationship between students' perceptions of the legitimacy of institutional authority and compliance with a code of conduct in a university context. This study uses cross-sectional data from pencil-and-paper surveys administered to 517 individuals 18 years and older that were enrolled in 12 undergraduate classes at a large southwestern university. Results from the multivariate regression models show that procedural justice judgments are associated with perceived legitimacy. The evidence also supports the link between legitimacy and compliance in that the former is inversely related to students' behavioral intentions to cheat on an exam. However, legitimacy was not significantly associated with plagiarism. Overall, findings support the application of the process-based model of regulation to the university context in regards to academic misconduct. In addition to contributing to the process-based model literature, this study emphasizes the utility of the process-based model as a guide for the development of fair processes, in order to reduce the prevalence of student academic misconduct. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Criminology and Criminal Justice 2015

In this paper, we investigate how third mission strategies relate to changing legitimacy of universities. The work is based on a literature review and a case study of the largest business university in the EU (WU Vienna). First, we describe relevant trends and pressures for higher education institutions towards responsibility, accountability, and third mission. Second, we introduce the case in order to substantiate these trends, driven also by Austrian politics and international networks, some of them also emerging with a more socially oriented mission. Finally, we discuss isomorphic trends in higher education.

Legitimacy is widely accepted as an important resource for an organisation, strategy, or individual to possess. However, the process of gaining legitimacy has received limited attention in the academic literature. This thesis examines the strategies and actions that individuals employ in the process of legitimising their sustainability strategy within an organisation. Based on semi-structured interviews with 51 Heads of Sustainability, the research extends the existing ‘conformance, selection, manipulation’ legitimising strategy model, becoming one of the first to demonstrate how these legitimising strategies are interrelated both concurrently and temporally. It finds that multiple legitimising strategies are used simultaneously by individuals. Moreover, a pattern emerges whereby individuals begin with conformance-only legitimising when sustainability has limited integration, but employ all three legitimising strategies where sustainability integration is extensive. In addition to this, the research articulates two specific categories of actions that are used by individuals in the process of deploying these umbrella legitimising strategies: framing and developing coalitions of support. Framing actions comprise micro-reframing, disassociation, contextualisation, analogy, and differentiation and personalisation. Developing coalitions of support actions comprise leveraging sponsorship, networking, enhancing employee engagement, and continually promoting. From this empirical research a generalised legitimising pathway is proposed which demonstrates the progression of legitimising from using conformance-only through to using all three legitimising strategies, and the actions employed by the individual in these different stages.